OPEN DEBATE OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL
PEACEBUILDING AND SUSTAINING PEACE:
“INVESTMENT IN PEOPLE TO ENHANCE RESILIENCE AGAINST COMPLEX CHALLENGES”
26 JANUARY 2023
STATEMENT BY LATVIA
Mr President,
Latvia welcomes this open debate on peacebuilding. We appreciate Japan’s leadership by facilitating an inclusive and timely discussion on this important topic.
As a former member of the Peacebuilding Commission, Latvia fully acknowledges the key role of resilience in peacebuilding efforts. While the overall goal must remain to prevent crises, not all challenges can be adequately predicted and averted. In such cases, the resilience at individual, national and global level plays key role in helping to absorb shocks, manage crises and prevent further disruption.
Building resilience requires local ownership and determination to strengthen institutions, improve governance and address vulnerabilities. However, the international community and the UN, including the Security Council, has an important role to play in supporting these efforts.
First, we have to acknowledge the key ingredient of strengthening resilience - and that is trust. Trust, in turn, can only be built upon universal respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Therefore, to build global resilience we need full and proactive commitment by the Security Council to protection of human rights, as well as promotion of equality for all groups, including women and youth.
Here we would like to highlight Latvia’s long-standing practical experience when it comes to investment in people both at home and in other countries with the aim to enable equal opportunities. For example, for several years Latvian nongovernmental organizations have been successfully implementing projects in the countries of Central Asia region aimed at strengthening women's participation in the democratic process and public administration, as well as business.
Second, it is important to facilitate exchange of best practice, and build networks among peacebuilders. There should be further efforts to strengthen the interaction between the Security Council and the Peacebuilding Commission, as the PBC community has unique expertise in the field of building societal resilience. Given our lessons learned from the discussions in the PBC, we consider it important for the Security Council to better address the topic of accountability. Ensuring justice is a prerequisite for a nation or even for a region in post-conflict situation to reconcile with the past and to focus on building a resilient future.
Third, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that information space becomes another domain, which requires jointly addressing complex challenges. Enhanced resilience is required also to deal with all kinds of harmful information content both online and off-line. Strengthening media and information literacy and working on the global code of conduct in integrity of public information are among the few steps in this direction. It is important to combat the spread of disinformation and misinformation, which hamper the ability of citizens to take informed decisions and pose a challenge to better global governance.
Finally, we recognize that building resilience and peacebuilding requires adequate resources. As a donor to the Peacebuilding Fund as well as other UN funds and programs, Latvia supports initiative to achieve more sustainable financing for the peacebuilding, including through contributions from the UN regular budget. We believe this would serve as an important deliverable also in the context of the “New Agenda for Peace” Initiative. I thank you.