Chapter I: International peace and security First, the Secretary-General said, there was a need for national ownership in order to anchor peacebuilding at the country level. Second, Member States expected the United Nations to be poised and ready to lead the international community; the report therefore called for the creation of a senior-level mechanism to ensure that the right leadership and support teams were in place as early as possible. Third, effective peacebuilding required input from all parts of the UN system: peacemaking, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and recovery must happen together. Coordination was therefore crucial to success and fragmentation must be avoided. Fourth, national and international actors needed to align behind and provide financial support for a common strategic vision with realistic priorities. In some cases, such efforts had taken years; in most cases, they had never taken place. He therefore called on the international community to take the swift action required. Fifth, there was a need for predictable and credible delivery. He would therefore be asking Member States to help the United Nations build its capacity to respond rapidly to the most urgent needs in order to protect civilians and strengthen the rule of law, support political processes, help restore basic services and Government functions, and revitalize the economy. At its 4 September meeting [PBC/3/OC/SR.6], the Committee adopted the draft report of the Peacebuilding Commission on its third session, heard remarks by Judy Cheng-Hopkins, the Assistant SecretaryGeneral for Peacebuilding Support, and closed its third session. The Assistant Secretary-General said that peacebuilding consisted of three building blocks, held together by the cement of national ownership: firstly, the essential role of government in such areas as security, political reconciliation, the rule of law and justice; secondly, the provision of basic services, including health care, education and basic infrastructure, to restore a sense of normality to the population following the end of conflict; and, thirdly, the creation of livelihoods, both to give hope to ordinary people—the “peace dividend”—and to enable the demobilization of soldiers, which was an essential but challenging aspect of peacebuilding. The most important component of the new peacebuilding architecture was the Peacebuilding Commission, she said. The functioning of the second component of the new architecture—the Peacebuilding Fund—had been revised so that instead of three funding windows it now had two, consisting of an immediate response facility to prevent flare-ups of conflict and a peacebuilding and recovery facility, which depended on an integrated-plan approach. Lastly, the Peacebuilding Support Office, the third component of the new architecture, would strive to perform an even better support and facilitation role.
47 Organizational Committee membership
Security Council. In a 6 January letter [A/63/799S/2009/168], the Security Council informed the Secretary-
General that, following informal consultations, the Council had selected Burkina Faso and Mexico as the two elected members of the Council to participate in the Organizational Committee for a one-year term, until the end of 2009. In a 31 December letter [S/2009/683], the Council informed the General Assembly President that, following consultations, it had designated Gabon and Mexico, two of its elected members, to serve as members of the Organizational Committee for a one-year term, until the end of 2010. Economic and Social Council. On 15 December [E/2009/99], the Economic and Social Council elected Australia, Brazil and Egypt to the Organizational Committee for a term beginning on 1 January 2010 and expiring on 31 December 2010 to fill vacancies arising from the expiration of the terms of Algeria, El Salvador and Luxembourg (decision 2009/201 F). Peacebuilding Fund In response to General Assembly resolution 63/282 (see p. 49), the Secretary-General in August submitted an annual report [A/64/217-S/2009/419] on the Peacebuilding Fund, established in 2006 [YUN 2006, p. 58] as a mechanism for extending critical support at the early stages of a peace process. The report reviewed the Fund’s operations and activities from 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009. As at 30 June, the Fund was active in 12 countries, contributing to building the foundations for peace in countries emerging from conflict or helping post-conflict countries to prevent a relapse into conflict. Recent evaluations and performance reports submitted by recipient organizations confirmed that early notable results had been achieved during the Fund’s initial two years and that it had the potential to fill a unique peacebuilding niche. The evaluations also identified management and operational challenges, which were being addressed in part through a revision of the Fund’s terms of reference (see below) and in part through management improvements instituted by the Peacebuilding Support Office. The revised terms of reference were endorsed by the General Assembly on 17 June (see p. 49), and gave impetus for a broad revision of the Fund’s operational and procedural guidelines. The financial situation of the Peacebuilding Fund from its inception to 30 June 2009 reflected robust growth. As at 30 June, the Fund’s portfolio stood at $312.9 million (up $44 million from June 2008), with deposits of $309.6 million (an increase of $71 million from June 2008). With 45 donors, the Fund enjoyed one of the broadest donor bases of any multi-