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<\/p>\n\nWhat Ayorkor Botchwey said at Thursday’s UN Security Council meeting <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey participated in the high-level open debate\u00a0 of the United Nations Secirity Council on “Integrating effective resilience-building in peace operations for sustainable peace.<\/h2>\n
Attached below is the statement\u00a0Ms Ayorkor Botchwey made<\/strong><\/p>\n Mr. Secretary-General, 1. Let me begin by thanking all the Ministers and officials who have travelled from their capitals and, indeed, all the members of the Council and non-Council members for your participation in today\u2019s open debate.<\/p>\n 2. I thank you, Secretary General, for your important statement and welcome the clarity of your views on how best we can integrate effective resilience building in peace operations for sustainable peace.<\/p>\n 3. I equally thank Assistant Secretary General, Martha Akyaa Pobee,\u00a0Ambassador Bankole Adeoye, Commissioner of Political Affairs, Peace and Security of the African Union Commission, Mrs. Mary Robinson, former President\u00a0of Ireland and Chair of the Elders, and Ms. Karin Landgren, Executive Director of\u00a0the Security Council Report for their informative and insightful briefings.<\/p>\n Excellencies,<\/p>\n 4. As a Council, we have a primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Getting right the balance of the instruments we\u00a0deploy for peace operations is critical for ensuring that the peace we seek is sustained across the world.<\/p>\n 5. The link between peace and development is clear fro all. The latest report on the SDGs has noted that cascading and interlinked crises are putting the 2030\u00a0Agenda for Sustainable Development in grave danger, along with peace and security and humanity\u2019s very own survival. We agree with your response the\u00a03\u00a0request, Mr. Secretary General : \u201cWe must rise higher to rescue the Sustainable\u00a0Development Goals \u2013 and stay true to our promise of a world of peace, dignity and prosperity on a healthy planet\u201d.<\/p>\n 6. We therefore must ensure funding across the peace continuum if we are to achieve any measure of success in addressing the protracted and complex of\u00a0conflicts we presently confront. In addition, there is a need for a strong ecosystem\u00a0to make the \u201ctriple cross pillar nexus\u201d a reality, and promote the transformative,\u00a0prevention-focused and conflict-sensitive responses required to accelerate action to achieve the 2030 Agenda.<\/p>\n 7. Ghana is concerned that the resources devoted to programmatic\u00a0interventions of peacekeeping missions are dwarfed by those devoted to kinetic\u00a0operations. Equally, it has not been lost on any member of this Council that the budget for peace building support represents a smaller share of the resources available for peace operations. The 2015 High-Level Independent Panel on Peace\u00a0Operations (The HIPPO report) had noted that, \u201cchanges in conflict may be fast\u00a0outpacing the ability of UN peace operations to respond\u201d. That sustainability gap\u00a0now threatens current peacekeeping missions as a number of host countries of\u00a0peacekeeping missions turn to interventions by outside forces, while at the same 8. We are even more concerned that poor countries shoulder the burden of addressing the socio-economic and political complexities and challenges that drive\u00a0the rising levels of terrorism and violent extremism, while at the same time bearing the cost of the kinetic operations needed to defeat the terrorists. Integrating\u00a0effective resilience building in peace operations has to be a central preoccupation of this Council, if we are to remain a credible guarantor of peace and security\u00a0around the world. If any evidence were needed, we need look no further than the But the Sahel, which according to the latest edition of the Global Terrorism Index experienced 35% of terrorism-related deaths in the world, is not the only region where the traditional response of the Council fails to meet the nature of the threat.<\/p>\n Excellencies,<\/p>\n 9. It is clear that sustainable peace today requires that even as we consider ways to further reform peacekeeping to ensure adequate programmatic funding, we also look at ways to make the successes of kinetic operations against terrorists more\u00a0durable by addressing the underlying factors that exacerbate the terrorist threat.<\/p>\n In the Sahel and coastal West Africa, the impacts of climate change, including displacement and food insecurity, poverty and exclusion, low levels of education,\u00a0youth unemployment, among others, create a fertile ground for radicalization and\u00a0recruitment.<\/p>\n 10. Finding a solution to the widening gap between the expectations of citizens and the capacity of the state to deliver on public goods and maintain state presence\u00a0is as much a security question as it is a development resilience challenge. This\u00a0Council cannot ignore that concern relevant to international peace and security.<\/p>\n Excellencies,<\/p>\n 11. Allow me to make the following points as a way forward to integrating effective resilience in peace operations for sustainable peace:<\/p>\n 12. First, there is an overwhelming and urgent need for UN Peace Operations to be reconfigured to ensure a situationally determined balance between kinetic actions aimed at restoring peace, including through defeating terrorism, and nonkinetic measures to address the underlying causes of conflict.<\/p>\n We hope that this debate will lead to a process that transforms the peace operation model to respond to the conditions of today.<\/p>\n 13. Secondly, the Council has to rise up to its mandate and deal with the critical recommendation from the HiPPO Report on the need for new modalities to deal\u00a0with terrorism and violent extremism, the emerging threats to peace and security in\u00a0our world today. The threats to international peace and security continue to\u00a0multiply everyday, every day that no action is taken.<\/p>\n 14. Thirdly, we need to operationalize the Council\u2019s agendas on youth and women, making them essential pillars of the United Nation\u2019s support for 15. Finally, while the different organs of the United Nations have separate responsibilities that impact the peace-development nexus, in practice, the sum of our efforts does not add up to conditions in which peace thrive. It is important for this Council to encourage coherent action across the United Nations System\u00a0targeted at the resilience-building agenda for sustainable peace. The collective contribution of the System has to be integral to the way mandates are adopted and\u00a0executed.<\/p>\n Excellencies,<\/p>\n 16. To conclude, our capacity to deliver lasting peace and security rests on our ability to understand and address the underlying conditions for conflict, as much as\u00a0our ability for conflict management.<\/p>\n I thank you.<\/p>\n
Excellencies,<\/p>\n
time limiting the mandate of peace missions.<\/p>\n
Sahel, where the stability and viability of States are tested daily, with violence and deaths rising with each attack.<\/p>\n
resilience-building towards defeating terrorism and violent extremism. Women and\u00a0youth face peculiar challenges in their communities as they are disproportionately impacted by conflict and violence. According to UNICEF, 3 out of 10 young people, many of them girls, are out of school in conflict-affected countries.<\/p>\n