Peacebuilding Commission Ambassadorial-level 2nd Annual Strategic Dialogue on the Secretary-General's Peacebuilding Fund

Bonjour, Excellence. A very good morning, Excellencies, Dear colleagues, first of all, I wish to welcome you to the second dialogue.

This dialogue is fully in line with the new terms of reference of the fundamental the UN General assembly resolution calls upon us to strengthen our synergies. Taking place every year now, this dialogue is the right forum to make recommendations, to provide strategic guidelines on the priorities of the funds and the contributions in recovery. This promotes exchanges within the Commission, drawing particularly on the lessons learned from the first two meetings with the PBF Advisory Group. The foundations are solid and it's now our role today to build this consultation process for dialogue and exchange and make it even better.

For this morning's program, we will be hearing from our colleagues from the Democratic Republic of Congo and also our colleague from Sierra Leone. That was the plan, but due to the program of one of the representatives who had to go and speak at the Security Council. We will start with the second item, which is the briefing by Ms. Elizabeth Spihar, Assistant Secretary General for Peace Building and Peace Support. Peace Building and Peace Support. If I may, I'd like to move on to the second item on our agenda.

Then Ms. Speer will take the floor to give you a comprehensive overview of the Fund, its modalities, its current priorities, and tell us about recent changes within the.

Pso. This dialogue is designed to be dynamic and participatory, so I invite Member States to fully commit to it and make and all of your questions and comments will be most welcome throughout our discussions. This morning, I will begin with some opening comments. Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, one year ago, in this very room, we had our first exchange. This inaugural meeting shed light on three fundamental truths that we must not lose sight of.

One, national ownership is something that must be funded and not just proclaimed. Two, the flexibility of the Fund is not a luxury, but rather it is a life raft in this fragile context. Three, the finance between what the Fund provides for and what the concerns are. The fact is that the landscape has changed. We are going in the right direction, though.

The Peacebuilding Architecture Review 2025 produced twin resolutions that strengthen the link between the Commission and the Fund. These two bodies are now explicitly tasked with supporting Member States in their drafting of national strategies for peace building. It's precisely this mandate that we intend to make operational methodically and to do this in close partnership with the countries concerned. The creation of the Peace Building Bureau and Peace Building Support Bureau, the PBPSO, which is from the UN80 initiative, is important and one of the key issues that we'll be dealing with today is to decide whether this integration will provide the promised balance between headquarters and the field. We are approaching a decisive turning point for this Fund.

First of all, the annual allocation of $50 million, which was an historic step forward. While the second year of programming is ongoing, this dialogue provides a great opportunity to have an update on what this structural reform has achieved on guiding the 2026 program to move towards 2027. I think the figures speak for themselves. In 2025, the fund approved 53 projects in 29 countries for a total amount of $125 million. Supporting peace building to help countries come out of conflicts and to support their political transitions.

The annual report of 2025 on the PBF by the Secretary General will be published soon, and I encourage all delegations to review it attentively. For 2025, around $104 million are allocated to 26 countries, with a deliberate refocusing of the priorities around three pillars. One, countries that are fully eligible for the fund, two, the Program for National Ownership and three interventions covering the whole spectrum from dialogue to youth to transitional justice and peace infrastructure. The Commission is aware that demand continues to be above supply and therefore is necessary to make difficult choices. It's precisely on this matter that we need to manage the hierarchy of the different priorities, and we will hear from Member States on their advice and their strategic guidance on the 2025-2030 strategic initiative.

We have a preliminary report that is expected for May 2026, and the definitive conclusions will be delivered by the end of the year. The Commission will be an active partner throughout this whole process, and today's dialogue is an initial precious contribution. The testimonies that we will hear this morning from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from Sierra Leone, and from the Resident Coordinator in Sierra Leone are the basis for our recommendations. These testimonies from the ground will inform our work and help the Commission to provide its guidance.

Peace Building Week, mandated by the General assembly, is taking place from the 22nd to 26th of June 2026, and it's getting closer. Today's discussions will directly feed our preparations on financing priorities and the strategic guidance of the un. Architecture for Peace Building Excellencies Dear colleagues, the Peace Building Fund remains one of the key and most agile initiatives that the United nations has at its disposal. And it's a sign of what multilateralism can achieve when it's guided by conviction and solidarity. This Commission is the compass that guides us, and we have the privilege to help it today to move forward.

Certainly the resources are limited and it is true that we also have high hopes. However, history teaches us that the most lasting changes are born out of convictions. Today we are committed with clear sightedness, a sense of realism, and with a visionary approach. Because today we are heralding the promise of peace that this building has stood for for 80 years. Thank you.

I give now the floor to the Assistant Secretary General, our dear colleague, Ms. Spiha. Madam, you have the floor. Merci votre excellence.

Members of the Peacebuilding Commission, I'm extremely pleased to be here this morning with you for this second ever interactive strategic dialogue between the Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacebuilding Fund. I'd like to start by warmly thanking the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Charge d' Affaires for Sierra Leone for joining us today. Hearing directly from our partner countries is essential to this dialogue and I'm very grateful that they have agreed to participate this morning. Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, at the outset, I want to thank you, Mr. Chair, for your continued commitment to making this a genuine space for constructive dialogue.

We're also grateful for the support of language in the twin resolutions of last year's Peacebuilding Architecture Review, which encouraged the Peacebuilding Commission to maintain a regular and strategic dialogue with the Peacebuilding Fund to, and I quote, support improved strategic alignment and information sharing. For today's interactive dialogue, I Hope to cover three main areas. First of all, the PBF's programming plan for 2026. Secondly, lessons from the first year of assess Contributions programming and how they are shaping the planning for 2027. And finally, the evaluation of the current PBF strategy and development of the new one, which the Chair has already touched upon.

My remarks will be accompanied by a slide presentation, a copy of which I believe was sent to your missions ahead of today's session.

Before I get to the pbf, however, allow me to briefly introduce our new office, the Peace Building and Peace Support Office, pbpso, in the Departments of Political and Peace Building affairs and Peace Operations, which our Chair has also referenced this morning. The new office is at the forefront of putting the UN80 initiative into practice and the office is envisioned by the Secretary General as he outlined in his Work Stream 3 progress report of September 2025, as I quote, a Center of Excellence on Prevention, Peace Building and Peace Support, end of quote. Six functional areas are now under one roof in pbpso. The PBC Support Branch, which serves as a secretariat for this Commission, the Peacebuilding Fund and the Partnerships and Strategy Branch of the former of the former pbso, together with three components from the former Office for Rule of Law and Security Institutions or oralsi, namely Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration, Security sector Reform and the justice and Corrections Service officially merged in January of 2026 of this year. We are consolidating an office that I believe will be well placed to deliver on the Secretary General's vision of and again I quote, a unified structure to provide more coherent support to Member States from prevention through transition, ensuring that security gains are reinforced by institution building and development, unquote.

And that would, quote, answer the call to action under consideration in the Peacebuilding Architecture Review. I look forward to Member State perspectives on how this new office can better deliver for prevention, peacebuilding and peace support going forward. Let me now turn to the Fund's programming plan for 2026 and you have a slide. Yes. That will accompany my remarks this year.

As the Chair has also indicated, $104 million across 26 countries are slated for approval in response to country requests. That is a more focused pipeline than in previous years. For context, in 2025, $125 million were approved in 29 countries and in 2024, 116 million in 32 countries. This year, as you can see, there will be a smaller envelope and fewer countries. This is not because demand has decreased.

Indeed, initial requests were above $195 million. But because limited available resources require prioritisation, Africa continues to receive the largest share of the Fund's support, reflecting both the concentration of peace building needs and the strong demand from partner governments on the continent. If more resources become available later this year, other regions may receive additional support. For instance, we hope that some more project proposals from the Middle east that have been put on hold might possibly be financed in terms of the pipeline. And here we have, yes, the PBF planned pipeline slide.

I think we have to go back. I know.

As a reminder, the Peace Building and Recovery Facility, or the prf, is the Fund's main vehicle for sustained engagement. PRF eligible countries receive larger allocations over a medium term horizon. To become eligible, a country's Head of State or government sends a request to the Secretary General and eligibility is typically granted for a five year period. Countries can then request a renewal. Currently, Guatemala, Sierra Leone and Somalia are in the process of applying for a renewal and I am pleased to note that in February the Secretary General renewed Papua New Guinea's eligibility, bringing the current number of PBF eligible countries to 18.

The majority of the PBF support is projected to go to PRF countries this year. Now, in terms of the IRF pipeline, the immediate response facility. In short, the IRF allows the Fund to respond quickly to specific peace building opportunities. With a ceiling of $5 million per country, any country with peacebuilding needs can apply on a rolling basis. As you can see, there are much less countries foreseen for IRF support this year.

Again, this is not because there have been fewer requests for IRF support, really quite to the contrary. But as mentioned, less available resources necessitate prioritization. And as a Secretary General's management mechanism for the Fund, I would like to outline how we have approached it. When a pipeline of proposed approvals is prepared at the start of the year, we weigh a range of factors. The Fund's priority we windows as outlined in its strategy development in the country context, the capacity of the partners on the ground, catalytic potential and whether a country is receiving peacebuilding support from other sources.

Security Council and PBC relevance also feature, as do Advisory Group guidance, the views of the Secretariat's regional divisions and our interagency review processes. Next. Now, in terms of the thematic support requests, you have the slide basically showing how many requests we receive broken down by thematic areas. Thematically, the support requests received for the Fund span a broad range of issues. This is a natural consequence of the Fund being demand driven and responding to diverse context.

I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that in addition to a strong concentration on requests for support for managing conflicts peacefully, strengthening social cohesion and the rule of law and the inclusion of women and youth, we are pleased to see an increase in planned support to catalyze innovative financing for peacebuilding and to facilitate private sector engagement for peacebuilding. In terms of lessons from the first year of assessed contribution programming, 2025, as you know, was the first year in which the Fund could program assessed resources. Following the landmark General Assembly Resolution 78257, which authorized $50 million on a yearly basis over the over five years. That was a significant step not only for the Peacebuilding Fund, but, we believe, for the peacebuilding architecture as a whole. I would like to be candid with you on where we currently stand.

Due to the Organization's current financial liquidity situation, only 6 million of the $50 million authorized for 2025 were transferred to the Peacebuilding Fund last year. Last year and programmed. We have been working closely with the Controller's Office and the outstanding balance was carried forward into 2026. The good news is, as we speak, an additional $23 million is being released and will be dispersed to the programs of the recipient countries in the next few days. During last year's dialogue, I referred to the first five countries under assessed programming in 2025 the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Mali and South Sudan.

And I also mentioned Somalia, Guatemala and Papua New guinea for 2026. A key lesson from this first year of assessed fund programming, and one that I believe is highly relevant for this Commission, is the importance, as the Chair has also noted, of the Fund's flexibility. The budget cycle requires us to identify countries and thematic areas well in advance, but peace building contexts do not stand still. In some countries, the programming originally envisaged needed to shift in response to developments on the ground. The Fund's ability to adapt is not a weakness in the system.

We feel it is a very important and useful built in feature, and I believe it is one that you have consistently also recognized as essential. A second lesson from that first year is that in an era of declining resources, the programming of the assessed contribution was focused on too small a set of countries, leading to some imbalances across the portfolio.

We are now going to the next slide. Therefore, looking ahead to the use of assessed resources in 2027, we are putting forward a larger set of anticipated countries to preserve a better balance. The Advisory Group of the Peacebuilding Fund has again provided valuable guidance, encouraging geographic and contextual diversity while stressing adaptability and national ownership. Above all, I would welcome the Commission's views on this. Well now, in terms of our proposed evaluation plan, this is about the forward looking work on the Fund's future strategy to which our Chair has also alluded.

First of all, we have commissioned an independent evaluation of the current PBF strategy period, which is concluding at the end of this year and has spanned the 2020-2026 period. The evaluation team has been selected and has begun its work which will include country visits and a range of stakeholder consultations. A draft report is expected by mid-2026 with final findings by the year end in terms of the strategy development process. In parallel, we are advancing preparations for the new strategy period which would span 2027 to 2030. I would recall that this current strategy period stretched over a larger period of time precisely to accommodate the 2025 Peacebuilding Architecture Review and so that the results of that review could be factored in to the new strategy period.

As you can see on this slide, we have designed a phased process to prepare for a new strategy, including analytical work and extensive stakeholder consultations. We will be consulting Member States through various channels, including through this Commission. Of course, through the PBF Group of Friends and through recipient partner countries. We will consult also across the UN system with resident coordinators with recipient agencies, with our PBF secretariats on the ground, and we are also planning to consult beyond the UN with civil society think tanks and with international financial institutions who are also very precious partners of the Peacebuilding Fund. All of this will help ensure that the Secretary General has a comprehensive understanding of the trends, the needs and the expectations in order to position the Fund's unique role for the coming period.

The draft strategy will then go through a review and validation process involving the PBF Advisory Group and relevant internal bodies with a view to launching the new strategy in the second quarter of 2027. We look forward to engaging with the Commission throughout this process. I would also like to note that UN Peacebuilding Week from 2022 to 26 June, which the the Chair has also referenced, can provide an early and important platform for some of these very important conversations. In closing, Mr. Chair, I would like to underscore a point that has been central to the Fund's work over the past 20 years.

Peacebuilding, we believe, is most effective and most durable when it is led by the countries and the communities concerned. The Fund exists to support that leadership, not to substitute for it in a global environment that is testing the multilateral system. The PBF's model of demand driven, nationally owned catalytic financing is more important than ever, but sustaining it depends on partnership between this Commission, contributing and recipient Member States and the broader UN system. I want to thank all participants today for their attention and look forward to your questions and your advice. This dialogue is one of the ways in which the Commission can help shape the Fund's strategic direction and we are entering a period that will be decisive for its future.

I am confident that this exchange will strengthen the alignment between the Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacebuilding Fund and with it the Peacebuilding architecture as a whole. I thank you.

I thank the ASG for peace building, Peace affair and peace support. Thank you for that very informative briefing on the new structure of the PVPSO as well as on the financial and budgetary state of the PBF with regard to the beneficiary countries, as well as the situation today with regard to expectations and the work that is being done on the African continent as well as other beneficiary countries. Before opening the discussion, I'd like to invite delegations wishing to take the floor during this exchange with the ASG to please press their microphone buttons for Secretariat to be able to drop a list of speakers.

Since we have another agenda item ahead of us with discussions on the implementation of projects financed by the PBF in two African countries. I would like to ask you to be as concise as possible and not to exceed three minutes to allow everyone to be able to interact, ask questions and also to allow Ms. Fihar to respond to your comments or or questions and provide additional information regarding the PBF plan as well as the new structure of the PB. Pso.

Could you help please?

Where is the secretariat?

Sometimes the technology don't really help us gain time. So I'm waiting to get the list. There is a little bit small problem of communication.

So what's going on?

I'll give the floor to the Ambassador of Brazil. You have the floor, my dear friend.

Thank you Chair for convening the second annual dialogue between the PBC and the pbf. And I also thank ASG Elisabeth Speher for her broad presentation. We look forward to the presentation by Sierra Leone and the drc. They are particularly relevant in our effort to better synchronize the PBC and the PBF. In March 2025, during our first dialogue, we discussed the importance of of maintaining the Fund's flexibility while addressing funding constraints.

Today, as we meet for this second dialogue, many of those challenges remain. At the same time, we now have a new milestone in peacebuilding financing. The 2025 Peace Building Architecture Review. The PBC plays a key role in mobilizing international actors and amplifying the PBF's catalytic impact. Strengthening cooperation between the PBC and the PBF Advisory Group is essential.

In line with the Pact for the Future and the 2025 P Bar, Brazil supports institutionalized exchanges between the BBC and the Fund to strengthen coherence across the peace building architecture. We also advocate for regular engagement with donors, recipient countries, resident coordinators, local partners and agencies. Such exchanges enhance transparency, shared learning and collaboration with national ownership as the guiding principle of peace building efforts. The PBF is a critical instrument to support national strategies for conflict prevention and peace building. This includes peacekeeping transitions and mission drawdowns.

Predictable financing remains essential. The Fund must be flexible and responsive in order to be effective. The PBF should increasingly diversify its donor base, including through partnerships with IFIs and multilateral development banks. Those institutions must see PBF projects as embryos for more ambitious and encompassing projects. I'll make three brief comments on the guiding questions contained in the concept note.

First, the PBF should prioritize the follow up to existing engagements and maintain a balanced geographic distribution. Peace building investments produce impacts in the medium and Long term, sustaining ongoing initiatives aligned with national priorities is essential. As of February 2026, the PBF supports 48 projects across 28 countries and territories. This demonstrates its broad reach and catalytic potential. More publicity must be given to projects that yield good results.

Second, the assessed contributions must be fully disbursed. Their spending must be done in full transparency and accountability. Above all, national ownership must lead the allocation of resources. At the same time, countries benefiting from assessed contributions should be encouraged to come to the PBC to present their projects, achievements and lessons learned, just as Sierra leone and the DRC are doing. And third, regarding priorities, the 2025 P Bar provides important guidance.

We need system coherence and deep cooperation with UN Resident Coordinators and country teams. Most PBF projects are implemented in partnership with UN agencies. Therefore, a coordinated UN presence at the country level is essential. And finally, the PBS P PBPSO needs adequate resources to support the Fund's work and strengthen coherence in the UN peacebuilding architecture. This includes coordinating peace building efforts by UN country teams and those undertaking peacekeeping operations and special political missions, particularly during transitions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the Ambassador NPR of Brazil for that intervention. And I now give the floor to the Ambassador NPR of Egypt, followed by Croatia, Germany and the Netherlands.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Allow me to express our appreciation to asgs behar.

ASG for Peace Building and Peace Support Chair in this intervention, I'd like to note two questions and I will take the floor again under the second item of our agenda, we thank Ashi Ispihar and her team for the very valuable briefing earlier, shedding light on the current situation, whether in terms of the Fund financing or projects and programs that the Fund is focusing on from a thematic perspective or what has to do with the resource distribution on various eligible countries according to the known eligibility criteria. As a matter of fact, Let me say that it is unfortunate that not enough resources that were promised by Member States, not enough resources are being made available under assessed contributions.

Currently, the Fund is receiving only $6 million out of the 50 million that were the assessed contribution determined. And we know that Member States have deployed a lot of effort to ensure that allocation from the regular budget. So the first point that I'd like to stress is the importance that all of us as Member States honor our assessed contribution, meaning the 50 million that were allocated to the Fund.

We renewed our trust via the twin resolutions at the Security that of the Security Council and the General Assembly. At the end of the last peace building architecture review, we had renewed our trust in the Fund and its ability to reflect the UN vision in the field, benefiting from this vision and supporting national capacities in peacebuilding. So as Member States, we must honor our contributions so that the Fund can implement its next strategy. My second point, Chair, is the following, and this is really a clarification that we seek from Mrs. Behar. How does the Fund determine if projects in specific countries will be financed from voluntary contributions or from the assessed contributions?

What are the criteria that determine this choice? Whether the financing is going to come from the voluntary or the assessed contributions. Two types of contributions that are allowed that are provided. The second question is the following. In the past we have heard certain complaints from beneficiary countries regarding the long period required between announcing eligibility and

the real tangible beginning of the project implementation, the project that is being financed by the fund. So Ms. Esperhar, if we could know more about the efforts deployed by the Office and by the Secretary General to overcome bureaucratic obstacles within the UN that could impede or affect the swiftness of making this financing available to the Funds projects in concerned countries. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think Egypt for those comments and questions. Ms. Piar will respond after we have finished the first round of questions so you can make the best use of the time we have available. I'll now give the floor.

Let me check to the PR of Croatia, followed by Germany, Netherlands, Paraguay and Madagascar. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you for convening this meeting.

And also thank ESG Spehar for for sharing her valuable insights. Admirable work as always. The Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacebuilding Fund together form one of the UN system's most complementary partnerships in advancing sustainable peace. The PBF provides agile catalytic financing that enables nationally led peace building priorities to move from concept to implementation. At the same time, the PBC offers a unique intergovernmental platform to sustain political attention, mobilize partnerships and reinforce coherence across the UN system and international actors.

And when these two mechanisms work in concert, they create a virtuous cycle. The PBF demonstrates what is possible through timely risk tolerant investment. While the PBC amplifies these results to encourage broader and longer term support. The PBF's track record underscores its value. It consistently channels resources to areas where other funding is key cares including gender responsive Peace Building, youth empowerment, local conflict prevention and cross border initiatives.

Its ability to respond rapidly to emerging risks and support integrated UN approaches makes it indispensable in fragile settings. In this regard, its contribution to advancing national prevention strategies grounded in human rights and inclusive governance deserves particular attention. Equally, the Fund plays an important role in operationalizing the humanitarian development peace nexus, helping bridge immediate stabilization needs with longer term efforts to address the root causes of conflict. The PBC's convening power can further elevate these efforts by aligning them with national priorities and encouraging member states and international financial institutions to scale up successful approaches. Now to maximize impact, the connection between the PBC and PBF should be further strengthened.

And for this we propose the first, closer alignment between PBF programming and PBC deliberations, ensuring that political guidance reflects realities on the ground Second, stronger use of PBC platform to mobilize predictable multi year financing both for the PBF and for the nationally owned peace building strategies and third, systematic use of PBC monitoring and PBF monitoring and evaluation. Findings in PBC's Advice to the Security Council, ECOSOC and the General Assembly Strengthening evidence based policymaking Croatia remains a strong supporter of the PBF and will continue with its contribution. And as one of the Vice Chairs of the pbc, we will work closely with the Chair and with the fellow Vice Chairs to further enhance synergies and maximize impact on the ground. Thank you.

I thank the Ambassador NPR of Croatia. And now give the floor to the prim representative of Germany. You have the floor, Monsieur President, Colleague, thank you very much for calling this meeting. It's very important in the sense of complementarity and coherence that other colleagues have spoken to and that we attach great importance to as well. And thank you ASD Spihar.

Thank you Elizabeth, for this presentation. It's very helpful to see the numbers, to see the planning, to see that evaluation is going on. And I'm also looking forward to the presentations by the colleagues that will give us insight into important examples, country examples of what the PBF does. I would like to highlight three thematics, if you will, that appear important to us. Germany as we are one of the largest contributors to the Fund have been and will be one the Fund's role in transition settings.

We attach particular importance to that. And when we look at the 2026 program pipeline, many of the PBF supported contexts are really in fragile political transitions, including in peacekeeping drawdowns and post conflict institutional consolidation. And in all these situations, the PBF often fills critical gaps at precisely the moment when risks of relapse are highest. And I think we need exactly that. And to make it count what the PBF does, we need more systematic exchanges in the UN system, but including between the PBC and the Security Council on countries in transition to help ensure continuity of international engagement and to align political and financial instruments better and ultimately enhance prevention and make a contribution to peace and security.

Secondly, impact, we strongly support the Fund's increasing emphasis on evidence based programming and we'd be interested to hear more about the lessons learned from completed and ongoing IMPACT evaluations. You showed how evaluation is going on, but maybe you can say a little bit more about that. For example, which approaches have proven most scalable? Where have interventions fallen short? And how can these insights be systematically integrated into the next PBF strategy?

And thirdly, the Fund's catalytic role. I think this is a key strength that should be further leveraged. And what I mean is this, given the comparatively limited volume that the PBF has, its ability to unlock, additional funding and partnerships are both critical. And we have very important examples where this has worked. I mean, we will hear from colleagues, other examples, but let me mention a few.

In the Gambia, early PBF support helped create political space for a comprehensive traditional justice process and it helped mobilize broader donor engagement. In Burundi, investments in women mediators not only helped to resolve local conflicts, but also generated sustainable livelihoods and linked peace building with economic resilience. And in Haiti, the PBF has built a substantial portfolio focused on justice and rule of law, community violence reduction and the participation of women and youth, which helps to support local peace building efforts in a situation of acute fragility. So all of these examples and more of course underline the PBF's potential to act as a catalyst. It can sow the seeds for innovative approaches, for de risking engagement and for enabling scale up by others.

So in closing, I would like to underline that Germany encourages continued efforts to ensure that PBF supported interventions are designed with scalability sustainability in mind. And that includes stronger partnerships with international financial institutions and where appropriate, also the private sector. And Elizabeth, you hinted at that. I think we should really think about how we make further steps on that. Thank you very much.

I thank the Ambassador of Germany and now give the floor to. You have the floor. Thank you.

Merci Monsieur le President et merci Davo. Thank you Chair and thank you for convening this very important dialogue. Asg Spehar for your very insightful briefing that is very useful for us to fund our discussion on and we look very much forward to the briefings to be held by Sierra Leone and DRC as they are very important to showcase what actually we are all working for. The Kingdom of the Netherlands is a proud donor to the PBF and we see how the Fund makes a real tangible difference and how with the right support it can do even more. So reading this for those who don't contribute yet as an invitation for everyone around the table to contribute even more, let me make three points.

First, on the priorities and the new strategy. So in our view the PBF is central to operationalization of the Pact for the Future. As we are in the final year of the current strategy and Prepare for the 272030 cycle, we encourage a strong focus on the following four points central to PBAR a nationally owned prevention and peacebuilding strategies with structural and meaningful inclusion of civil society across border and regional approaches and work in transition settings where the PBF adds value to bilateral interventions, especially in hard to reach areas mental health and psychosocial support. If intergenerational trauma and conflict related psychosocial dynamics are not addressed, they undermine sustainable peace building, building and impact. Evidence of prevention is crucial for our narrative towards domestic constituencies and civil society must be meaningfully involved.

Second, on assessed contributions and prioritization, the decision on assessed contributions was historic, but the liquidity crisis meant that the PBF received only a fraction of the agreed amount last year as the presentation of Ms. Bayard showed us. So we urge all Member States to pay in full. The gap between commitments and transfers undermines undermines predictability and planning and in this context of constraints, the PBF should focus on transition settings and peace building and recovery facility countries with clear national ownership and realistic prospects for follow on and financing. We encourage them to present progress regularly to the PBC and emphasize its catalytic role by engaging bilateral donors, IFIs and MDBs. Third, a brief point on PBPSO and coherence.

We welcome the creation of PBPSO as a good step towards a stronger bridge between DPPA and DPO and we look forward to even greater cohesive coherence in the future. We see this also as an example how the UN can show strength by working together and maybe it can serve as an example of the UN system working as one. The Kingdom of the Netherlands stands ready to continue helping strengthen the Fund's effectiveness, agility and long term impact. Thank you very much.

I thank the Ambassador and Princeton. Now give the floor to the Ambassador in PR of Paraguay.

Thank you very much sir. I'm not the Ambassador.

Thank you very much sir. We just wanted to start this we can do it in Spanish, right? We have translation.

Thank you Chair.

We would like to underscore the value of this high level strategic dialogue that in time will determine the way forward for the Commission. We also thank the ASG Ms. Bihar for the comprehensive very good information she provided. We also wish to underscore that the implementation of the twin resolutions on the Peacebuilding architecture and the strategy for 2030 is of the utmost importance.

Paraguay Chair wishes to state that the three pillars have a huge amount of value and that human rights and the development of peoples are the best way of preventing conflicts. We also recognize the value of existing programmes initiatives within the framework of the Fund and that in 2025 contributions assessed contributions were allocated having a positive impact on the Fund responding to conflict situations with the support of the Commission. How can we achieve better impact with national UN plans strengthening conflict prevention as well as to avoid duplication of efforts, thus favoring the best use of the funds of the pbc? We also underscore and reaffirm Paraguay's support to the Peace Building Support Office, the pbpso, and that they can strengthen coherence and alignment with the different principles and actions through the Peacebuilding architecture. As part of the UN 80 initiative, the fund should focus on recovering peace and also draw on other funds for the development of long term plans for the comprehensive development of countries.

Organizations like UNDP and unicef, among others, can contribute to help these peoples and make sure they don't slip into conflict again for the same reasons as before. Thank you very much, Chair.

The Chair thanks the DPR of Paraguay for his statement and I now give the floor to the Permanent Representative of Madagascar, which is a beneficiary country of the ppf. You have the floor.

Apparently the Ambassador and PR of Madagascar is not here, so I'll give the floor instead to the Ambassador and PR of the Central African Republic, which is also a beneficiary country.

Thank you, Chair. I thank you for organising this strategic dialogue which is taking place at a critical juncture for the future of financing peacebuilding. I also thank Ms. Spiha for her very relevant briefing. Chairman.

The Central African Republic is a country where peace is not something announced, it's something that is verified. We're seeing it through the continuous opening of roads, support to displaced populations and reconciling communities that before weren't speaking to each other, but now are reconciling. It's not achieved by automatic actions or accumulation of projects, but it is achieved through coherence and lucidity in the way that we intervene. It is based on this reality that I wish to make three observations. The first one is on national ownership.

We often talk about ownership as a principle that is achieved. However, in de facto it's conditional and depends on a simple element and that is the ability of the state to act on the long term. Yet, when the financing instruments face a lack of continuity, national ownership is constantly adjusting to external factors rather than being truly owned. If we want to be coherent, this needs to be designed not only as a responsibility, but also a capacity that is sustained in time. Our second observation is on the nature of our interventions.

We continue in many cases to work on projects. However, peace isn't built this way. It's built on structures, credible institutions and governance mechanisms that are lasting. The ability to absorb tensions without lacking back into conflict. In the Central African Republic, it's precisely managing the electoral process and providing security on a local level and social cohesion that will provide sustainability to our achievements.

The idea is therefore not to duplicate projects, but rather to make sure that what we are doing is lasting. That's vital today, since we face constraints in terms of resources. Our third observation is on prevention. We continue collectively to recognize its importance, whilst also at the same time providing late financial contributions. And this is a contradiction in our context.

Fragility is well known. Economic marginalization, local and regional tensions and a lack of opportunity. Acting upstream is not an option, but rather something we must do. We need to realize that peace building cannot be decoupled from economic dynamics. Without concrete perspectives, stability remains vulnerable.

Chairman. As we approach the net strategic cycle of the Fund, it's necessary in our view, to show clarity, to be clear on our priorities, to be clear on the different instruments and to be clear on the desired results. And this involves three simple approaches. One, more predictability in financing, two, focusing on institutional capacity and three, better integration between peace and development. Peace building is something that can no longer be used to just limit fragility.

It must enable us to fully re establish the sovereignty of states. And if we want to measure our actions in an honest way, we need to apply demanding criteria. Success is not counted by the number of projects implemented, but rather by the amount of crises we will have avoided. The Central African Republic remains a committed partner of the PBF and will remain in the spirit with a clear sighted approach. Thank you.

The Chair thanks the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Central African Republic. And I wish to kindly remind our colleagues and observers to please keep your statements below 3 minutes to allow all delegations the opportunity to take the floor. The next speaker will be the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Armenia, who will be followed by the Charge d' Affaires of South Africa, the Charge d' Affaires of the European Union, the DPR of France and the DPR of Kenya. Please.

Thank you. Very much, Chair and thank you very much Madame Speer. With interest with the Chair's summary of the meetings of the AID Advisory Group and welcome the opportunity of having regular structured engagement and discussions aimed at jointly exploring opportunities for innovative financing, including partnership with international financial institutions and mechanism to support peace building in fragile context with accent on national peace building priorities. Bearing in mind that development, peace and security and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing, we would welcome the consideration and of the issue of equitable geographical distribution of the funds with meaningful engagement of women, youth, NGOs, local communities shouldering peace building efforts at this critical juncture for multilateralism, the importance of sustaining contributions by the donors is singled out, particularly in the light of current liquidity crisis and the dialogue on the UN 80 initiative by the Secretary General as envisaged by the 2025 Peace Building Architecture Review twin resolutions of the UN General assembly and the Security Council, with added value in improved cooperation between the Peace Building Commission and the Economic and Social Council in accordance with their respective mandates, taking into account the Council's oversight role for operational activities for development and humanitarian assistance and its overall coordination of the United Nations Development system. We discussed this morning at the ECOSOC

Europe those ideas and Armenia would be happy to contribute in any capacity which would be convenient. I'm still Vice President for ECOSOC for the coming months. Summing up, Armenia stands ready to share best practices and positive experiences with interested international partners with the aim of contributing to success of local and global peace building efforts. I thank you Mr.

Chair,

I thank the Ambassador and PR of Armenia and I now give the floor to the Charge d' Affaires of South Africa.

Thank you Chair.

I'd like to appreciate you organizing this second session of the annual Interactive Dialogue on the pbc and we like to appreciate also the presentation received by ASG Spehar. We also look forward to the presentations by the DRC and Sierra Leone Chair the contribution that the PBF makes in supporting countries emerging from conflict or those in transition has been demonstrated over the years and the Fund's tangible contribution to peacekeeping in countries on our agenda has resulted in resulted in sustainable peace development. In sustainable peace development offshoot where instability and under development would have otherwise prevailed, the Fund remains a catalytic instrument in providing investments that are conducive towards peace, notwithstanding the huge needs that outstrip the availability of resources. This is even more important in today's environment where nations, owners and organizations such as the United nations are financially constrained. South Africa welcomed as a timely and appropriate undertaking the allocation of the $50 million from assessed contributions to the PBF to augment donor funds, which remain critical for providing support to States upon request and based on their nationally determined priorities.

In this regard, Chapin we welcome the information on how these funds have been disposed dispersed, but are dismayed to hear the lack of funding that resulted from the liquidity crisis and we call on those Member states, especially the largest contributors, to contribute funding in a predictable way, especially towards countries that are in dire need and where we need to see a consistent and sustainable support to these countries. Partnerships, especially with regional and international financial institutions as well as private sector, from our perspective, remain key in providing financial assistance to countries emerging from conflict and should be consolidated in terms of prioritisation. We believe that efforts should continue to invest in youth given its potential to contribute meaningfully to sustainable peace in the countries that are part of our configurations. This is even more critical in Africa, which hosts the youngest population globally. Investment in youth guarantees that Africa's youth dividend can be harnessed and become a good return on investment by driving economic transformation, development and policy making.

Advances in technology also mean the that opportunities can be created for youth to contribute meaningfully to the development of their countries. We have lived the experience in South Africa of how youth can contribute meaningfully as they've played a catalytic role in the liberation of South Africa during the patriot regime. This year marks the 50th anniversary of such catalytic contribution by youth in my country through which their courage and the demand for better education in 1976 led to this movement. South Africa supports the building or strengthening of institutions of governance as another area which remains vital in assisting countries in transition. As we've heard from the PR of the Central African Republic, without capacity building to assist countries to strengthen institutions of governance, the risk of such countries relapse into conflict remains huge.

This is why we appreciate the alignment of the capacities and and hopefully institutional coherence in the PBSO which should manifest at the country level to provide such aids As I close Chair my brief intervention we appreciate the update on the elaboration of the new strategy for the period 2027 to 2033 and look forward to further updates. In this regard, I thank you,

I thank the Charge d' Affaires of South Africa and I now give the floor to the Charge d' Affaires of the European Union. Madam, you have the floor. Thank you, thank you Chair. I'd like to thank you for organizing today's meeting as an opportunity to share and strategic advice on the Peace Building Fund's work. Also would like to thank Asg Spehar for your presentation and of course we look forward to hearing from the other briefers later today, hopefully.

Chair the EU's approach to peace building and conflict prevention continues to be underpinned by by universal values and respect for international law, including the UN Charter. With the UN system at its core, and we back this up financially, the EU is providing predictable and sustained financing for peace building actions with an ongoing portfolio of more than 460 million euro to the UN family as such. And this includes the EU's continued strong support to the PBF, to which the EU has contributed over US$414 million during the current PBF strategy period. And this year we are maintaining our annual 3 million euro contribution to the Peacebuilding Fund. One of the driving forces behind last year's Peacebuilding Architecture Review was to ensure genuine impact, more specifically impact on the ground with at its core, efficient, coherent and inclusive UN system wide efforts building on the three interconnected, connected and mutually supportive pillars of the un.

And through its catalytic effect, the Peace Building Fund continues to play a key role in this regard. The implementation of the Pact for the Future and the ongoing UN80 reform initiative offer an opportunity to reinvigorate multilateral peace building efforts in a way that is more streamlined, effective and impactful. And we believe that conflict prevention must be at the core core of peace building efforts. And together the EU and the UN agreed to explore coordination on support to national capacities for conflict prevention, including support to nationally owned and nationally led prevention strategies. Chair in the spirit of this interactive dialogue, allow me to raise a few questions.

First, we see Peace Building Fund support to national peace building and prevention strategies as extreme, extremely important, and we would like to ask how the Fund intends to best and most efficiently support members who seek engagement in this specific regard. And the second question is, according to the data, UN agencies continue to represent the overwhelming majority of PBF implementing partners compared to others like civil society organizations. So what are the prospects to expand CSO engagement in this area? And are setting targets part of the considerations? Looking forward, what other tools could be considered to ensure inclusive approaches that engage local peace builders and civil society?

And in closing, Mr. Chair, at a time when conflict is on the rise, we need the PBF more than ever. And let me reiterate the EU's commitment to the PBF as an agile, flexible and results oriented instrument to promote peace building and sustaining peace. And I thank you.

I thank the Charge d' Affaires of the European Union and I now give the floor to the Ambassador and Permanent Representative, the dpr, the Deputy Permanent Representative rather of Kenya. Please

thank you Chair. Kenya thanks you for convening this important dialogue and express a sincere appreciation to the Assistant Secretary General for Peace Building and peace Support for the valuable insights.

In response to the guiding questions provided for today's dialogue, my delegation offers the following insights on thematic and geographic priorities Kenya encourages prioritization of projects that address the drivers of conflict and reflect the realities faced by countries and regions affected by fragility and conflict. The project should be timely, grounded in national ownership, aligned with national prevention strategies, characteristic in nature and supportive of transition continuity in post mission context. Additionally, locally led peace building initiatives that involve women and youth organizations as well as cross border risk reduction efforts should be prioritized. Leveraging both domestic and international resources and partnerships will be essential to mobilize the funding required to support this project. On lesson three the first year of assessed contributions shows that while the USD 50 million annual allocation has improved practicability, demand still far exceeds resources, making voluntary contributions essential.

It has also reaffirmed the importance of strong partnership with government, regional actors, civil society and the international financial institutions and underscored the value of integrated country portfolios, longer term engagements and robust monitoring and evolution to demonstrate concrete resource Kenya encourages a continued focus on prevention as a core priority for for the next PPF strategy through the Peace Building and the Recovery Facility. Deeper support for inclusive, locally led peace building and mission transition support through dedicated mechanisms can ensure continuity in areas like security, governance, justice, sector reform, institutional reforms and community resilience. We also encourage expanding partnership with regional organizations, south south cooperation and cross cooperation with the PPC and the entire UN ecosystem for coherence and strategic alignment. Lastly, we welcome the strengthened role of the Peace Building and Peace Support Office and encourage continued efforts to enhance coherence across the UN Peace Building architecture. Ensuring the PPC advisories, PPF allocations and the work of the recent coordinators and the UN country teams reinforce one another at the country level.

Kenya remains committed to advancing effective, nationally owned and inclusive peace building in partnership with the PPC, PPSOs and all member States. I thank you Chair.

I thank the DPR of Kenya for his statement and I now give the floor to the DPR of Australia.

Thank you very much Chair and I too welcome the second Annual Dialogue on the PBF and look forward to the briefings from the DRC and Sierra Leone. Of course we're at the second Annual Dialogue but this year marks two decades of the Peacebuilding building funds work. In that time the Fund has grown from supporting two countries, Burundi and Sierra Leone, to assisting more than 60 countries, almost one third of the UN's membership. Few UN instruments have demonstrated this level of reach, adaptability and impact. It is a remarkable achievement, but in the context in which the PBF operates has changed dramatically.

The UN is confronting shrinking resources, eroding trust and conflicts that are becoming more complex and protracted. In this environment, the PBF's value lies in its ability to do what other mechanisms cannot deploy quickly, take calculated risks and target catalytic interventions. These comparative advantages must remain at the centre of its work. Funding should be prioritised by where it can deliver the most impact on the ground, where it can prevent violence, build confidence and unlock longer term sustainable financing. Papua New guinea offers a clear example of what this looks like in practice.

Last year the PBF supported the Papua New guinea government, working in partnership with the World bank, to develop its National Prevention Strategy. This demonstrates how the PBF can practically support national prevention strategies as mandated by the 2025 Peacebuilding Architecture Review. It also shows the Fund's catalytic potential, creating the conditions needed to unlock more sustainable financing, including from international financial institutions in a resource constrained world. Australia believes the PNG model should be replicated across contexts where conditions allow. We welcome the PBF's sustained support to PNG, including through the proposed use of CESSED contributions in 2027.

Chair Australia remains a strong supporter of the Peacebuilding Fund and its impacts and we have nearly quadrupled our voluntary contribution for 2026. Looking ahead, Australia looks forward to the outcome of the PBF strategy evaluation and to contributing to the next strategy. And I thank Ms. Bihar for the overview of the process for its development, particularly the stakeholder engagement proposals which we think are really critical to ensuring a successful strategy. We also encourage the new strategy to reflect the priorities identified by Member States in the Peacebuilding Architecture Review, including to support countries preparing for or undergoing transitions from peace operations and to support countries to develop and implement national prevention strategies. We're also keen to understand how the new strategy will address global headwinds, financial, geopolitical and institutional that are reshaping peace building needs.

Thank you very much and you can rely on our continued support.

I thank the Charges d' affaires of Australia for her statement, the DPR of Australia. Rather, I would now propose that we hear from two countries that have benefited significantly from the ppf. We already heard from Ms. Spiha, the ASG on the distribution of funds and we've heard from donor countries about their vision and their determination to continue and their view of what's being done by the PBPSO and also on the ground to benefit other countries. So now we're going to hear from the Democratic Republic of Congo and their experience through Ms. Jocelyne Cabengele Lukundula, who will be followed by the Charge d' affaires, Sierra Leone, Mr. Totangi, and then we'll come back to statements from the floor. There'll also be the opportunity for Member States and observers to ask you questions directly and for you to answer them.

Ambassador, please go ahead.

Thank you. Chair Madam ASG for Peace building and Peace support. We'd like to thank for the detailed briefing she made just now. The Resident Coordinator Our second interactive dialogue today is the direct continuation of the twin resolutions considering the architecture of peace building adopted by consensus on November 26, 2025. Resolutions that invite beneficiary countries to share with the Peacebuilding Commission their national priorities, progress made as well as challenges.

In this spirit of structured dialogue, the DRC would like to present the institutional framework for its cooperation with the Peace Building Fund.

In the drc. Projects financed by the PBF are negotiated through the Steering Committee which is co chaired by the UN Resident Coordinator and the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Planning and Coordination of Development Aid.

Thanks to this shared governance framework, the DRC in March 2026 entered a new phase in its cooperation with the PBF through the renewal of its eligibility for the new cycle 252029. For this new period, the DRC government and the Resident Coordinator have jointly approved the three National Strategic Priorities.

As follows. First of all, strengthening the governance and coordination of peace building efforts Second, the promotion of resilience against root causes of conflict linked to management of natural mining and land resources and lastly, protection of civilians and the transition, that is to say, the gradual, responsible and lasting withdrawal of MONUSCO for which the mandate has been extended to December 2026. These three priorities are directly reflected in the establishment in January 2026 of the new office Peace Building and Peace Support Office, designed by the SG to be a center of excellence for conflict prevention and peace building. The DRC benefits from these operational tools through the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration or DDR process, as well as the reformabid security sector. It fully supports this structural integration which strengthens cohesion of UN action from prevention to transition.

Chair with regards to the main progress made, my government would like to to highlight two major outcomes of its cooperation with the pbf. First of all, support for the national disarmament, demobilization, community recovery and Stabilization Program, which is the PDDRCS. It was launched in 2021 and covers the following five provinces of the DRC eTori, North Kivu, South Kivu, Manema and Tanganyika. This program is based on five pillars. First of all, conflict resolution and social cohesion, which is to say promoting dialogue, traditional justice and managing regional dynamics.

Second pillar, restoring state authority and security. This involves disarmament, demobilization and securitization of territory affected by armed conflict. Third pillar, recovery and community Reintegration. That is to say, supporting the reintegration of former combatants through local economic projects and training programs. Pillar 4 stabilization and economic Social Development.

This entails stabilizing the regions of the country and promoting socioeconomic development. Lastly, the fifth pillar is communication and awareness raising. That means involving local communities to foster reconciliation and to raise awareness about the importance of peace. The PDDRCS has already supported more than 8,000 beneficiaries in partnership with the International Migration Organization thanks to the Stabilization coherence fund. In March 2024, the joint mission in South Kivu, led by the Non Armed Protection of Civilians Project and the UNFPA to identify the main security concerns in that area, concluded that it was necessary to rigorously apply international humanitarian law and to establish humanitarian corridors that are safe and secure in order to benefit displaced communities.

In 2025, the PBEF approved three additional projects for the DRC which want me to thank them for. First of all, the first project is in partnership with the IOM to support the disarmament, repatriation and demobilization process for the Great Lakes region. The second project, in partnership with the UNFPA is the Strategy for the Non Armed Protection of Civilians project in South Kivu, which is based on the civilian community security, early warning and prevention of population displacement. And thirdly, lastly, in partnership with undp, we're strengthening coordination and monitoring of the PBF in the drc. The second major outcome supports the transition and the gradual, responsible and lasting drawdown of Manusc go the men, that of which was renewed until December 2026 under resolution 2808 of the Security Council Chair.

The Fund's projects are fully in keeping with this national priority. Thanks to strategic investments, MANUSCA was able to gradually disengage from Kasai, Central Kasai and Tanganyika in 202122 and then from South Kyiva 2024. My government has clearly reaffirmed its sovereign will to shoulder the questions of security throughout its territory, since any withdrawal can only take place if the conditions allow it. Based on joint assessments. To this day, the main challenge remaining is protecting civilians effectively in the transition provinces which my government has been committed to addressing by building up national security capacity in a context that calls for more coordination and support from the international Community Chair I would like to commend the efforts of the resident coordinator of UNDP, Mr. Bruno Lamarki, for the collaboration he is engaged in on the ground with our Minister of the Plan.

I also would like to thank the entire Commission for their engagement and support for the municipal transition marked by the signing of the Washington Accords of June 27, 2025 between the DRC and Rwanda in order to strengthen peace in the Eastern DRC and to foster development and economic integration in the Great Lakes region. Thank you for your attention.

I thank the Ambassador and representative of the DRC and I now would like to give the floor floor to Ambassador Kyra Ibrahim Sanji who's charged with Affair of Sierra Leone.

M Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, Sierra Leone is deeply appreciative of the opportunity to share our lessons learned and experience with the United Nations Peace Building Fund which has been a critical partner in consolidating peace and supporting national peace building priorities since the end of the civil war in my country. Since 2007, the PBF has invested over $84 million in Sierra Leone. Much of this support was mobilized in the immediate post conflict period when the country was transitioning from war to peace. These early investments were instrumental in helping Sierra Leone stabilize its institutions, rebuild trust within communities and lay the foundations for sustainable peace.

Guided in part by the recommendations of the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, the PBF support initially focused on strengthening communities and national institutions for inclusive democratic governance, reconciliation and social cohesion, access to justice, improved security and protection of human rights, promotion of dialogue, youth inclusion and gender equality. These interventions played an important role in supporting Sierra Leone's transition from fragility towards stability. Among the many initiatives supported by the PBF was the Creating peaceful societies through women's improved access to management of natural resources, Land Tenorise and Economic Empowerment in Sierra Leone project. This initiative is a testament to the Fund's commitment to advancing women's participation, economic empowerment and equitable access to land and natural resources. Recognizing the inclusive resource governance of Women's economic agency are essential foundations for durable peace.

Social Cohesion Sierra Leone was among the first countries to engage United Nations Peace Building Commission through its dedicated country configuration in 2006, which enabled access to resources from the PBF under the Peace Building and Recovery Facility. This partnership exemplified the close complementarity between the commissions political accompaniment role and the catalytic financing provided by the Fund. Over time PBF support has evolved alongside Sierra Leone's changing peace building landscape. While the countries successfully exited the dedicated configuration of the Peace building Commission in 2020, the PBF investment has continued to support the country to sustain the peace gains made since the end of the war and is creating the enabling environment for peace to thrive in the country.

However, Sierra Leone is now faced with a set of new challenges including political polarization, socio economic challenges, youth unemployment, drug and substance abuse, particularly the growing concern around the systemic drug called Kush, cross border insecurity and climate change pressures. These factors interact with long standing issues such as economic inequality, land and boundary disputes which at times can heighten tensions, particularly during electoral periods or localized disputes. Recognizing these dynamics, the Government of Sierra Leone has made a PBF eligibility request with a letter sent to the UN Security General by the President of Sierra Leone aligned with outcomes of the 2025 Peace Building architecture Review, the extension of the PBF strategy of 2025, 2026 and the commitments under the Pact for the Future. Sierra Leone's proposed priorities on the focus including strengthening national prevention strategies that are integrated within the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework and grounded in human rights based approach. The proposed priorities are informed by a recent conflict analysis and portfolio evaluation of PBF's investments and translates these findings into four concrete and time bound peace building priorities that will guide future engagement in the form Sierra Leone's experience demonstrates the importance of sustained and flexible peace building support that is nationally owned and responsive to evolving context.

The synergy between the United Nations Peel Building Commission United Nations Peer Building Fund has been instrumental in supporting Sierra Leone's journey from conflict towards resilience. As we look ahead, Sierra Leone remains committed to deepening this partnership to safeguard the peace we have built and address emerging risks before they escalate. Thank you.

I thank Ambassador Khalil of Ibrahim Totangi, Charge de Fer of Sierra Leone and I now give the floor briefly to someone responsible for the implementation of projects financed by the PBF who is on the ground, that is the Resident Coordinator of Sierra Leone, Ms. Seraphine Wakana. You have three minutes, ma', am, and then we'll have to cut your microphone off. I'm sorry. Thank you. It.

I hope you can hear me now

and briefly please. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Chair and members of the Peace Building Commission for this opportunity to reflect on why Peace Building Fund matters in Sierra Leone. And coming from just after the representative

of Sierra Leone who has already highlighted what PBF is doing in Sierra Leone. Peace building, conflict prevention and sustaining peace are not peripheral to Sierra Leone's development agenda. They are central to it. And this is where instruments like PBF comes in, playing a critical role as a strategic peace dividend multiplier, particularly when political and development risks intersect.

Excellencies Peace Building Fund Catalytic nature is evident in Sierra Leone. The recent portfolio evaluation noted that with an investment of 25.4 million US.

We don't hear you, madam.

Hello.

And inclusive participation, especially among youth, women and the local actors and protecting hard won development gains and reinforced social cohesion to complement this, I wanted to bring the voice of beneficiaries to this floor. Alfred Young, beneficiary from McKenney, said dialogue sessions changed everything and we realized that fighting each other only deepens our problems. But seeking peace can move us forward. Peace can allow us to focus on development. And Salimatu from Freetown added her voice.

I was once frustrated by lack of opportunities. Now I've found another way to stand on my own. And today I'm not just fixing parts in the auto shop. I'm fixing my future and the peace in my community. So Excellencies Alfred and Salimatu are just two in a million.

The PBF portfolio in Sierra Leone has reached over 1 million people directly, 40% of whom are women. And while strengthening over 300 national and community level structures, organizations and networks. Excellencies On a regional level, cross border peace building initiatives like in the shared Gola landscape between Sierra Leone and Liberia has helped address transnational drivers of conflict and reinforce cooperation. Today, Sierra Leone vision focuses on prevention and in this regard, SILHOUETTE is advancing efforts toward developing a national prevention strategy. National leadership is paramount and continued PBF support is pivotal in accompanying national efforts toward institutionalizing prevention.

Excellencies as this dialogue reflects on PBF's strategic priorities, Sierra Leone's experience sends a clear message. Predictable flexible financing for prevention is essential to sustain peace gains and advance nationally owned priorities. And the PBF's role in accompanying countries like Sierra Leone to the last mile in sustaining peace remains crucial. And this is why approving the requested re eligibility to PBF is key for Sierra Leone. In closing, I reaffirm our commitment as UN in Sierra Leone to support the country in sustaining peace and advancing inclusive resilience development through PBF and other resources.

And I here want to really appreciate the consideration for Sierra Leone for the assessed contribution location for 2027 and we look forward to the outcome of it. I.

I thank Ms. Serafine Wakana, resident Coordinator for Sierra Leone. And I now give the floor to His Excellency Ambassador NPR of Liberia, followed by the Ambassador and Observer of the African Union Charter d' Affaires of Sweden.

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Liberia aligns itself with the felicitations extended to you and the Peace Building and Peace Support Office.

We commend ASG SPEHA for her continued leadership and encourage all relevant stakeholders to continue their efforts to ensure the sustainability of the Foundation. We are grateful for all information shared today, particularly for those shared by the DRC and and Sierra Leone. Liberia speaks both as a beneficiary country and a strong advocate for the architecture that makes this fund indispensable. The PBF's engagement in Liberia has demonstrated what catalytic, targeted and flexible financing can truly achieve. Throughout the years, projects approved have supported the strengthening of rule of law institutions, institutions, enhanced peace and social cohesion, advanced women's and youth rights as well as their participation in civic and political life, including supporting national reconciliation which has helped to build community resilience as Liberia continues to chart its own path toward lasting stability.

Mr. Chair, as you have rightly pointed out, what distinguishes the PBF support is precisely the agility to act swiftly when and where it matters the most, the flexibility to address gaps that conventional financing leaves unmet and a genuine commitment to nationally owned solutions. Furthermore, Liberia reaffirms that national ownership is not merely a principle, but as ASG spoke, BIHA has readily identified it is the condition for sustainability. To conclude, Mr. Chair, the fund works.

Liberia is evidence of that. At a time when a multilateral system faces mounting fiscal pressures, we call on all member states to protect and strengthen this mechanism. Peace, as we all know, is an investment whose returns are measured in stability, development and human dignity. I thank you, Chair and members for your kind attention.

I thank the Ambassador NPR of Liberia for that testimony as a beneficiary country and also for being so concise and targeted in his statement. Thank you very much. I now give the floor to the Ambassador and Permanent observer of the African Union. And I'd like to thank you for staying within the three minute time limit. You have the floor.

You're also member of the Board of the pbf. Thank you very much.

Dear Chairperson, Ambassador Omar Hilal. Allow me to start by thanking you and for convening this important meeting on the strategic dialogue with the Peace Building Fund. Also like to profoundly thank ASG Spihar and her team in their reincarnated form and content, and the Deputy Perm representatives of the DRC and Sierra Leone for their insightful briefings.

I'm sorry I was late because I was also inaugurating a side event on the margin of CSW at the African Union Mission on Empowering the Role of Women and the Girl in Peace Building. So it was also related to what we are doing now. The African Union values the continued role of the Peace Building Fund in supporting conflict prevention, stabilization and post conflict recovery. We reiterate the importance of ensuring adequate, predictable, sustained and flexible financing for peace building initiatives. The collaboration between pbc, PBF and PBSO is essential to address the growing complexity of conflicts and the root causes and I am honored to be among those who initiated and promoted this dialogue together with other members of the SG's Advisory Group for Peace Building Funds, the African Union takes note of the PBF planned program of 2026 and we note that 15 of the 26 countries eligible for support under the Peace Building and Recovery Facility and the Immediate Response Facility are in Africa, representing approximately 62 of the total allocations.

This underscores the continued prioritization of African peace building context and highlights the importance of aligning these resources with nationally defined priorities and locally led initiatives. Looking ahead, we look forward to the forthcoming Annual Report of the Secretary General on PBF for 2025 as well as the independent evaluation of the PBF Strategy 2020-2026 and the development of the new strategy for 2027 2030. In this process, it will be important to ensure that expanding support to more countries does not result in allocations that are too limited to achieve meaningful impact, a matter which the SDG's advisory group is much seized with. The African Union also reiterates that assessed contributions should complement rather being in lieu of voluntary contributions, particularly in light of the growing demand for PBF support. Mr.

Chair, the adoption of the 2025 P Bar represents an important milestone for strengthening the international peace building architecture. In this regard, the African Union emphasizes the importance of fully implementing existing resolutions on peacebuilding financing while ensuring transparency, accountability and avoiding duplication in the use of resources. We also welcome the continued sharing of experiences by PBF recipient countries in the PBC meetings. We have the examples presented today by the DRC and Sierra Leone which provide valuable insights into the impact of PBF funded projects. Mr.

Chair, to conclude, it is that clear that investing earlier in prevention through flexible and rapid financing mechanisms could significantly reduce the cost and human impact of conflicts and enable sustaining peace. In the same vein, we encourage exploring innovative financing approaches including voluntary debt for peace building swaps whereby portions of debt relief could be redirected towards nationally owned peace building initiatives. We also call for exploring the opportunity of dedicated financing windows that strengthen cooperation between the United nations and regional organizations in support of nationally owned peace building priorities. In conclusion, Mr. Chair, the African Union reiterates its commitment to strengthen cooperation with the United nations and all relevant partners to enhance the effectiveness, coordination and impact of peace building efforts.

I thank you. I thank the Ambassador and representatives of the African Union. And I now give the floor to the Ambassador Charge d' Affaires of Sweden, followed by Japan, Norway, Uganda, Colombia, El Salvador and India.

Merci, Monsieur le President. Thank you, Chair Bear and the briefers from drcn, Sierra Leone.

Thank you very much, colleagues. Thank you for this opportunity to look into the future during a year of transition between strategic frameworks and from one Secretary General to the next, I will offer three reflections and questions on what this moment requires of the PBF and of us as the Peace Building Commission. First, on prioritization. In a context of growing demand and constrained resources. The PBF must be even more deliberate in where it engages.

Its comparative advantage lies where it can both respond to national identified priorities and unlock broader systemic impact. This also calls for stronger engagement with partners beyond the UN system, including international financial institutions and the private sector. So my question is, how can the PBC help bring these perspectives into the Fund's strategic choices? Second, on national ownership and inclusion, sustainable peace building must be rooted in inclusive national ownership. Civil society, particularly women and youth led organizations, are not just participants, but essential partners in shaping legitimate and lasting peace.

So my question is, how can the PBF be their best possible partner? And third, on the way forward, as assessed contributions become an established part of the Fund's financing, there is an opportunity to strengthen predictability, risk appetite and catalytic effect. The next PBF strategy should also place greater emphasis on system wide coherence. So peace and development advisors are key enablers in this regard. So the Fund also provides a clear opportunity.

And my question is, how can lessons from the PBF inform the UN's engagement in contexts where the Fund is not currently present, including in Ukraine. So finally, Mr. Chair, as co Chair of the PBF Group of Friends and as Chair of the Liberia configuration of the pbc, Sweden remains a steadfast Swedish supporter of the Peace Building Fund as a driver of strategic catalytic peace building impact? Thank you, Mr. President.

I thank the Ambassador Treasure d' Affaires of Sweden and I would like to thank his country for the work that it is doing in Liberia. And now I give the floor to the DPR of Japan. You have the floor. Ambassador

thank you, Chair. Japan warmly welcomed the convening of this meeting. At a time when the Fund's fiscal space continues to contract, it is imperative to establish a strategic prioritization that fully leverages the PBF's flexibility, agility and catalystic nature. Recognizing the Fund's critical role amid rising global needs, Japan has decided to contribute an additional US$5.8 million this March. This underscores our unwavering commitment to the PBF as a central pillar of the UN's peace building efforts to ensure every dollar has a lasting impact on the ground.

Japan emphasizes three priorities for the next strategy. First, approach grounded in human security must be prioritized. Sustainable peace requires resilient societies built through a human centered approach through inclusive and comprehensive measures that leave no one behind. This approach protects and empowers individuals for foster local ownership and strengthens resilience effectively ensuring that national priorities take root locally. Furthermore, by adopting its multi dimensional lens, we can address the complex drivers of conflict and facilitate a seamless transition from conflict toward sustainable development.

Second, it remains essential to strengthen partnerships with IFIs. The PBF can play a critical catalystic and bridging role by promoting peace positive investment that aligns short term peace building gains with long term development outcomes. We therefore value the ongoing collaboration between the PBF and IFIs in the field which leverages their complementary strengths. The PBC and its member states can also add value by engaging IEFIs at the headquarters level on how peace building supports and is integrated into development. Third, the PBF's focus on transition context is particularly critical at a time when several UN peacekeeping missions are drawing down on or transferring their mandate.

To mitigate the risk of a funding cliff, it is essential to develop PBF resources well ahead of mission drawdowns to ensure a sequenced and predictable handover to the host government and UN country team. In conclusion, I reaffirm Japan's continued support to the PBF and look forward to engaging in future discussions for its new strategy. Thank you.

I thank the Ambassador NPR of Japan and I now give the floor to the Ambassador NPR of Norway.

Thank you. Thank you so much Chair for convening this second annual interactive dialogue on the PBEF with us as PBC members and extremely useful and helpful to listening to all the briefers so deeply. Thank you for being here with us and being willing to share from a very rich and positive experience working on the Fund and not the least stressing the progress made on implementation made as well. As a long standing contributor to the Fund we as Norway strongly support PBPSO's strategic leadership on this and including the management of the Fund, including also for the assessed contributions. We believe that it's key that this dialogue we have here contributes constructively, but also at the strategic level reflection that can help the Fund in responding to evolving peace building needs on the ground.

And that we at the same time provide the necessary discretion to the PBF management to make decisions at the project level. With this in mind, let me just share two very quick reflections. First, on PBF priorities for us. Prioritisation should be guided by shared conflict risk analysis, national ownership and also meaningful localization and the catalytic potential of investments. Experience shows that the Fund is most effective when it enables integrated responses, when it supports national authorities by bringing together all relevant UN entities and the civil society partners in joint support of the shared peace building priorities.

At the same time, we know that restrained resources must require a clear and more strategic focus. Programming should remain firmly anchored in peace building objectives by addressing the drivers of conflict and strengthening conditions of sustainable peace. Secondly, on the PBF strategy review, it is and remains essential to preserve its universal mandate and it remains responsive to peace building needs globally, including where the UN already supports national peace processes. The Fund should also maintain a balance between the immediate needs and of course, the long term peace building efforts. And in this regard, as also many in this room have stressed today, I mean, there are many here that have over the past years strongly supported the introduction of the assessed contributions, which of course help provide more predictable financing in very critical context, I would add, including in transitions where gain or potential gains are very fragile.

But needless to say, this message doesn't make sense if not everyone feel obliged to be complied by the responsibility. We all have to pay in full, on time and without conditions, and meanwhile allowing flexibility to allocate those resources where the needs are greatest remains really critical. So, as this meeting is named as interactive, I feel obliged to ask a question and I think very many of us have the same kind of, you know, interest and to not, or to avoid repeating what already has been stressed, I would just say that I'm very pleased to hear that we all in this room agree that it's really critical to secure a coherent and strategically aligned peace building effort and that this needs to take place on the ground at national and local level. So in that regard, maybe a variety of questions on that has been already conveyed in this room, but I think for us to hear back from the briefers on what still remains as the most crucial enablers and also what are the obstacles we all need to address in terms of that makes it difficult for us to to strengthen and to increase the integrated approaches which is so much needed. And this goes, as Hedda, my EU counterpart, just said, for the role and inclusion of civil society, but also secondly in terms of the partnership with potential IFIs and MDBs and also how this needs to be worked across the UN system, not just within the Peace Building pillar.

Thank you.

I thank the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Norway for his statement and questions. I now give the floor to the DPR of Uganda.

I thank you Chair for convening this interactive dialogue on the Secretary General's Peace Building Fund.

The Peace Building Fund as we know it has supported efforts in advancing peace building efforts in post conflict post conflict situation through the provision of funding for early warning, early response mechanisms and conflict sensitive development. Over the years, the PBA Funds programs have helped countries emerging from conflict to build institutions, restore the rule of of law, promote reconciliation and address the root causes of conflict. PBC should maintain its broad understanding and support among Member States. Prioritizing Peace Building as an Effective Investment as an effective investment in sustaining peace and movement, Uganda maintains that the PBF must move beyond mere gap filling and focus on structural transformation. We urge the Fund to prioritize socioeconomic reintegration and youth livelihoods in post conflict settings.

Peace is only as stable as economic opportunities available to those who have laid down their arms. PBF should continue to prioritize the Great Lakes region and the Sahel with an emphasis on cross border programming. Conflict does not respect national boundaries. The peace building solutions must not either. Given that demand outstrips resources, the Fund should prioritize projects that demonstrate high national core investment and scalability.

Preference should be given to prevent peace be building and investing in stability before a crisis erupts. The transition to assist contributions in 2025 was a landmark victory for predictable funding. However, Uganda notes two key lessons. While assessed funds provide stability, they must not come with increased red tape that delays response times. Peace building is is time sensitive.

Assessed contributions should complement and not replace voluntary funding. Chair the development of national prevention strategies must be done upon the request of the State and through collaboration of the Peace Building Fund and Commission collaboration with other relevant UN entities. We must develop complementarities between local, regional, international peace building efforts and as well as between development and humanitarian activities in conflict communities and countries for effective prevention strategies. It is important that all countries in conflict and post conflict peace building should have equal opportunity to obtain support from the Peace Building Fund through a transparent and equitable process. Uganda supports inclusive, transparent consultations and engagements with beneficiary countries rather than subjectively identifying and setting priorities for them.

Finally, Chair, Uganda pledges full support to the discussions on the Peace Building Fund and efforts to identify more innovative ways to support the implementation of the Peace building Fund Strategy 2020-2026, including on resource mobilization, innovative financing mechanisms and outreach support strategies. Thank you, Chair.

I thank the DPR of Uganda and I now give the floor to the DPR of Colombia.

Much gracias. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you for convening the second interactive dialogue on the pbf. We also thank the asg, Ms. Spiha and the representatives that spoke to us about their experiences. As a country that has counted on the support of the PBF and as an active member of this Commission, Colombia highly values this space for strategic exchange and to contribute to strengthening synergies between the different pillars of the Peacebuilding architecture.

The recently adopted resolutions on the Peacebuilding Architecture that affirmed the centrality of financing for peace and recognise the fundamental role of the PBF as a catalysing tool. In this context, Colombia believes that it's particularly important to engage in regular dialogue between the PBC and the PBF and the Advisory Group to strengthen the role of the Commission as a platform to mobilise resources and to accompany national peace building priorities and to continue to strengthen the ability of the Fund to support national prevention and peace building strategies, always on a voluntary basis as well as leadership and national ownership. In this same vein, Chairman, we also see value in more systematically harnessing this Commission as a space for countries that receive support from the PBF to be able to share their experiences, their national realities and their results and lessons learned, contributing to collective learning and improving the studic actions of the Fund. Both the PBC as well as the PBF were designed to support countries emerging from conflicts and countries transitioning towards sustainable peace. Each reason faces their own unique challenges and that's why the Peace Building architecture must preserve the necessary flexibility to respond to these contests.

Peace building is also a long term endeavor and not lineal. It requires sustained efforts to consolidate the achievements made and avoiding lapsing back into conflict. The Hierarchy in terms of the hierarchy, the essential thing is to ensure that the Fund has the resources it requires to respond to national priorities when countries require it. Recent experience shows that request for support from the PBF was well above the resources available. Colombia supports the contributions from the regular budget to the PBF as well as any other measure that could contribute to strengthening the predictability and sustainability of financing for peacebuilding, we reaffirmed the need for sufficient resources as well as predictable and accessible and sustained resources for peacebuilding.

In the context where global military expenditure continues to increase and millions of dollars are waste every day on war, there are still narratives on there not being enough resources available for peace. There's also, Chairman, the issue of political will and priorities. Peace must be treated as a strategic investment and not as a residual effort that is subject to marginal resources. At the same time, we believe that it's important to strengthen collaboration with international financial institutions and multilateral development banks who can scale investments in cases where there's fragility and conflict, as well as adopting innovative mechanisms for financing for peace, including alliances with the private sector. Investment with social impact and combined investment is fundamental to safeguard the work of the pbf.

The added value and differentiated value of the Fund lies in its ability to act as a flexible instrument that's swift and can take prevention and peace building measures and foster the conditions to mobilise additional financing in Colombia. Chairman the support of the PBF has contributed to strengthening key processes such as the economic reintegration of former combatants, the building of territorial peace with communities and the promotion of economic opportunities for the populations affected by violence. These initiatives show that relatively small investments can have significant impact when they are linked with national public policies and when they benefit from the support of the United nations and international partners. Colombia also wishes to reiterate that national ownership should remain at the centre of all peace building efforts. Financing for peace must respond to clearly defined priorities, those defined by the countries themselves, to strengthen national and local capacities and to directly support local peacebuilders in the regions, especially organizations headed up by women and youth.

In terms of the creation of the new Peace Building and Peace Support Office, we see its significant potential to strengthen the coherence of the UN system in key areas of peace building, including the articulation between initiatives to reduce community violence, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration processes. We'd be interested in hearing Ms. Bihar's vision of how this integration can be made operational in practice, both at headquarters as well as on the ground. In the same vision vein, we'd be grateful to know about some of the examples we've heard from from Sierra Leone and the drc, which are a valuable contribution to help us understand how the institutional changes are perceived on the ground and how we can contribute to a better impact of peace building initiatives on a national level. By way of conclusion Chair, we reiterate that the pbf, the PBC and The UN system have been fundamental allies to help move forward peace in Colombia and in other parts of the world. We trust that in light of the new mandates of pbar, we will be able to further strengthen this architecture to guarantee sustainable financing, effective prevention and lasting peace.

Thank you very much, Chair.

I thank the Ambassador and DPR of Colombia. Thank you for your statement. I now give the floor to the DPR of El Salvador.

Thank you very much, Chair. We thank you for convening the second interactive dialogue with the Peace Building Fund. And we also thank Ms. Beha for her briefing that enables us to continue to strengthen us the relationship between the Commission and the Fund at a particularly relevant time. Following the adoption of the Peace Building Architecture Review. El Salvador first of all wishes to underscore how important it is to preserve the principles that have guided the work of the Fund, in particular national ownership flexibility and timely response capacity to the priorities defined by the countries.

In a context of growing demand, it's also fundamental to move towards more predictable, sustainable and diversified financing that would enable the Fund to respond more effectively to needs on the ground. Chairman the experience of El Salvador with the Fund reflects the added value of this instrument. Through different initiatives, institutional strengthening has been support as well as the participation of women in peace building and the promotion of inclusion of youth and youth leadership, as well as initiatives geared towards transitional justice and social cohesion. What's more, we underscore regional initiatives in terms of human mobility and the shared management of resources that show the potential of the Fund to address cross border challenges comprehensively. Having said this, we believe that looking towards the future, the Fund must continue to strengthen its support to peace building processes which strengthen the institutions and the capacities of the state to prevent conflict.

What's more, it's essential to promote approaches that comprehensively address structural risk factors, including by encouraging socio economic inclusion as a key tool for preventing violence and human mobility in contexts of fragility. Furthermore, we believe that it's a priority to continue to support initiatives geared towards social cohesion and rebuilding community fabric which strengthen peaceful coexistence and resilience on a local level. In this context, harnessing the digital environment is a growing opportunity to strengthen prevention, to promote inclusive participation and to broaden the scope of peace building efforts. It's also important for the Fund to continue to prioritise comprehensive inclusive responses that are tailored to national realities, including the meaningful participation of women and youth. Chairman, in light of the current circumstances, we wish to underscore the importance of making efforts to ensure that the support of the Fund is able to be sustainable in time, that it's predictable and that it's adapted to the different phases of peace building that in El Salvador's experience require long term support to enable results to be consolidated, to avoid backsliding and to ensure the sustainability of the investments made.

Finally, when it comes to the strategy of the fund for the 20272030 period, we believe that it's fundamental to ensure that this reflects both lessons learnt as well as evolving challenges in peacebuilding, whilst at the same time upholding the ability of the Fund to innovate and adapt. El Salvador reiterates its commitment to continue to contribute actively to the work of this Commission and to support the strengthening of the Fund as an essential pillar of the Peace Building architecture. Thank you very much.

I thank the DPR of El Salvador for her statement and I now give the floor to the DPR of India. Thank you Chair My delegation thanks you for convening the second annual Interactive Dialogue on Peace Building Fund. We also welcome the briefing by ASG Elizabeth Spehar and thank other briefers for their remarks. As the PBF enters the second year of programming with assessed contributions, India reiterates that the funds strength lies in its ability to act as a catalyst to mobilize support for peace building efforts in a resource constrained environment. PBF must strictly adhere to the following principles to ensure greater impact on the field.

First, national ownership and demand driven programming. We emphasize that peace building must be nationally owned and led. PBF strategy for 202730 and program plans should prioritize countries that demonstrate strong national ownership to ensure the sustainability of peace building efforts. Criteria for prioritisation must be based on the host government's explicit requests and priorities. The Fund should avoid one size fits all principles, ensuring that any assistance from youth engagement to transitional justice is rooted through the local context and needs of the host government.

Second, invest in developing national institutions to develop lasting resilience. PBF should prioritize supporting long term institution building. India supports greater participation of women and youth in this regard. However, these efforts must be aligned with national priorities and socio cultural contexts to ensure local buy in and effective implementation. Third, leveraging South south cooperation as the PBF develops its 20272030 strategy, it must look beyond traditional models.

We encourage the Fund to integrate best practices from the Global south experience experiences including the south south and Triangular cooperation as a primary vehicle for knowledge transfer. In this context, PBF can gain from the wealth of experience from the India, Brazil, South Africa or the IPSA Fund and the India UN Development Partnership Fund which are managed and administered by UNDP and UNOSSC to support demand driven projects in global south countries. In conclusion, Mr. Chair, we look forward to the independent evaluation of the current strategy to ensure that the next cycle is made more responsive and impactful. Thank you.

I thank the DPR of India and I give the floor to the DPR of Rwanda.

Thank you very much Chair for giving me the floor and thanks for very much ASG for the briefing. Thanks colleagues from DRC and Sierra. I think Madam asg, we have more answers to answer than asking you. The presentation you made gives us two scenarios. One, the demands are increasing and the envelope is becoming small and small in that context like in any other country we all have wish lists when we're doing our national budget but we end up trying to prioritize in terms of where do we allocate our small envelope to deliver for the people.

But I just want to do in practical terms what that means. Prioritisation should be based on clear national demands, the potential to deliver results and the sustainability of that intervention. I think that's going to be very, very important that wherever we're going to spend the little we have we foresee the sustainability of that and probably not be like a fire extinguisher.

And as other colleagues have mentioned going forward the emphasis should be on result best delivery which clearly defines baseline baselines especially where we're going to have second interventions. I think we should be having clear baselines, targets, outputs and indicators that are going to help you and all of us to track progress. But as well as a practical country based where we're investing money scorecard. I think this is going to give the trust in the assessed contribution but also in countries that have taken the flow that donate money to this fund. I think having these country specific scorecards are going to be extremely important.

And lastly on the assessed contribution lessons, I think most of the colleagues have mentioned what the assessment is in general. But I think the most important aspect is that when we came to the assessed contribution it gave all of us a sense of responsibility and ownership to sustaining peace, which I think is very, very important and I hope we're going to scale that up moving forward. Now just to close on that, I think yesterday we were in a meeting and we had to raise some of the issues in terms of achieving some of the SDGs. Today when we look at military spending globally it's $2.7 trillion per year PBC couple of hundred dollars. When you calculate it, we are spending 9,000 more times on military spending than prevention or even supporting peace building and even sustaining peace.

So that is a challenge. I think the numbers don't lie, but I think our priorities are sometimes do. And I think we need probably to do more on that. And that's why I was saying that probably as member states we have more answers to give than asking more questions to the Fund.

Now, going forward in the scenarios we have, peace building fund, as mentioned by colleagues, must be nationally owned, result driven and the assessed contribution probably will speak to that if it's giving you the flexibility you need in terms of programming interventions, some of it which are various spreading in terms of interventions. Now, lastly, in Rwanda we say what gets measured gets done and what gets owned endures. That is the national ownership that we are talking about. But we look forward again to the evaluation that you're going to call out. We hope from this evaluation we're going to take a very serious concrete lessons learned where we failed, where we need to scale up, where we want to change the things that did not work.

Probably we need to change it to do something else that probably we worked on but did not deliver. Thank you very much.

I thank the DPR of Rwanda for the observations and questions. And I now give the floor to the DPR of the United Kingdom. You have the floor.

Chair. Thank you very much for convening today's discussion. And my thanks also to ASG Speckar not only for her briefing, but for all of the underpinning work that that briefing represents. And I'm grateful too for the briefings from the partner countries, DRC and Sierra Leone. It's really important that we ground the discussions that we have here in New York in the experience of those on the ground.

Chair. The UK welcomes this second annual interactive dialogue and we reaffirm our strong support support for both the Peacebuilding Fund and the Peacebuilding Commission. We welcome continued efforts to strengthen the relationship between the PBC and the Fund as called for in last year's Peacebuilding Architecture Review. If you allow me, I'd just like to make three brief points. First, as others have said, the PBF remains a vital instrument for delivering catalytic impact in the world's most fragile and high risk contexts to ensure it continues to be viewed as credible and and effective peace building tool.

We've got to sharpen its focus to maximise impact and this means prioritising funding where the risks are greatest, grounded in national ownership and informed by robust early warning analysis. And the Fund's comparative advantage lies in rapid, politically informed interventions at critical moments. And we welcome the efforts to strengthen this. Second, we encourage the systematic development development of clear exit strategies. From the outset.

The Fund should provide short term catalytic support that then opens space for longer term actors. Given the constrained fiscal environment, deeper collaboration with international financial institutions is also essential, underpinned by joint programming, shared analysis and coordinated delivery. And in this respect we commend the work of the UN IFI Partnership Facility within pb.

Third, the new PBPSO setup offers important opportunities to strengthen coherence across the UN peacebuilding architecture and this includes closer collaboration with the UNDP DPPA Joint Program, the UN World Bank Partnership Facility and the pbf. We also encourage better coordination of efforts supporting peace building, including security sector reform, as well as discussion, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration. The UK remains a committed partner and stands ready to work with all stakeholders to ensure the PBF remains an agile catalytic tool that delivers tangible impact for those most in need. Thank you.

I thank the Ambassador and DPR of the UK and I now give the floor floor to the Ambassador and DPR of Mission Federation Chair. We welcome the continued efforts of the Fund to strengthen cooperation with the Peacebuilding Commission, including through holding meetings with the PBF Advisory Group.

Improving coordination and complementarity with the actions of the Commission and the Fund ought to help for more effectively implementing the peace building activities and to make PBF activities more transparent and accountable. In this context, we recall resolution 78257 of the General assembly on allocation of funding from the UN budget to the PBF, which has increased the sufficient efficiency, predictability and sustainability of financing for peacebuilding activities. It is crucial that the allocation of these resources be controlled by Member States. It is also important that any international assistance through the PBF be provided in full keeping with national strategies and priorities. In this regard, we believe that the PPF should not be guided by arbitrary geographical or thematic priorities.

It's important to focus on assistance to those that are most in need, that is to stay countries that have undergone conflict and that are now striving to recover and to develop sustainably. In the context of the current budgetary problems of the un, it's important to focus on practical and tangible assessment assistance that would be aimed directly at resolving problems linked to the root causes of conflict. We carefully studied the plan of work of the PBF for 2026 and we'd like to note the importance of selecting projects that will continue to benefit countries even after the withdrawal of international specialists. Here, a focus on building national capacity would be helpful. This would help to maintain and amplify the fruits of peacebuilding efforts.

We also believe that a key factor is assessment of the Fund's activities through the opinions of recipient countries. Their honest feedback would help to improve the effectiveness of this assistance in the future and help it abandon practices that are ineffective or that are simply aimed at embellishing reports for donors. We hope that reforming the internal secretariat structures under the UN 80 initiative will allow us to more effectively provide peace building assistance to countries in need in a more coordinated manner. Thank you.

Thank the Ambassador and if you are of the Russian Federation, before giving the floor once again to the Ambassador, NPR of Egypt, I ask for your indulgence.

I must leave this meeting because I have a very important obligation at 1:00pm so the Ambassador and PR of Croatia has been kind enough to take my place. So I will leave you in his able hands and I thank him for his availability. Thank you for your attention and thank you for your presence here today. Thank you. Please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and a word of thanks before you leave for the excellent management of this very important meeting. The reason why I'm taking the floor once again is that I wanted really to link the very important presentation made by the distinguished DPR of the DRC with many of the comments and the aspirations that we heard Member states expressing regarding how they wish to see the PBF flourishing and thriving going forward. And the reason why the drc, in the manner that the presentation by the distinguished DPR was presented, is that specifically the DDR program and excuse me, my colleague, I can't memorize the bigger acronym of the entire program, but I would just seek your indulgence to just name it a national DDR program and the five pillars that that program contain. I think it represents a very important framework guided by national priorities and also with a regional impact, because it has to do with the Regional Stabilization Mechanism within the regional Framework of Cooperation, which is partly regional under the ICGLR and partly supported by the United Nations.

It is also and a continuation of the very good work that the PBF has demonstrated and has shown in the drc. It is a context where there is a rethinking of the peacekeeping mandate in order to support the new political realities in the region. So it's it used to be a transition context, as the distinguished DPR explained, but currently also with the new Security Council reflection on the role of MONUSCO and the role of the African Union and possibly the ICGLR in the implementation of the Washington and the Doha agreements. So the PBF engagement here around those five pillars of the DDR and also around the new mandates and the or the new reprioritized mandates of MONUSCO will be very, very important. I think that is a very important context where the PBF can really show the relevance in a very important regional and national context.

Having said that, I would like to reiterate that Egypt is a co chair of the Group of Friends on DDR and we have scheduled already a meeting on 30 March to address the regional dimension of the DDR effort in the Great Lakes region. And we would very much like to certainly invite, since also PBBSO now you know, encompass the DDR section, that also a representative of the PBF will be there in order to have that kind of interactive dialogue around those five pillars of the national DDR program. Thank you very much.

Thank you. The Ambassador of Egypt. I would like to now invite the ASG Spejar to take the floor and answer questions raised by the members and also invite after the ASG the seat alone to take the floor as well. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Much appreciated. This has been an incredibly rich exchange and I've tried to take, take very careful notes of everything that was said and the questions asked and I'm sure that my colleagues have done the same. Time will not permit me, I think, to do justice to so many good points and so many very pertinent questions at the moment.

But rest assured again that we have really recorded mentally and otherwise all of the points that you have kindly made. So I will try to. I'm assuming we're aiming to finish that one sharp or so. Yes. Okay.

So I will try to be as quick as possible and again, my apologies if I am not going to get to all of the excellent commentary and questions. First of all, I wanted to very quickly go over some of the specific questions that I captured and then go to some of the comments that I heard that were quite broadly endorsed by all of you. In terms of some of Egypt's original questions, how does a fund determine whether voluntary or assessed contributions should be applied to an initiative or to a program? I mean basically the terms of reference of the fund as they were adjusted to accommodate assess contributions are quite clear that only those countries that are fully eligible, that is the countries approved by the SG for the Peacebuilding and Recovery Facility, can access assessed contributions. So at the moment, as I explained earlier, it's about 18 countries.

Further to that, we also take into account the relationship with the PBC as one element and the advice of our advisory group. But I would Also hasten to add that say the quality of the funding between assessed and voluntary do not differ. So if a country cannot assess contributions, then they will be funded through voluntary. I think the main difference is if you will, the visibility because again according to the decision by member states when they approved assessed contributions, those countries and initiatives that will receive dessess contributions, all of that will be analyzed and informed upon through a separate report. So an additional report to the usual PBF report covering the entire portfolio.

So that's on the one hand. Then also there was the question of assessed contributions and having only received thus far 6 million of the 50 million of the first year year which was last year 2025. It also links to partly to your question about some of the complaints you may have heard. It has been difficult, difficult with this liquidity crisis. But I have to say that the Controller and the Controller's office have been working very closely with us and they have assured us that we will get the full amount of the funding.

What the problem is right now is the cash flow and that again is dependent dependent on this liquidity issue. And that being hopefully resolved or at least partially resolved one way or another. And then again linked to your point on the complaints about the gap between once a country becomes fully eligible and actually getting the resources for certain initiatives, there are certain stages that need to be gone through because in the eligibility request a country will outline its peace building priorities, but in a very general way. So after that there needs to be specific programming against a specific initiative that's identified. So that takes time and we take this issue of timeliness very seriously.

So we're always trying to see how we can improve and cut down the times. But again, lately what has also been hampering the money actually getting to the field is the cash flow issue. And on your point, Ambassador, just a Moment ago about the 30th March meeting on DDR, we would be delighted to have someone from PPF there as well. In terms of what Germany was asking about, maybe I'll just pick up one of the points in particular and that was the question on scalability. Which projects are the most scalable?

We have been looking at this issue of sustainability, which I have to say is one of our key preoccupations. A number of you have raised the sustainability issue, which is also linked in part to scale scalability, and some of the findings that we found through prior reviews have been that activities with strong community engagement are usually the most likely to be sustainable and that when those work well, then we can move forward to scalability. But we have to do a lot more analysis on these issues. We need to continuously learn. So we're trying to put more effort into lessons learning.

That was also raised by a number of you, which we would want to regularly share with the PBC as much as is possible. In terms of the EU's questions on how to support national prevention strategies, you may recall I think I had mentioned in previous meetings that further to the Pact for the Future and the Member States endorsement of this suggestion in a new Agenda for Peace of the Secretary General that all countries should consider preparing and implementing nationally owned and led prevention strategies. We incorporated support for national prevention and peacebuilding strategies as a PBF priority as well. So we do have, we hope to have enough financing to be able to do that as much as possible. But again, the extent to which we'll be able to support will depend on the level of resourcing that we have in terms of more inclusive approaches with civilization society, how we can do that.

This came up several times, especially inclusion of women and youth. I can say that we have quite a robust relationship with civil society, with women in youth groups. First of all through funding. Even though it's not easy with the Secretariat mechanisms to get funding directly to civil society groups or women's led and youth led groups, we often do that through our partnership with the agency's funds and programs on the ground. But I can tell you that the PBF remains one of the absolute champions in terms of supporting gender equality and women's empowerment, including through women's led organizations.

Last year was the ninth year in a row that we exceeded our own internal target of 30% of funding being supportive of gender equality and women's empowerment. That is Twice it was 41% last year. That is twice what the SG is even asking all of the system to do. He is asking all of the system to make sure that gender equality and women's empowerment are covered by at least 15% of their activities. We have an internal target of 30 and we're consistently over that 30% nine years in a row.

We also are one of the biggest sources of funding for youth empowerment and the role of youth in prevention and peace building. We are part of the YPS Secretariat in the system together with UNFPA and the Youth Office. So a lot of energy is going into that as well. And we have the civil society UN peacebuilders dialogue which on a regular basis is engaging civil society, is engaging women and youth and youth groups, but also at the country implementation level, a Lot of support is provided again based on national requests at the local level, where we are supporting local level initiatives with local grassroots organizations as well as local governments. And increasingly there is a very important element of both co creation implementation at the local level, including civil society and also locally led evaluation, which is very, very important.

I think in terms of Sweden had a number of questions and reflections on prioritization. We took very, very careful note. The question was how can the PBC support stronger engagement with partners, including especially IFIs? There are a number of things that the PBC is already doing and can do more of. And the peacebuilding twin resolutions of last year give us a great template for that.

You, the Member States agreed that this commission should have an annual session with the international financial institutions, which is a great way to have a systematic engagement with them. We have now, I think systematized over the past three years a yearly discussion between the PBC chair, with my support from the Secretariat with the Executive board of the World bank, for example, and we, we have a number of meetings lined up potentially with the heads of the regional development banks to come and engage with the pbc. And so there are many, many entry points for the PBC to help us to strengthen that relationship with the IFIs for better strategic alignment and moving forward. The peace building and the prevention agenda. In terms of.

Yes, I think I answered the. The question on inclusive national ownership, including women and youth, system wide coherence and how the PBF can experience can help in places like Ukraine. I think we do have a lot of good lessons from around the world and hopefully we'll be able to apply that, share that and apply that in many contexts, including Ukraine.

What are some of the most Norway critical enablers or obstacles to integrated approaches with the whole UN system civil society? IFIs. There is quite a list of them. But honestly I think that one of the impediments internally of integrated approaches is the financing crisis because as funds are more and more scarce across the system, ODA is going down. There's frankly more competition for resources across the system.

And this is where I think the PBF plays a really crucial role. Internally I have seen how the Peacebuilding Fund has had a very salutary, integrative effect within the UN system because we are usually supporting two or three agencies, funds and programs as well as other national stakeholders to work together based on their comparative advantages to help a country to move forward on its peace building agenda. So we are funding in a way that brings various implementers together rather than incentivizing a siloed approach in terms of Colombia. You also had some very important questions here. Maybe I will focus on the vision for both at what is it Sedeh so headquarters level and field level how this new PVPSO can really be better utilized and what my vision is on that.

I really think that we have a lot of potential there. We're in the earliest days of this and this is why I'm also mentioning it to all of you because your ideas and advice would be extremely, well, welcome. But the way I see it so far is that we have a really critical role to play or a useful role to play. I think at headquarters level to be both a bridge between the peace and security pillar. Because we are now not just dppa, we're also DPO and the agencies, funds and programs across the system in terms of building and sustaining peace efforts.

We're also now strengthened as the hinge being able to play the role of helping coherence across the humanitarian development and peace efforts of this UN institution. We can bring a lot of additional coherence now because we have a number of coordinating tools. Egypt was talking about the Group of Friends on DDR. We also support the Group of Friends on ssr. We together with UNDP are the global focal point on rule of law.

We also coordinate the Peacebuilding Strategy Group and Peacebuilding Contact Group, which brings in the whole system to try to harmonize policy on peacebuilding. This is at the global level. And I think again with the new tools we will be able to do more of that coherence building and that coordination that's so important at field level. I think we can have more operational and targeted support for institution building. And I agree with all of the member states here that have, you know, really underscored the importance of institution building.

For me, that is one of the key, if not the key, building block for sustainability for sustainable peace. And now we have these more operational, specialized tools for rule of law and security governance strengthening. So institution building can be even more consequential with the support, I think, of this strengthened office will be able to support more coherence at the field level, including by linking up even more effectively with the PDAs that are in a number of countries. PDAs were mentioned. They're very critical for our Peacebuilding Fund work and we'll be able to support prevention peacebuilding strategies in a more comprehensive way.

Transition support was mentioned by many of you. I think we can put together a a very credible and strong transition support package for countries with UN missions in transition or withdrawal because we have these additional tools now that we can bring together, I think more cohesively also linking up to other parts of the UN system. Stronger work on peace finance, including benefiting the security and justice sectors and. And.

Yeah a number of other areas. But this is just a flavor of what I'm seeing. I think we can really offer something much more effective and deeper. Very much appreciate India's questions and comments. Certainly agree with south south cooperation, being able to support that, supporting best practices.

Again, Juan DA on sustainability fully. Again, this is my bible. Is the sustainability bible. You have my assurance on that. And also national ownership, the Bible without a doubt.

I think I may have gone through most of the questions. I certainly hope so. I wanted to maybe really quickly, what time is it? I really am hopeful hogging the time. I wanted to just go over some of the priorities that I heard all of you or many of you mention that we absolutely take to heart locally led initiatives, inclusion of women and youth, institution building, once again, cross border initiatives, addressing conflict drivers, prevention.

And here again there will be a dilemma. On the one hand, the point about really going to the countries most at risk conflict and post conflict situations, but we need to have that space for prevention. And I hope that the lack of sufficient funding will not impede us from helping countries that want to work on prevention more upstream. We will have to see but absolutely support prevention and peace building strategies, South South Triangular cooperation and so forth. Diversification of funding.

We're trying to do that very much. We want to broaden the donor base among the membership, the UN membership, but also, you know, the partnership with ifis and with the private sector are critical to all of this. But again, I have to be clear that we don't view the relationship or the partnership with IFIs or partners or the private sector as solving the PBF liquidity or the PBF financing problem. They will not give us money, but we're trying to make sure that they strategically align with us on ground and also that the private sector, for example, when it comes to the economic aspect of peace building, livelihoods, etc. That they can help bring some of our good support work to scale.

So that's where that comes in.

A lot of you talked about impact and lessons learned. We are investing a lot in impact both in terms of the PBF monitoring and evaluation capacity as well as the work of the Peacebuilding impact hub. We've had some very exciting, I think results come out. Some of that has been socialized already and we want to do more of that through the pbc. I had a meeting this week with two ministers from the Gambia.

They are interested in potentially coming back soon to the people to talk about their advances in transitional justice. And we have been working closely with the government and other stakeholders in the Gambia on what we're calling a Peacebuilding Impact Hub Spotlight exercise. We have a great film on their results and also a very serious independently produced report which I hope could be socialized here at the PBC for greater lessons learning and so we will continue to invest more in that. Sorry, and I, I think I have to stop there. Thank you.

Thank you sgpejar, for this comprehensive and wide but very important focused answer. I would now use the opportunity to invite distinguished representatives here, Leona to take the floor. Thank you. Chair. Well, I just wanted to reinforce some points that the President Coordinator inflicts and raised, but I think it is SG Spires spoke to the issues of youth and civil society and women, which are really very crucial in our case because these are the marginalized groups in our society and working with them goes a long way in preserving our peace and sustaining it.

So I'm very happy that the PBPSO now is looking clearly at the issues that we are also looking at and I thank you very much for speaking to this issue. Thank you. Thank you for very swift answer and we apologize to colleagues who cannot speak. Obviously we're out of time. And in closing, I would like to thank everyone for participating in today's important meeting.

In particular the briefings that we received from DPR of DRC, Mrs. Jocelyn Kundula of Cielon, His Excellency, Mr. Kalilu Ibrahim and Resident Coordinator for Sierra Leone, Mrs. Seraphin Wakana. The session is now adjourned. Thank you.