Written by: Robin Halliday, UNA-New Zealand
The UNANZ supports the Peacebuilding Commission concept. The Commission will be a mechanism through which international actors - the UN, the international financial institutions, bi-lateral donors - will be able to align their efforts. The coordination of all relevant actors and resources makes available intergrated strategies for post conflict peacebuilding and recovery, including in the areas of re-construction of infra-structure and institution building. This will provide increased streamlining and incorporation of all relevant departments, which will in turn result in a better sequencing of measures. The Peacebuilding Commission will further provide consistency in Peacebuilding efforts. Interventions now tend to be of a "flood or famine" nature, with all the funding coming when the issue is "visible" and drying up when international attention moves on. Overall, the commission should bring much needed coherence to the international response to failing or failed states.
However, the Peacebuilding process must stress the involvement of civil society and local efforts so as to build a self sustaining stability in the government. Its long term aim must be to return the country to self-governance thus it is vital that there be involvement of locals at all levels. While democratic processes are to be encouraged they must be locally owned and reflect local conditions. With this in mind, it is essential too that we create mechanisms to engage with civil society. Without this local focus, many small states may never be commercially or politically viable and will require continuous overseas assistance. A continued need for international assistance may blur the lines between Peacebuilding and dependence.
We are further concerned that later draft resolutions for the Summit omitted any focus on pre-conflict peacebuilding efforts. Our experience in dealing with small states makes this issue particularly relevant and we feel that the removal of the emphasis of pre-conflict assistance to prevent the onset of full scale war is regrettable. There is a need for countries drifting towards conflict to be able to call for international assistance, and to be able to expect a reasonably swift and coherent response. While we recognize that this seems to require more financial resources, we believe that prevention of conflicts is the lower cost option.
Finally, the commission needs to further focus on potential roadblocks within the conflict states themselves. For example, ethnic conflict perpetuation is not adequately addressed in the Commission brief despite its tendency to cause conflict to breakout again even, when the Peacebuilding structures are in place. Government changes can also pose a problem to continuing peacebuilding efforts; as we have seen in the Solomons, incoming Government that can campaign on opposing "foreign intervention." This often results in demands for withdrawal or an exit strategy before the peacebuilding task is complete.
