Launch of the inaugural Peacebuilding Overview Report: A conversation in 'investing in peace when the world pays for war' (UN Peacebuilding Week Side Event)

Good morning, everyone. I'm really delighted to see all of you here in the room on the fifth and final day of the first-ever UN Peacebuilding Week. You are the real stalwarts. You've made it all the way through to day five, and we're truly grateful. You know, coming out on a Friday morning is a true testament to your conviction that prevention and peacebuilding must prevail and that we must continue to invest in them. So really, really delighted to have you all here. I'm welcoming you on behalf of DPPA/DPO, in particular the Peacebuilding and Peace Support Office, as well as the initiative that we call the Peacebuilding Impact Hub. This Peacebuilding Week, as you know, was built around the theme of partnerships. So I'm very pleased that we have a number of very important partners of ours joining this panel this morning on the Peacebuilding Impact Hub first report. And the particular day of today was deemed to be the day that we would focus in particular on impact, because you might recall that the overarching theme of Peacebuilding Week is partnerships, but then it was broken down into some subthemes of innovation, inclusion—both extremely important as well—and today, impact. So this session this morning really falls into that final, very important basket. The report that you have in front of you is called Investing in Peace When the World Pays for War. It is intended to help us in the thought leadership around prevention and peacebuilding efforts, and it builds, of course, upon the many important decisions and resolutions of our own Member States on building and sustaining peace over the years, certainly the also landmark reports such as A New Agenda for Peace that the Secretary-General unveiled in the middle of 2023, the Pact for For the Future, and of course the Peacebuilding Architecture Review resolutions of last year. But it also attempts to stand on the shoulders of earlier reports such as Pathways for Peace, which came out in 2018 and which was a joint endeavour by both United Nations and the World Bank, and made some of the same arguments that we repeat here in the report, and we can hopefully have a debate on why we need to keep We keep saying the same things and we seem to be still in the same place. But let me tell you a few things about the Impact Hub and then about this report, and then I would be delighted to hand over to some of my other colleagues. The Peacebuilding Impact Hub is, as I said, an initiative of our office that is still relatively new and it's still actually quite modest.— you wouldn't know it from the output, but there are only a very few colleagues that dedicate their entire time to the hub. We draw on the whole office to give whatever time they can, 20%, 30%, 40% of their time to contribute to the hub because it is an office-wide endeavor, but it's also more than that. It's positioned itself as a system-wide endeavor., and I hope with time we will have more and more of the UN system, civil society partners, member states join us in this because the idea is that we need to be looking more at this issue of peacebuilding and prevention impact. I would remind everyone that the twin resolutions of last year on peacebuilding and sustaining peace that came out unanimously approved by the Security Council and the General Assembly put strong emphasis on implementation and impact, so not just sticking to the rhetoric or the resolutions, but what is it that this really means on the ground? How is it changing the needle? And so this Impact Hub exercise fits squarely into that. The idea for the Hub came to me very early in my tenure as ASG for Peacebuilding and Peace Support now, when I started in the position February of 2022, because every time I went to the capitals of our member states to talk about our work, they would invariably mention how important the work was, how much they were supportive of it, but they had to make the case to their— to their broader ministry, to their parliaments, to the taxpaying public. Why are we investing in these things that may seem kind of esoteric, that are not that are not quite so clear-cut, that are difficult to explain, that are difficult to measure, when we have so many internal issues. You know, why are we putting money into these things that are applied to foreign contexts, foreign venues, and without necessarily a very concrete outcome? So it seemed to me imperative that we had to start focusing much more on this, and I can tell you without going too much into detail, because time does not allow, that both the DMEL team—so the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning team of our Peacebuilding Fund colleagues, or Peacebuilding Fund branch—have been putting increasing amount of time and energy in that, and the broader Impact Hub is intended to do that on a system-wide scale and a more global scale. So we want to celebrate, identify, and communicate better the impact of all of our work, because none of us do this alone. And in one lady's famous words, it takes a village, and then it takes a country, and then it takes a global system, but it really takes all of us to actually make true lasting impact. And so I do hope that those of you who have not yet joined our work on the Impact Hub, that you will take a closer look and join our efforts on, for example, trying to get some commonly accepted or agreed measurement standards and so on. The report itself, I won't go into too much because I think I've already gone over my time, but it does, I think, try to— clarify some things about peacebuilding from our point of view. It's a report that benefited from a lot of wonderful contributors, including several of them on the podium here. Also, it was overseen by a very distinguished editorial board that had a diverse set of voices from different latitudes—Global South, Global North, civil society, member states, think tanks and the like, and it had— it really gathered a diverse set of perspectives, but at the end of the day, we opted to try to blend this into a single unified voice, so I hope that is what you will be hearing today. It is trying to ask the question about where are we today with peacebuilding, what it is, So an operational definition of not peacebuilding per se—that's already been done by our Member States through various resolutions—but more what peacebuilding support looks like, basically the, let's say, the tenets, the parameters, why it matters, and why it matters that we have to measure it or at least investigate it in terms of what it is that we are able to do on ground, how can we make it more sustainable, and how can we communicate it more effectively. Why is it important to focus on impact and the results of what we're doing? First of all, we need to learn. If we're going to be better peacebuilding supporters, as I call us, we need to learn both from our successes and our failures of how we are supporting peacebuilding and prevention efforts around the world, but also, again, we need to continue to strengthen the political and financial support for peacebuilding and prevention efforts. And as I said at the outset, I am being asked that every day when I meet with some of our key supporters. Give us evidence, give us compelling stories, give us the data, because we need that in a world that's become, sadly, more transactional in terms of its international support. People are looking much closer to home for where they want to put their energy and their money, and that's understandable. And international solidarity, I think, quite frankly, has been fraying quite a bit, and the Secretary-General mentioned this in a new Agenda for Peace, that one of his big concerns was the erosion of solidarity. So I have been convinced from the first minutes of this current job that I hold that we needed to focus on impact, number one, and number two, we shouldn't do it in an isolated fashion as an office or a secretariat or even as a UN system, but we need to go beyond. So with those rather broad opening remarks, I would be delighted to hand the floor over to my colleague to my right, Paul Fargh, who is going to be our moderator today, I believe, but he is also one of the key contributors and authors to this report, so no one better to take us very quickly through the key tenets of the report, and then we will go over to our panel that will comment on various aspects of it, and then I hope we will have time, and we need to make time, which is why I will stop talking in a moment, to have an exchange with all of you. We hope that the report will inform, perhaps even inspire a little bit, and certainly it's not a bad thing if it also provokes. Thank you.

Thank you, ASG, Excellencies, dear colleagues. Before starting this presentation, I just want to acknowledge the dozens of other colleagues that contributed to, to this effort, whether as authors or, or reviewers. And I hope that this presentation, although it's it will have to be brief, um, can do some justice to, to their excellent work. And as a caveat, we won't be able to delve into all the different, uh, content and chapters of this report. So the report that you have in front of you starts with an analysis of the current geopolitical context, and this is something that has been discussed, I think, at length this week, so I won't dwell on it too much. But it describes a, um, a world at a crossroads where conflicts are on the rise, where good governance is declining, and where civic space is shrinking. And, and these geopolitical dynamics, among others that are also described, are redefining the conditions under which peace is built around the world and the conditions under which we do our job. So to go to the, the first flight, the first slide, while this is unfolding, we also see a growing imbalance in global investment priorities. And over the last two decades, we found that the world has invested only $1 on peace for every $100 of military expenditure. And we calculated this using data from the OECD and from CIPRI. In other words, it would take 100 years for peace investments to catch up to the current level of military expenditure. And you can see this on the graph on the screen at the top where the tiny little orange dot represents aid for peace and the big blue dot The blue circle represents military expenditure. So as conflicts and military expenditure rise, so does the need to invest in peace. And yet, as a share of global aid, peace efforts in fragile contexts have declined to only 7%, and this you can see on the graph at the bottom of the slides. 7% when you compare peace efforts to humanitarian responses or to development aid. And in comparison, humanitarian responses today represent more or less 24%. The last number I want to mention on this slide that you can see in red is -23%, and that is the historical contraction that we have seen last year in terms of global development aid. So what does this mean for peacebuilding? What does it mean for us? We argue that the world's vulnerable populations, those that suffer the most from conflict, will be disproportionately affected, as aid constitutes more than 60% of all external financing to these contexts, and for other reasons. We also found, according to our own calculations, that Two-thirds of the countries whose economies are most dependent on aid and who are most exposed to aid cuts currently receive peacebuilding support from the United Nations. So what is the case for investing in peace at this critical moment when we see risks soaring? Beyond highlighting that peace is a common public goods, that it is a moral imperative to relieve human suffering. The report also revisits some of the key studies on the cost-benefit analysis of conflict prevention. For example, the IMF study that came out some time ago that estimated that with $1 invested in preventive macroeconomic policies, there could be $103— up to $103 in return. Or, of course, Pathways for Peace, which argued that preventing conflict could save up to $70 billion annually. We also made our own calculation to estimate that even emergency humanitarian needs could be reduced by $3.6 billion annually. However, beyond these numbers, the report highlights a key setback here., and that is that this business case for investing in peacebuilding, the cost-effectiveness of peacebuilding and prevention, has not sufficiently influenced global investment priorities. And this is quite clear from the development aid trends that you saw on the previous slides. So how do we explain this? Well, one of one of the report's central arguments is that peacebuilding faces a data and an evidence gap. And this is especially true, we found, when compared to the development and the humanitarian sectors. Think about, for example, the 15 humanitarian clusters or the SDG framework. In comparison, peacebuilding has no underlying framework to create shared data practices, to generate insights at the global level, to enhance evidence-based decision-making, or simply to communicate its value to broader non-technical audiences. So beyond identifying this gap, the report also seeks to propose solutions. At the policy level, one of them is to provide a first definition of peacebuilding support.. And in fact, how can we prioritize, resource, measure peacebuilding efficiently if we do not agree on what it means? So this definition elaborates on 7 key characteristics, characteristics which you see here on the screen, and if you're interested, you can find out more about them in the first chapter of the report. And of course, peacebuilding is dynamic, it's highly sensitive,. And, you know, while this definition seeks to provide some conceptual clarity or some policy guidance, it is bound to be discussed and to evolve. The report also presents concrete examples of when peacebuilding works. It also shares approaches that can enhance how to measure and to boost this impact. For example, it explains that— it explains an impact evaluation method that found that PBF investments contributed to reducing local conflicts in Guatemala by an estimated 80%, or a case study on the unprecedented reintegration of hundreds of thousands of former Boko Haram affiliates in Nigeria. It also analyzes how Kenya developed peace infrastructures, and I'm sure the ambassador will touch upon this in his closing remarks. So generating data to To show that peacebuilding achieves tangible impact is, of course, not enough. Numbers often don't tell the whole story, especially when it comes to a process as sensitive and context-specific as peacebuilding. Qualitative evidence is also key. And ultimately, the challenge is to make sure that this evidence, whether quantitative or qualitative, can shape decision-making. So this takes me to the last slide of of this presentation. The report concludes by stressing that peacebuilding works. I think we all know this here. It also explains why it can be a strategic response to many of the peace and security challenges that we face today, but that peacebuilders and those who support them must do a better job at measuring, improving, and communicating doing this. And given the incredibly challenging context, producing more robust data and evidence of impact is a bare minimum, and the report tries to provide concrete tools and ideas to bridge this gap. However, data and evidence are not the be-all and end-all, as we all know, so ultimately the peacebuilding community might also need narratives that translate this proof into stories that are capable of moving politicians and publics in a way that numbers alone do not. And the Peacebuilding Impact Hub, which produced this report, is set up to do just that, as DSG just explained, to help make a better case for investing in peace when the world pays for war. So if you allow me, I will now put on my moderator hat. And introduce our distinguished panelists. I will start with Miss Katarina Ahrens, the Director General for Global Order, United Nations and Humanitarian Assistance at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany. We also have His Excellency Ambassador Yabesh Monari, MBS, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kenya, to the United Nations, Miss Anna Escobar, the UN representative for Peace Direct, Mr. Cedric de Coninck, research professor on peace, conflict, and development research at NUPE, Mr. Diego Salman, principal policy fellow at ODI, and Miss Alexandra Fong, who is the chief Chief of Policy and Guidance of DPPA's Policy and Mediation Division. So to start with the first question, Director-General, the world is at the same time witnessing record cuts in global aid and increases in military spending. And this is particularly striking among— who have historically contributed the most to development assistance overseas. What is required from a domestic standpoint to ensure that investing in building peace abroad continues to receive the political and the financial backing that is so urgently needed at the moment?

Thank you very much, Paul, for the nice introduction and for the opportunity to contribute to this important discussion. I'd like, by welcoming the launch of the first Peacebuilding Overview Report and by congratulating the PBPSO and the Peacebuilding Impact Hub, the authors and the contributors on this excellent report. Reflecting an extraordinary breadth of expertise, the report is a timely contribution to the discussion on the state of peacebuilding. We are indeed at a critical moment when violent conflict is increasing, while budgets are under strain and multilateralism as a whole is increasingly challenged. The case for prevention and peacebuilding is clear, yet political commitments and financial contributions continue to lag behind, as you demonstrated clearly with these few very instructive slides. As the report aptly suggests, making the case for peacebuilding to national audiences and decision-makers is critical to secure political and financial backing. Yet, at a time of heavily constrained funding and competing priorities, this is not an easy task. From a domestic policy standpoint, we need a much stronger business case, more compelling narratives, and better evidence. We need to showcase that peacebuilding is a smart, strategic, and cost-effective instrument that prevents much higher costs later on. We need narratives that resonate with political decision-makers. This means framing peacebuilding not only as a moral imperative, but as a matter of security, stability, mutual interests, and sound investment. In particular, we need to make clear that peacebuilding and prevention is an integral component of an effective security strategy. And we need to underpin this with compelling stories and evidence that demonstrates that peacebuilding makes a concrete difference on the ground in partner countries. This is also why even before the creation of the Impact Hub, We have supported PBPSO in conducting rigorous scientific impact evaluations in Guatemala, Mali and Niger, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and in Sudan to help demonstrate nationally and internationally that peacebuilding works. Using rigorous evidence, we need to place a clear message at the centre of discussions: peacebuilding works, it saves lives, and it reduces conflicts. Showing how PBF funding led to an 80% reduction of conflicts in Guatemala helps tell the story, as do the results from the latest study on Mali and Niger that is going to be published this afternoon at 1:15 PM at the Canadian Mission. Be there, it's going to be interesting. As largest donor of the PBF, Vice Chair of the PBC, and as one of the main sponsors of the Impact Hub, Germany will continue to support evidence-based peacebuilding and ensure sustained funding. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Director-General.

Sorry. Thank you, Director-General. Now the second question to Ms. Escobar. The report calls for stronger impact measurements to build the evidence base for peacebuilding. Peace Direct, your organization, is well known for empowering local peacebuilders and supporting community-driven approaches. What does impactful, meaningful impact look like to you, and how can it be measured more systematically without contradicting local ownership and local knowledge? Thank you very much.

Good morning, everyone.

First, Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much. First, let me welcome this report. It really makes an important contribution by reaffirming that peacebuilding is not a technical exercise. It is fundamentally political, nationally owned, and rooted in long-term prevention. I also want to express our gratitude to PBPSO the Impact Hub, and each one of you who has made possible this first edition of Peacebuilding Week. This morning as I was taking the subway to come to this meeting, something very unusual happened to me, and I thought I would share it with you. Well, you know, rush time in the subway in New York is pretty hectic, and everybody is looking at their phones. Nobody is talking to anybody. But somebody did talk to me this morning. It was a young lady who just graduated in psychology. And as we talked, she asked, "What do you do?" And I said, "I work for peace." And she says, "What kind of peace? And for whom?" I was surprised by her question, and I could not answer that question. But I thought to bring it to this chamber so that we can all think about that. What kind of peace are we talking about and for whom? And this is a step back prior to answering the question about measurements. For Peace Direct, the organ— our organization, as some of you may know, We work with local peace builders around different conflicting areas based in 3 principles: trust, respect, and humility. We don't tell them what to do. They tell us. We believe them. We trust them. But when it comes to measuring that, it becomes a very difficult task. It's not easy, and we recognize that if we're trying to produce standards, uh, we have to recognize that this is not a one-size-fits-it-all, and that makes it even more difficult to measure. However, in our experience, for Peace Direct meaningful impact is not simply counting activities or projects delivered. It is whether communities themselves become safer, more resilient, and better able to prevent violence long after external support has ended. That means asking different questions. Are communities resolving disputes without violence? And how do we measure that? Do women, youth, and marginalized groups have greater influence in local decision-making? Is trust increasing between communities and institutions? Are local organizations leading responses rather than implementing someone else's agenda? Measurement should therefore be co-created with local peacebuilders. Communities should define what success looks like, identify the indicators that matter to them. Sometimes it may be 2 indicators, not 20 of them. Sometimes it may just be one. We don't know. We also need to value qualitative evidence alongside quantitative data. Stories of changed relationships, increased trust, stronger social cohesion, and local leadership are often the earliest signs that peacebuilding is working. Donors should also recognize that prevention is difficult to measure. Because success is often what never happens. How do you measure what never happens? Which is prevention. Yet we know that's the way to do it. So the question is, why is it so hard to invest in prevention, to invest in local communities? To invest in local peacebuilders. What type of peace are we talking about and for whom is central to the discussions of measurements. If violence does not erupt because local actors intervene early, that is a real outcome, even if it is invisible. In traditional reporting and in traditional measurements. Peacebuilding is most effective when power, resources, and evidence flow in the same direction towards the communities that live with conflict every day. I'd like to finalize my remarks by saying that prevention for a community is not primarily about saving money. It's about saving lives. For local peacebuilders, prevention means that children go to school instead of joining armed groups, farmers return to their lands, markets reopen, women move safely, Families remain together. Those are the returns communities measure every day. I thank you.

Thank you, thank you very much. I think we, at least I wrote down the sentence that you said, "Success is what never happens," and I underlined it twice. And thank you also for sharing your your perspective. I will now move to Professor de Koning. Professor, thank you for your contributions to this report. Your work draws on complexity theory, on social science, to make the case for more adaptive approaches to peacebuilding. Could you share some of these core ideas and speak to where you've seen these concepts improve peacebuilding in practice?

Thank you very much and good morning, everyone. I guess we need a researcher on the panel to introduce some theory, so essentially I think I want to give an academic or research foundation, theoretical framework, for what Anna just explained, because when we talk about complexity or complex systems, Essentially what we are saying is we need to understand the problem we are dealing with as something that is not mechanical. It's not— we're not building a bridge. We are dealing with social transformation, and that is something that is significantly different, and it has implications for how we measure effectiveness and how we measure impact. We have the challenge that we have been influenced by a lot of, let's say, engineering type of thinking. I mean, even the word of our endeavor, peacebuilding, suggests that peace can be built, and we know that that is not the case. Peace is something that is continuously emerging as people struggle to improve their societies and their communities, and it is something that is never fully achieved. It's not something that's ever built. It's something that is always being built, right? And it is something that is therefore also subject to pressures, to stress. Sometimes you can regress and sometimes you can improve, so it is something that fluctuates. It's not a— we shouldn't assume also when it comes to assessing impact that it's something that will always be progressive. Kind of linear line of always going, always progress, right? That's not the reality of our societies, neither in the Global South, neither in the Global North. I'm from South Africa and currently the last 20 years living in Norway. We also have issues around social resilience in Norway, and it's something that we have to continuously work on, and we're going to experience even more pressure on our societal resilience in Norway over the years to to come. So it's not like Norway has achieved peace. We have to work very hard on sustaining peace every day if we want to keep the levels of peace we have today, because we are under pressure from various elements that I will not go into today. So how do you deal with that? And this is where the concept of adaptive peacebuilding that I've developed and that we discuss in the report addresses as a way of dealing with this Complexities of Social Transformation. Essentially, it says instead of us knowing beforehand what the solutions are, as we thought we did probably, you know, 10, 15 years ago when peacebuilding was very much about implementing a preconceived idea around what peace is and a certain value system and certain ideas about the causal steps we need to take to achieve. What adaptive peacebuilding says is we can't know that beforehand. It has to emerge from people affected by conflict or people in societies struggling to achieve peace themselves. It comes out of their practice, and therefore it has to be a continuous adaptive process of learning. As peacebuilders, we have to accompany those societies, and we have to learn together with them constantly and adapt our understanding of what it is we can support. So it's about nurturing peace; it's not about building peace. And I think one— and that's the tension that I think we are discussing here today as well. On the one hand, the need to have more clarity so that we can measure it and convince investment in peacebuilding; on the other hand, doing peacebuilding sustainably in the reality of the context of social transformation that we experience. And one caution that I want to stress when it comes to measuring impact is, you know, in this particular context that the Peacebuilding Peace Support Office finds itself, maybe for you there's a specific focus on mobilizing funding from the donor community, but we should be careful not to measure peace as something that only makes sense for project— donor-funded projects. That is something we do and we need to do that, and that's a contribution to peace, but peace, like Anna explained, is something much broader, and we need to measure that broader social transformation, how societies are experiencing peace, how societies are actually living the things they look at, is what we need to measure rather than measuring projects to please donors. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Professor, and thank you for reminding us that impact will never be progressive and we should look way beyond projects when we try to measure it. The next question is for Jago. Thank you very much for contributing to this report. You also co-authored Pathways for Peace, which I'm sure a lot of us here still read to this day. And Pathways made a comprehensive case for investing in prevention back in 2018. The Peacebuilding Overview Report that we are launching today revisits many of these arguments in today's significantly more difficult environment. So 8 years on, where has Pathways managed to shift decisions, and why do you think that we still find ourselves having to make many of the same arguments again.

Thank you, Paul, and morning, everybody, and thank you, ASG Spehar. It's a real pleasure to have contributed to the report and to be on the panel, such an esteemed panel today. To point out that the report like this— and this may be obvious, but I really recommend taking the time to sit down and read this— reminds me of the Kennedy remark about the moonshot, which was this was 'Not worth doing because it was easy, it's worth doing because it was hard.' But the second part of that quote is because it allows us to organize and measure our energies, and that's why we have to keep writing these reports, because it tells us where we are today, and the next 'Rendezvous' will tell us where we are in a year, and they're not easy to write. We're closing a remarkable week—over 80 events here, all over the world. In London, we had the partners come together in Parliament across faiths, political parties, across organizations. We were hosted by the Moroccan Embassy and the ambassador for a reception, and we held a series of roundtables linked to Climate Action Week. What does Peacebuilding Week tell us? Peacebuilding Week is about demonstrating, giving life and voice to the breadth and depth of the constituency constituency for peace that there is out there, that isn't always in this room, but is in the youth groups and the church groups that are not just celebrating success, but asking where is this peace that we have been promised, that we have paid for. What they're asking for in that constituency is not a series of tools—peacekeeping, mediation, funds, instruments—what they're asking for is that this peacebuilding peace should be a global objective of international cooperation. We would like this to be established as an area, as a target. So that's what Peacebuilding Week, I think, shows us. It galvanizes that constituency. The logic of these reports is it gives direction, it gives an avenue to mobilize and use that constituency to deliver. Pathways in 2018 was very, very much in a particular moment between the development finance institutions in the UN, designed to create a common language, a common objective around prevention, so that we could pull in the same direction together. Pathways, I think, arguably really contributed to the creation of a new system. Many of us were at the Fragility Forum 2 weeks ago, a week ago, I'm not sure. The World Bank is now in its second iteration of a fragility, conflict, and violence strategy, something that 10, 20 years ago would have been frankly unthinkable. But they're not alone. I think every IFI now has some form of fragility strategy. AFTB was way ahead of the pack. Most— many bilateral countries have now got fragility strategies. We have, for the first time arguably in history, a multilateral system that is maintaining a standing offer of financing, policy, knowledge, and personnel to address the risks of conflict. And I think what is particularly new in that space— and so I should flag the EU, I think a month ago actually now, released its first policy or council conclusions on an integrated approach to fragility, joining this broader group. And one thing that is very clear in this, and that's also found in Pathways, found in this report is this is not peacebuilding or prevention as intervention; this is about peacebuilding and prevention as owned by governments and populations. I would argue that that is the future of peace and security in a world where we have moved from 1945—global GDP was $3.5 trillion—to a world where now it's $1.18 trillion. And I would argue that this is the forward-looking of this. Peacebuilding is the future. As I said, and I'll just mention 4 quick points, as I said to Paul yesterday, the importance of reports like this is first that they exist and that they put a line in the sand, and then there are key points in this. I think there are 4 key points I wanted to flag from this report. Firstly, the title: Investing in Peace When the World Pays war. This is not rhetoric. This is— we've seen defence budgets climb in almost every country. I think Qatar, before the recent events, had increased its defence spending by 436%. All of these defence budgets— this is not an argument against defence spending, but if every country is increasing defence spending at the same time, the purchasing power parity of each dollar invest in that. And as the DG was saying, what we're calling for is not that you change defence spending, but that peacebuilding is integrated as a component of national security. This is a title that should be repeated over and over and over again in budget conversations. Secondly, a very important part of this report is the evidence gap that was talked about. It is clear that peacebuilding lags far behind humanitarian and development fields in its data practices and evidence. The humanitarian system can tell us on a daily basis precisely how many people received food aid, food assistance, where, at what cost, and how needs have evolved over time. This is— we won't go into humanitarian system, but this is a requirement., I think, for peacebuilding, that we need to have something that's measurable. And as Cedric was saying, not just in terms of the projects, but in terms of the overall stability and security of populations in their countries. We have the data, we have the technology to do this today. I think it's a requirement, and I think the report underscores that. The third point— and Cedric talked about adaptive peacebuilding, and I'm very glad that he's here and that he contributed— is another point that the report makes very clearly on adaptive peacebuilding is you must not withdraw. I think this has been a very fraught debate in the background this year, but what you see in the new FCB strategy for the World Bank is remaining engaged remains there. The integrated approach to fragility of the EU, remaining engaged remains there. Peacebuilding is not about stop and start, but arguing that as violence escalates,, so must the investment in peace, because the end result if we don't is simply growing humanitarian budgets and crisis response budgets. And then the last point, and I will end at this, is the secret of all policy, like all comedy, is timing. And the timing of this report is exceptionally important. We have a world that is in— in a moment of tremendous transitions happening in this house, but also globally. And to put out a report at this precise time, before the GA, and frankly so that we have the time to read and absorb and digest and develop our positions, is fundamental about demonstrating both the coalition, the core piece, and the roadmap on the way forward. What it says is that we need to look at peacebuilding differently, as an aspiration perhaps, but we need to stop, or we need to manage talking about separate tools alongside talking about a shared objective. As a community, we need to stop talking in separate spheres— fragility over here and peace over here— and talk about one objective, which is that we want to use the financing and— that we have available to build into a more peaceful, sustainable, and growing world. Conflict is no longer contained to the countries in the Fragile and Conflict Afflicted Situations List. Its costs— displacement, supply chain disruption, energy insecurity, insurance— are borne globally. We feel them in the UK, very tangibly at the petrol pump, and I think this report I think the report comes at a time when we need to be reminded that the costs of not investing in peacebuilding and not investing in peace is inevitably a world with a more violent equilibrium, and that in many ways we argue all the time about proving what hasn't happened, but I think we are seeing the proof right now that we are moving into a world that is more expensive and more violent. So commendations to the team, commendations to the ASG for the peacebuilding report. Compliments, everybody, for the peacebuilding week. And I think this is the right moment, the right ambition to say honestly what we want the peacebuilding work to do, and I hope we can all meet that as we go forward. So thank you.

Thank you very much, Jaco. I want now to give the floor to Sasha from Peacebuilding. From the IMD. And first to thank you and your team really for contributing to this report. One of the central arguments within it is that peacebuilding can only be successful and sustainable if it is nationally owned. Why is this particularly significant at this time? And what is the paradigm shift in conflict prevention that you analyze and describe in the third chapter of the report.

Thank you so much, Paul, and bravo to you and colleagues on this report. I think from our perspective, prevention is a core mandate of the United Nations, and since 1945, arguably, has been one of its most difficult. And this is a very difficult moment to talk about it in this environment with a rise in global conflict and a resurgence in interstate war. And yet I think we all agree the solution is to focus on what works and build on that, which is more than is known. And this is where the evidence gap comes in that you highlight. And what's really resonated for me during this this week is precisely that, and implementation and impact obviously play a major role in that. The Pact for the Future, when it was adopted by member states, reaffirmed this commitment to prevention and peacebuilding and looked at prevention at two levels. The first was at the international level, so preventing conflict between states, and there the tools are rooted in the UN Charter, preventive diplomacy, mediation, good offices. But it also reaffirmed this importance of national prevention, and of course the twin resolutions really picked this up, and it's amazing for me to see how much this language has now entered the bloodstream and the discourse.— and it's really, really encouraging amidst a gloomy international picture. I think it is worth celebrating that. And when you ask about the paradigm shift, I think there are two really important points, but I'd be very interested in the views of others, of course, on this. But maybe to say that it has always been recognized that prevention is the primary responsibility of member states. But what is new, I think, is that the recognition, more explicit, that international support is vital, but prevention will not be successful without that national vision and that national leadership. There's no substituting for that. And the second point is, I think, what has been alluded to by the speakers before me, and I really want to pick up on that because I think it's critical, is that in this day and age, in this geopolitical moment, in this uncertain transition towards a new global order, with the conflict data that we have, with the other challenges that we have, as your report very clearly lays out, with the interconnected global compounding risks that member states are grappling with, prevention is simply not something that applies to a subset of conflict-affected countries. And this, I think, is a recognition that is beginning to take hold. And it's been really inspiring for us to see when member states have come to the PBC even to present national peace architectures, national peace efforts, national peace strategies. They're often called very different things. And these are member states from the Global South as well as the Global North. And I remember distinctly one member state sitting on this podium saying, there's no stigma in self-reflection. And here goes my phone. And I think this is the— really the key moment, because if we can find an approach that is more universal, that all countries are doing, that normalizes prevention, that destigmatizes prevention, then I think this shift can really happen., and we're excited to see it, we're excited— we hope this momentum continues and we're excited to support it. And if I can just finish maybe on a personal note, because we know, of course, that the means of implementation are really important and your report highlights this, and it's really been a message that's come very strongly from this week in all the meetings I've been to. I worked as a peace and development advisor once, deployed by a joint program by, uh, that's run by DPPA and UNDP, which is designed to support the UN and national actors to build national capacities for conflict prevention. It's a great job, it's one of the best jobs in the UN system. And one of the biggest innovations for me was it's great to have the international peace and development advisors, but a great innovation has been a real growth in our cadre of national peace and development advisors who who come to the UN system at the country level, often, and I'm thinking of some great colleagues in Kenya and elsewhere, from their national peace institutions and help teach us on what has happened in their country and how the UN can best support. And that process of learning at the country level and then seeing those colleagues either go back to their national institutions or become international peace and development advisers and bring the knowledge from one place to a very different context where some of the similar lessons may be useful. That, I think, has been a really inspiring innovation. And with all the means of implementation that the report highlights, I think it's very interesting to see how innovative, nimble support that is done in a creative cross-pillar way and brings in partners, as you have laid out, those kind of investments don't cost the world and they can go a long, long way. And your report really helps make the case for that. So bravo again, and thanks for having me.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Sasha, and also for explaining how, you know, prevention does not, of course, only apply to conflict-affected countries, and that it must be destigmatized.

Now, before—

we will hear from the Ambassador, from Ambassador Monari, at the close of this session, and before that, we wanted to open the floor. Please, you can raise your hands, and then we will give you the floor. Feel free to make an intervention or to ask a question to any of our panelists.

So, yes, Bushra. No surprise, if for those who don't know me, my name is Bushra Hassan. I'm Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor with the Peacebuilding Fund. My many, many congratulations to Impact Hub for this fantastic report. The title itself gave me goosebumps. Of course, thank you for giving us time to absorb it before the General Assembly. I did, of course, want to connect some of the things that were just said by the esteemed panelists, starting with— I want to say thank you for mentioning the impact evaluation event that we are having. To say what you mentioned about how do we measure prevention, and the fact that we have an example for Guatemala, which is the first ever innovative way, but it is also— captures the three pillars of Peacebuilding Week, which is partnerships. We couldn't have done it without Germany and Canada, who not only support the fund, but in addition also separately supported the measure of prevention. The fact that we had done it with local partners, the fact that the government was involved, the UN entities, it is about partnerships, and we were able to innovate to —then, of course, measure impact. Also, to say that within Guatemala, and there's, Cedric, what you mentioned, we are really looking forward to the report on adaptive peacebuilding. Peacebuilding Fund is happy to have contributed. Again, an example from Guatemala, which is what Anna, you said, that it's not just the indicators that we develop, but also change projects if they are not working, adapt, be flexible to respond to the— who the peacebuilding is for. And I think that element of being adaptive remains critical. But to close it all up, I think I go on to connect to what Sasha, you just said, which was the reason why two of these examples come from Guatemala is resonated by the video that we saw from the President of Guatemala yesterday. That kind of national ownership, and stewardship of the peacebuilding intervention is what also enables us to learn. And as resources decline, we don't have the opportunity, or we don't— we can't waste resources. And that's why I would also call on our colleagues, so as Impact Hub develops its data platform, to please share your data. Peacebuilding Fund is happy to partner with the Impact Hub to share its data, but of course we call on all of you to share information so together we can be more effective. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Bushra. I think we'll try to take at least, you know, 2 or 3 questions or interventions before handing it over back to the panel. So you're very welcome to raise your hand if you want to make a point. Yes, Christophe, over to you.

Thank you, Paul, and congratulations on an outstanding report. I'm looking forward to reading it. I'm with the Security Sector Reform Unit, which is a new addition to the Peacebuilding and Peace Support Office, and of course the points made by the Director-General of the German Federal Foreign Office and also Jigurh really resonated, that peacebuilding should be an integral component of national security. How do we do that? I have to say I'm quite encouraged. I've seen seen a couple of military advisers from some of our most prominent member states, troop-contributing countries, participating in many Peacebuilding Week events. It should probably be encouraged and done more to involve the military advisers and the police advisers to the United Nations in the peacebuilding community. At the national level, it's very interesting to hear in my own country, France, the senior official speaking about national cohesion and social cohesion, guess what? The Chief of Defence, and it's— and his peers in the French Joint Chief of Staff. But we don't hear it so much from other communities, so maybe there is a need to address peacebuilding with the strategic affairs community, the think tanks specialized in security.— I'm thinking of the one in Berlin or the one in Paris, the IFRI, and of course here in our host country, but also in China and Russia. That's maybe my last point. There are amazing examples of peacebuilding or human security-centered approach to national security emerging in many Asian countries, but somehow they are not engaging at the UN.. And I'm thinking, for example, of Fiji, which just adopted a national security strategy which is grounded on peacebuilding, but I don't think I see colleagues from Fiji here. So maybe it's— there's a need, and the UN is very well placed to bring on board the Asia-Pacific in this conversation.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Christophe, for these very interesting points. Any— Anyone else? Oh, yes, please, in the white shirt.

Hi everyone, this is Luis with GPAC. Thank you for the great presentation and the additional information that the panelists have provided and the great framing. I had a couple of comments. One is connected to what Bushra was saying, and it relates to one of the elements of the report of saying that there we're kind of like lagging behind in terms of evidence. As a global network of local peacebuilders, we believe the evidence is there, and actually Impact Hub is a great kind of like innovative space that we can now have to show that the evidence is there. We've been collecting data, we have the stories, we have the evidence, and one of the big requests we've had, or like big demands we've seen in the past, is Where are those spaces beyond a specific conference or space like this where we can show this evidence? Now, on the other side of the coin, while the evidence might be there, we still— and maybe this is connected to the better narratives— we're still facing a lot of roadblocks in convincing people that what we have is evidence of impact. And not only, as Ana was saying, some things are difficult to measure because they don't happen, there are other things that are happening and for some reason are not being taken into consideration. An example is, you know, for example, survival for us is an outcome. Helping, you know, networks of peacebuilders or mediators in Ukraine and Russia stay in touch and survive is an outcome. Are they going to end the war between the two countries? Probably not. I hope so, but probably not. But the fact that there is investment in keeping these networks alive should be considered an impact, even if the, let's say, traditional reflection of this is not going to be seen until, you know, years, a decade from now. And then the final comment I wanted to make was, again, going back to our local members, we understand kind of like the importance of, you know, providing data, the evidence, telling the good stories. But we think that one of the other paradigm shifts we need to see is that we need to ask the same to the other side, right? Like, where is the evidence that increased spending in defense and that the arms race is having in bringing stability to the world? Because the burden once again comes back to local peacebuilders and, let's say, peacebuilding support stakeholders like international NGOs. So I'll stop there. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I think we were all nodding to your last point there. That's a very, very interesting way to put it. Does anyone else? Yes, I see a gentleman to the left.

Thank you very much, and really appreciate this exchange. I'm Peter Stülpsens from the Latvian Mission, and indeed, for us as well, investing peacebuilding has been increasing priority, but also as also an outcome of the PBAR, we do see that assessment is crucial. We cannot just talk about what we are doing, but also seeing metric results, and I think this report is a very welcome step in that regard. To keep it short, I just wanted to touch upon a point that was raised by the panel on the importance of destigmatizing peacebuilding and prevention, and that's something that we fully agree. At the same time, we would caution against approach where we try to destigmatize prevention by stigmatizing defence and defence expenditure. And I think, for instance, if we label all, say, legitimate defence spending as paying for war, we are kind of leaning into that territory. And for instance, in Europe, which is facing the biggest security challenge since World War II, for European countries, for EU countries that are mentioned in the report,— that's a very difficult job to address their direct security challenges and threats while still balancing the global responsibilities and investment in development and prevention. So I think there's need for a bit more granular and kind of deeper looking into— so what kind of military spending is indeed fuelling further instability and aggression and annexation, etc., and what is something that is kind of must-have for countries to address their direct security needs. So I think in that way we would move to a more, you can say, a credible discussion on this, and also that would help to, I think, also address maybe higher, broader audience even outside this Peacebuilding Week. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Perhaps before we take another round of questions, I just want to check with the panel if anyone would like to respond to any of these points. Yes, I see Jaco. Please, you have the floor.

Just two— I won't respond to all of them, but just two points. The colleague from Latvia, I wholeheartedly agree this is not about a binary choice between development and defence. The challenge, I would say concretely, is that actually you are seeing peacebuilding investments being cut disproportionately in the ODA cuts because it's funded from multiple different channels at the same time. And in fact, what we see and what we need in many cases, as the colleague from GPAC was mentioning, was defence and investment in peacebuilding. Qatar has increased— sorry, not to name countries— but increased defence expenditure at the same time as it increased its investment in mediation, and I think that's what we're what we are calling for is exactly an integration of peacebuilding and investment in peacebuilding as a fundamental component to our security, because it will be. The pathway to bring down the levels of conflict in the world is a pathway that will take us through peacebuilding, and investment in that now will guarantee us greater stability as we go forward. So I agree with you, but we are often in a budgetary situation where there does seem to be a binary choice, which I think is artificial. I think that is the point on Christopher, on the— I think one of the really important reasons why we have this report and why we're discussing it in this room is because it is not just a reflective debate, but it is actually an opportunity to talk to a community who we can begin to bridge the divides between different policy arenas, and I think this is fundamentally important. I speak without construction that's clear. There is not a Western national security strategy, at least in Europe today, that does not talk about social cohesion. It is a very real issue recognized, challenge and threat to national security. Most major metropolitan police units in the UK today have a crime prevention unit because it makes pure budgetary sense. Rather than chasing the crime, you bring down the risk factors., and I would argue that in many cases we see in domestic policy peacebuilding is already being integrated. What I think we're saying with the report and what peacebuilding is saying, as Sasha was saying, is that under national vision, international support should become available. And I think the— just the last point on the Franco-UK Strategic Dialogue that's happening at the moment is making this very similar point, that we see an investment in defence spending, but Europe should also be championing investment in peace and conflict prevention globally.

Thank you, thank you very much, Diego. And just to add something to this point, so the title of the report, we are very well aware of, you know, that we don't want to stigmatise defence spending, and this is why the report is titled Investing in Peace When the World Pays for war, and pays can mean paying to fund war, but also paying from the impact and the cost of war, to suffer from war. So there is this double meaning that we hope people will catch in the title. I want to check if any of the panelists would like to make some reactions to the interventions. Okay, we'll get more then. Yes, Graham, you have the floor.

Hi, Graham Simpson from Interpeace. Just to say, I'm completely thrilled and welcome a report which I have not yet read. I'm particularly interested in the investment and some of the issues that Cedric referred to about the capacity to— how we measure peace and how we measure success in peace, and of course this relates to some of the things Anna said. 10 years ago, Bernard Arévalo, current president of Guatemala, who we were quoting yesterday, was working at Interpeace with me on a project called Frameworks for Assessing Resilience, in which Guatemala was one of the case studies. And it was about saying, can we understand and can we measure the factors in societies that foster peace? That develop peace, and they were very different in Guatemala from what they were in Timor, from what they were in Liberia, because of conflict-specific and context-specific issues. So we shouldn't be too simplistic or generic about this. But we actually aren't assessing resilience. We are always talking about risk, and we're always investing in risk-based analysis. Our conflict analyses are seldom conflict and resilience analyses.. And I think some of the things Cedric was saying is actually we know a whole lot about what makes communities and societies resilient for peace, not just against conflict. The second thing I'd like to say is that we need to recognize that— and I think this has come up now— that this notion of prevention is contested, that those who invest in arms are also talking about prevention. And that sometimes the conversation about deterrence— and there's 100 years of research in the field of criminology which questions the efficacy of hard policing approaches as an effective deterrence, right? There's a lot more there than we know. We're not drawing on it across different fields. But I really think we should think very carefully about how we claim the language of prevention and what it means, because it is itself contested, and we need to recognize that. And then the last thing I want to say is that I have to say, as someone who's spent 35 years in the peacebuilding field, navigating usually with donors how we, on the basis of very skimpy funding, have to demonstrate and prove efficacy, that we can change the world on projectized cycles of one year at a time for tiny amounts of money. And we have to do this because we need to defend the spending to taxpayers in the donor world. And we never talk about how well we measure the investment in the military. We never talk about it. How do we measure efficacy? How do we measure peaceful outcomes in relation to these things? Why do we not ever talk about it? I think this is political. I think we have to contest that space. I think there are anti-war movements that are demonstrating that taxpayers are just as concerned with the investment in military spending and that we need to justify it much more because there's much more spent. And so I really just think that we have to recognize that there is a politics to this conversation about prevention that is actually dysfunctional in the way in which it's demanding something of peacebuilding investment that we never ask of the investment in militarized and securitized responses that are very often counterproductive, that if we measure them in relation to the youth peace and security arena, the massive investment in preventing young people from joining extremist arms groups, a tiny sliver of young people, at the expense of what are we investing in the vast majority of young people who don't join those armed groups? We're not asking some of these questions. I really think we have to be a little bit more and maybe not you, maybe us, a little bit more brave in contesting the space?

I think someone from Switzerland had their hand up early on that I missed.

Thank you very much. I'm Romain Darbolet from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. I come from the development side. I would say, of the room. First, thank you very much, because this report is an instrument that is much closer to the type of tools I'm using and our institutions are using that brings this very concrete element of monitoring and evaluation of the investment in peace., and I very much appreciate the fact that, from what I've seen— of course, I've not had time to read all the report— it addresses and it allows to address three different layers of accountability. The first layer, it has been extensively exposed, is how do we really bring evidence that we are contributing to sustaining peace., and I think that's— it's of course the most important part for this building, for this peacebuilding community. There is a second layer of accountability, and this is the accountability to those who put the money into defence instead of peacebuilding. And this constituency, very often the national parliaments, are asking us to demonstrate that when we say we invest in peace, we can demonstrate them that these— there are quantifiable elements they can show back to their electors that this money has been invested properly, at least for the intended— immediately intended intention. And there also, the report is bringing strong evidence and strong evidence that more evidence can be produced. There is a third layer of accountability that I think is very important. We always talk about this nexus humanitarian-development piece. We've seen that with the reduction of finance, a lot of the money from peace is shifting towards development and towards humanitarian aid. I think we have also to be able to demonstrate the extreme or the over-proportional efficiency of sustaining peace on development indicators and of saving lives—that is the supreme indicator of humanitarian assistance. And I think the report is doing it also, or addressing it, In Switzerland, we have, together with South Africa and the DRC and Costa Rica, and together with the Pathfinders on SDG 16, done a work on trying to cost very precisely how interpersonal violence affects economic output, and there's very clear figures. We've done it in Switzerland. It says that interpersonal violence creates a loss of GDP of 8 points annually. It's enormous. In South Africa, it's almost 200 points. So it led the World Bank to look at these studies and try to use them also to demonstrate that their investments are tremendously more efficient on those indicators if they are peace-sensitive, if they are peace-sustaining. And I think this is— this other layer of accountability has to be taken into account. It's not maybe the most relevant immediately, but it allows to mobilize the remaining sources, the remaining shrinking sources, and the domestic resources. Into putting the emphasis on what has also an effect on the livelihoods of people and the survival of population affected directly or indirectly by violence and conflicts. My question— and I finish on that— is, do you intend to address these different stakeholders and layers of accountability with specific action And do you also need our help to address these different players with specific messages, because there we speak a bit different languages, but the report is equally relevant to these three audiences? Thank you.

Thank you so much for that. I just want to respond very quickly to your very important questions at the end. Yes and yes. I mean, it was hard to craft a report that that would speak to various audiences, diverse audiences within a reasonable length of a report, but we do want to reach those different layers and different constituencies because, again, we all need to work on this together. So, yes, and yes, we would absolutely welcome your support and the support of others in this room. Thank you.

So we will have time to take two additional questions because we really want to hear from the Ambassador, so please try to keep your points brief. But I saw the gentleman there in front. Yes, you have the floor. Okay, thank you.

My name is Mahamadi Togola. I'm the National Network Coordinator of WANEP, the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding. Thank you for the floor. I have one question. Is this Peacebuilding Overview Report take in account or also try to measure the impact of the— or the contribution also of the local organization or civil society regional organization, their contribution at the global outcome of peacebuilding. And also for the reflection, I I also think that regarding our engagements at the regional level, we also think that the relationship between some countries also can impact the peacebuilding effort. How does this report and the new agenda of peacebuilding can take account this situation also? Because if you look at some region, specifically Sahel region, the relation between some country can also be the challenges for peacebuilding effort at the local and regional level. This is my question and some reflection. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And last question. Gentleman in front of me.

Yes, thank you very much. Good morning, dear colleagues. My name is Mohamed Suleiman. I'm from the Permanent Mission of Egypt. Thank you for all the efforts. This anchor event, we believe, is one of the most important events during this inaugural peacebuilding week. Actually, unfortunately, I stepped in late because I was attending also another side event, I'm sorry in advance if my comments or questions have been already addressed. Basically, we believe that the Impact Hub in general is very well positioned regarding the implementation of most of the recommendations inside the PBAR, because it was about one of the most important points that we focused on was about the impact on the ground. Basically, the Impact Hub is very important in this regard, of course. Especially that in the PBAR we requested the PBC to remain as a platform in order to share expertise and information and knowledge, including on the impact. So, of course, Impact Hub is very well positioned. But my question here is regarding also because we requested the SGE to include more data and analysis in his reports on peacebuilding and sustaining peace. So the work of Impact Hub might be also crucial in this regard, so we'd love to hear about that. My second question, I think it's related to the last question from my brother of UNEP, because now also in the context of the UN 80, you are talking about UN-wide system approach, coherence. So also in the In the PBAR gathering information, it was mentioned that it should be— all the UN system should be utilized in this regard, also the participation of national stakeholders. So also would like to hear about the process of gathering information and data inside the reports of the Impact Hub. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I want to check with our panelists if you have some brief responses to the interventions, and then I will give the floor to the Ambassador in a maximum of 4 minutes. So, please, over to you. Thanks so much.

Just a very short comment. I think one other element that is important when we think about measuring effect as an impact is the time duration. I was just— when Graeme took the floor, it reminded me that we both come out of the investment that— it was made in civil society in South Africa in the 1980s. And in the 1980s, the donors would have seen no impact because violence was increasing in South Africa. No one had an idea that apartheid may start to come to an end in the 1990s. And even when it started to come to an end in the 1990s, there was a spike in violence, right? So even although the right things were being done, violence was increasing. So we need to take that complexity into account., and it's because of that prior investment in civil society at a time when it wasn't showing results that the civil society was then able to really help to manage the process and with the good results at the end. So I think we need to understand how we don't need always impact, immediate impact of what we're doing. We need to understand we're doing the right thing, and that's building capacity so that when the moment arrives, that capacity will be in place to help to manage that transition. So that dimension of impact and effectiveness we also need to think about. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, Ana, yes. Thank you very much.

One of the strongest messages in the report is that we do not have a peacebuilding problem. We have a political and financing problem. And it gives us— it tells us— the report tells us that between 2002 and 2024, the world spent $45.2 trillion on military expenditure. Less than 1% of that amount was invested in peacebuilding. So my question is, let us imagine if just 1% of global military spending each year were redirected towards locally-led peacebuilding, what kind of transformation we would have. And the second reflection is about national security strategies. In our view, a modern national security strategy is stronger when it addresses the root causes of conflict, not only military threats. And it is stronger when it includes prevention. And it is stronger when it considers local peacebuilders as a national security asset. I thank you again for the invitation, and I congratulate the hub. For this timely report that will give us a lot to read and a lot to talk in the future. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll check one last time with the panelists if any— okay, I would like to give the floor to the ASG before I will give the floor to the Ambassador of Kenya for the concluding remarks. Thank you.

Very, very quickly because I know that many of you need to move on to to other events, not least our distinguished representative of the Kenya Mission. So simply to answer quickly to some of the questions, in terms of the role of local peacebuilders and peacebuilding at local level, there's an entire chapter devoted to that, so this is something that— one aspect that the report has very much focused on. In terms of the regional perspective, it is addressed or at least alluded to in different parts of the report. I think we could deepen it in future reports. I would just remind that this is the first-ever overview report, kind of setting the stage. We hope to issue one of these reports every 2 years so that we can continue to evolve our discussion on the state of peacebuilding and what more needs to be done, what have we learned, and so forth. But we do very much acknowledge the fact that there are regional dynamics at play, there's conflict spillovers from one country to the next in many contexts. So yes, that is there, but it's something that could be developed further in perhaps in subsequent reports. In terms of the commentary on the role of the Peacebuilding Impact Hub with respect to the Peacebuilding Commission, absolutely, we have been working on that and thinking of how we can support the Commission in generating the impact and the visibility that clearly member states wish the Commission to have in terms of the important contributions that it does make to peacebuilding and prevention efforts, supporting them at the international level. And in terms of the SG reports, absolutely we will have to see how we can get more data into those reports. We have already been, I think, advancing quite a bit on that with respect to the specific report on the Peacebuilding Fund in the last several years. And in terms of data from all of the UN system, absolutely so. First of all, whenever we're talking about the support of the Peacebuilding Fund, the implementers— an important percentage of the implementers are our agencies, funds, and programmes. The role of the Resident Coordinator is always highlighted as being very important, so it does represent an all-of-system approach, but beyond that I would go back to what I think Bouchra mentioned, and that is that there is a peacebuilding impact hub data platform that is being created as we speak, and the data of origin is from Peacebuilding Fund interventions and support, because that is our most readily and quickly available information, but we want to expand it to get data from across the UN system, and eventually from beyond to other stakeholders and other supporters. Thank you.

Thank you very much, ASG. And now it's an honor to give the floor to Ambassador Yabesh Munari, the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kenya to the United Nations. Ambassador, you have the floor. Thank you.

Thank you, Moderator, for this opportunity. Let me begin by congratulating SG Elizabeth Sheba and, through you, the BIS Building and BIS Support Office and the BIS Impact Hub on the launch of this very comprehensive report. I thank the organizers of the meeting for inviting Kenya to participate in this very engaging session and commend all the panelists for their valuable insights. The theme of the overview report, Investing in Peace When the World Pays for War, adequately reflected the current global order. Around the world, conflict is becoming more complex, humanitarian needs continue to grow, and financial resources are increasingly stretched. Yet the report reminds us The cost of failing to invest in prevention will always exceed the cost of investing in peace. It rightly places national ownership at the center of the peacebuilding. Sustainable peace cannot be externally delivered. It must be rooted in national priorities, supported by inclusive institutions, and sustained through partnership that respects national leadership while mobilizing international solidarity. We welcome this inaugural Peacebuilding Overview not only for the evidence it presents but for the direction it offers. It reinforces an important shift in international thinking from responding to crises after they occur to building the institutions partnership and capabilities that prevent them from emerging in the first place. The overview accurately illustrates Kenya's peacebuilding efforts as an evolving paradigm for prevention and sustaining peace. The country receives the support of peace and development advisers deployed under the UNDP TPPPA Programme on Peacebuilding National Capabilities for Conflict Prevention in strengthening this peacebuilding architecture and embedding conflict-sensitive approaches into governance, development planning, and community resilience. A key achievement of the programme was the development of the National Conflict Early Warning and Early Response System. This platform collects, analyzes, and responds to real-time data on potential conflict triggers, enabling timely and coordinated interventions. The system has been vital in preventing election-related violence, managing resource-based tensions, and facilitating local mediation. Our experience affirms that Durable peace is achieved not through externally prescribed solutions, but through nationally owned institutions, inclusive governance, and long-term investment in prevention supported by responsive international partnerships. The overview also makes another direct, timely contribution. It reminds us that Demonstrating impact is now an important— is now as important as delivering it. In a world of competing priorities and constrained budgets, evidence will increasingly shape political will and financing decisions. Investing in better measurement, stronger running, and more effective communication is therefore an investment in the future of peacebuilding itself. Ultimately, peace is not built by reports alone. It is built through sustained political commitment, inclusive partnerships, and the courage to invest in long-term solutions. In conclusion, it is my sincere hope that this publication will serve as both a reference and a call to action to ensure that prevention is adequately financed, Nationally led, locally grounded, and internationally supported. Kenya remains committed to working with all partners to advance that shared objective. I thank you.

Thank you, Ambassador, and thank you, We thank also the government of Kenya for having contributed to the report. So to close off this session, we just want to remind you that we have two more events on Impact Today. Bushra, what time is the Mali-Niger event?

At 1:15 to 2:45.

So if you want more information about that, you can talk to my colleague Bushra. And this afternoon, we have an event on the peacebuilding journey and the transitional justice process in The Gambia at 3:00 PM. Thank you.