Statement by the Deputy Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations, Ambassador João Genésio de Almeida Filho, at the UNSC meeting on Integrating Effective Resilience-Building in Peace Operations for Sustainable Peace - November 3rd, 2022

Madam President, through you, I thank Ghana for organizing this very important and timely debate.

I thank the Secretary-General for his opening remarks and I also thanks our distinguished briefers for their valuable contributions.

Madam President,

As Brazil has stated time and again in this Council, peace and sustainable development are interdependent and mutually reinforce one another.

Conflict destroys the necessary conditions for economic activities, which in turn provide the material basis for the functioning of the state. Economic growth and sustainable development are necessary to give people hope and to help reduce the appeal of violent ideologues.

Strengthening international cooperation, investing in productive capacities and combating poverty and hunger are as essential to addressing conflict as security considerations.

Madam President,

Building resilience in vulnerable countries is necessary to prevent the onset of conflicts, as well as to maintain the progress already on the path towards peace.

However, achieving this goal must not be a burden placed solely on peace operations. They certainly can play a peacebuilding role, but this must be balanced with the need to have realistic and clear mandates. Excessively ambitious, vague and open-ended mandates can result in frustration among partners and in the population in the host country.

Instead, building resilience is a task to which the United Nations must offer a system-wide approach. It certainly involves the Security Council, as it is the organ with the foremost responsibility on peace and security matters, but it must also involve other bodies and agencies. I think in particular of the Peacebuilding Commission.

The PBC is well suited to work as a platform to promote greater coordination among relevant partners of a particular country at risk of lapsing or relapsing into conflict. It can also mobilize regional organizations and international financial institutions and foster South-South and triangular cooperation arrangements in support of national peacebuilding initiatives. The Commission can also support the implementation of peacebuilding activities by peacekeeping operations and help mobilize political support to promote reconciliation, institution building and other nationally defined peacebuilding priorities.

Madam President,

Focusing solely on the security dimension of conflicts will lead to endlessly renewing peacekeeping mandates without achieving the desired results. Or else, it will leave fragile countries chronically dependent of humanitarian aid. Resilience-building, peacebuilding and the promotion of development are essential to addressing the root-causes of conflict. I thank, once again, the Presidency for helping bring focus to this important issue.

Thank you.