UNITED NATIONS: Lauding the role of the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) in supporting peace efforts in conflict-hit zones, Pakistan called for enlarging funding for the 31-member body’s activities aimed at economic and financial stabilisation of affected nations.
“Pakistan, as a troop-contributing country for six decades, has observed first-hand how the UN peacebuilding can act as a catalyst to mitigate violence and restore peace and stability in conflict-affected countries,” Ambassador Munir Akram, Pakistan’s permanent representative at the UN, told the body’s annual session on financing for peacebuilding.
Pakistan’s troops, he said, have often mobilised their own resources to complement peacekeeping efforts with peacebuilding initiatives, calling the benefits of such endeavours “profound and far-reaching.”
In his remarks, Akram stressed the need for sustaining the existing funding streams to the Commission, while referring to the programmatic funding earmarked for peacebuilding activities in several peacekeeping missions.
“This vital funding stream must not disappear,” the envoy said.
“It should, in fact, be enlarged through the Security Council’s legislation of the appropriate mandates and the resources for appropriate mandates which should cover this peacebuilding aspect as well.”
Akram said that specific needs and priorities of the selected countries should ideally be identified by the governments of the countries concerned in order to mobilize additional resources for peacebuilding.
“These needs should then be transformed into specific projects and the financial support then mobilized for such projects from bilateral and multilateral sources, including the Peacebuilding Fund.”
He said Pakistan supports the expansion of the Peacebuilding Fund through all possible means — larger contributions from existing donors, contributions from new donor countries especially countries which have a national security interest in stabilising a particular country coming out of conflict, and contributions from institutions especially the international financial institutions (IFIs)/Multilateral Development Banks in particular.
“Peacebuilding and humanitarian support to distressed populations should not be nullified by sanctions and asset freezes which contradict or undermine the objectives of peacebuilding and security stabilisations or humanitarian assistance,” the envoy stressed.
