General Assembly General Assembly

PBC-High Level Meeting in UNGA

(Wednesday, 27 April)

 

 Statement by Ambassador R. Ravindra, Deputy Permanent Representative

 

Remarks

 

Thank You Mr. President for giving me the floor. I join others in thanking Secretary General for his comprehensive briefing on the report and his ideas on augmenting financial resources for peacebuilding activities. 

 

2.    We do welcome the ideas made by Secretary General in his report. Some of the ideas are indeed path breaking, particularly mobilizing finances through public-private partnership; social impact or peace bonds, and blended finance. They will help to find predictable and effective solutions to the perennial problem of finding funds for addressing problems that are global in nature. However, there is we believe need for further careful study on the road ahead.

 

3.    We are passing through most challenging and difficult times. As mentioned in the report, covid-19 pandemic, and ongoing conflicts are having devastating impact across the world. As a result, Member States, particularly the developing countries, are coming under severe financial stress, in their efforts to address developmental challenges.

 

4.    We should do all we can to ensure that funds are available to ensure that PBC is well-funded. It is disappointing that so far, the process to ensure this has not yielded adequate results as has been correctly noted by SG in his report ‘Our Common Agenda’. As a leading Troop Contributing Country, India remains keenly aware of the need for ensuring sustained and adequate financial flows for peace-keeping as well as peace-building.

 

5.    India has regularly contributed to SG’s Peace Building Fund, in a modest way. India has also been extensively engaging countries bilaterally, especially in Africa, on projects related to peacebuilding. 

 

6.    Today, total value, i.e., cumulative value of India’s developmental projects with the global South is more than US$ 40 billion. These include soft loans and grants for projects and capacity building training programme. Most of these projects were either undertaken/committed in the last decade or so. 

 

7.    We have noted SG’s proposal in the new report requesting for the General Assembly to approve the establishment of a funding mechanism through which assessed contributions to the value of $100 million would be appropriated on an annual basis through a dedicated special account, starting from 1 July 2022.

 

8.    We believe, such bilateral partnerships that member states have with countries in PBC configuration, need to be factored in, while discussing the financing for peace building, including when deciding on ‘assessed contributions. 

 

9.    As independent India celebrates 75 years of its independence this year, we know that ‘Peacebuilding’ is all about capacity building! We need to look at building local capacity more seriously, particularly in assisting the host states in the management and maintenance of completed developmental projects.  In this regard, we welcome the recent initiatives taken by DPPA and individual missions to have informal round-tables related to such topics where development voices from the ground-up are given due consideration.

 

10.    We will look forward to further discussions on this very important topic and assure this august General Assembly of our continued constructive engagement. 

 

I Thank you.

 

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