EventsImage galleriesMediaMFAT speeches20032004200520062007Media contact informationMinisters releasesPublications
Madame President
New Zealand commends the United Kingdom for initiating this debate, and for its useful concept paper, Post-Conflict Stabilisation: Peace After War.
We see post-conflict peacebuilding as a critical area of focus for the international community. This is an immediate practical issue, and there are valuable lessons to be drawn from recent experience – as Mr Brahimi has reminded us.
New Zealand is looking to improve its capacity for post-conflict stabilisation while simultaneously "learning by doing" in several missions which run in parallel: statebuilding in the Solomon Islands (in an Australian-led regional operation) and in Timor-Leste (in a UN mission alongside a regional operation), as well as our engagement in the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
As a small state, our contribution is set in the context of broader international or regional responses.
New Zealand, like others, looks to take an integrated approach to help address the underlying causes of these conflicts, with multi-pronged security, diplomatic and development support for stabilisation and state-building which takes account of the local context.
We are keenly aware of the need for the international community to improve its approach to peacebuilding in general, and to post conflict stabilisation in particular. As the UK notes, nearly 30 percent of conflicts that end through negotiated settlements resume within five years.
A military intervention may be necessary in the first instance to stabilise a situation. But for the resolution of conflict to be sustainable we need more wide ranging interventions to deal with the causes of state failure and initiatives to build capacity and social services. These interventions must be coherent, coordinated, and have local ownership. Increasingly we must commit a wider range of government agencies to complex, multifaceted peacebuilding interventions, ranging from the justice system to border control.
UN integrated missions have made considerable progress in addressing these challenges. But we share the concern of the UK and others that, overall, international efforts remain too fragmented, too ad hoc, and often too fleeting.
New Zealand supports the idea of a ‘gap analysis’. The UK has identified at least three critical gaps in post-conflict stabilisation: leadership on the ground; rapidly deployable and skilled civilian capacity; and more rapid and flexible funding. There are no easy answers to the questions in the UK paper but the following are important considerations:
Madame President, allow me to conclude by stressing New Zealand’s continuing commitment to contributing to UN led, mandated and authorised peace operations. These are tangible expressions of our collective responsibility to serve those in post-conflict and fragile states who most need the assistance of the international community.
Thank you.
