Mr. Abdullah Attelb, Second Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Egypt to the United Nations for his remarks. He gave a background on the evolution of the work of the Peacebuilding Commission since its creation in 2005. He highlighted the transformative nature of the 2016 twin resolutions on the review of the peacebuilding architecture and the broadened geographic scope of the PBC engagements in support of the national peacebuilding priorities. He underlined that the PBC’s convening, bridging and advisory roles makes it well positioned to advance efforts aimed at the effective and coherent delivery of peacebuilding activities in the field. He also underscored the growing recognition of the PBC’s advisory role by the Security Council, including during UN transitions.

Ms. Vanessa Wyeth, Senior Policy Adviser at the Permanent Mission of Canada to the UN, emphasized the PBC's bridging role and its role in promoting a more inclusive form of national ownership. As an intergovernmental body, the PBC is the only platform that can bring together actors across the UN system and partners beyond the UN. The value-added of the PBC advisory role to the Security Council is enhanced when it is able to provide advice that the Council is not already hearing from other sources, such as longer-term perspectives on risks to peace. The PBC's greatest strength is that it works on the basis of national ownership, but it also has an important role to play in ensuring that ownership is truly inclusive and reflects diverse perspectives of groups across society, including women, youth, and vulnerable groups. She cited the example of Liberia, where the PBC supported inclusive consultations on a peacebuilding plan and efforts to strengthen capacities of the UN Country Team to inform the peacekeeping transition.

Mr. Vincent Kayijuka, Senior Political Affairs Officer at the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), covered the role of the PBC in building partnerships. He stated that partnership is one of the core principles of the PBC, and that the resolutions acknowledge the necessity of close cooperation between different sectors, including governments, the United Nations, international, regional and sub-regional organizations, international financial institutions, civil society organizations, women’s groups, youth organizations and the private sector.

In addition, Mr. Kayijuka discussed how the PBC has supported and helped build partnerships and indicated some remarkable examples like the Burundi Partners’ Conference held in Geneva in 2012 to which representatives of more than 100 countries and organizations participated. The Conference produced more than US$2.5 billion of pledges by partners in support for the country’s Poverty Reduction Strategy and it built on results achieved by the Government in key peacebuilding areas between 2007-2012 with the PBF support. He further highlighted the response of the PBC to the Ebola crisis in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014-2015, that helped build and reinforce strategic partnerships with key international and regional stakeholders in supporting post-Ebola recovery efforts and in addressing the consequences of the crisis on State fragility, social cohesion and political institutions. He noted the role of the PBC in engaging the IFIs with a view to further collaboration in addressing the economic and financial aspects of the Ebola crisis.

Mr. Kayijuka also stressed the importance of sustaining partnerships in 2020 and how the Commission served as a bridge to discuss ways to help alleviate the impact of COVID-19 on development and peacebuilding in countries under its consideration. It is inspiring see the number of women that engaged the PBC in 2020 and how they addressed issues concerning COVID-19 and its socioeconomic impacts. Lastly, he recalled that in 2020, the PBC continued to strengthen synergies between the Peacebuilding Fund by  ensuring regular updates to the Commission on the work of the Fund.

In the final part of his intervention, Mr. Kayijuka provided participants with some principles and steps for partnerships including: 1) identifying which stakeholders can help achieve one or more peacebuilding goals and estimate their interest with the PBC; 2) defining the relationship parameters; 3) sustaining the relationship through visits and other contacts; and 4) reviewing the terms of the partnership to adjust to new contexts and seize emerging opportunities.

The floor was passed to Mr. Abdullah Attelb for his second intervention where he spoke about the progress made in strengthening the partnership between the African Union and the United Nations in peacebuilding. He underscored the AU’s ongoing efforts to revitalize the African Policy Framework on Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development along with operationalizing the AU PCRD Center. He also listed some challenges related to financing, addressing the AU-UN capacity and resources gap and alignment of policies, strategies and operations. Meanwhile, he highlighted the great potential for deepening the AU-UN partnership, including through benefiting from the reforms conducted in both organizations to foster political coherence and operational coordination, enhancing complementarity of efforts and leveraging on the comparative advantages of each other, and building momentum to sustain support for the AU’s Silencing the Guns initiative beyond 2020. He stressed the need to better utilize the annual consultative meeting between the AU PSC and PBC towards more impactful outcomes.

In the final part of the programme, Ms. Eva Nthoki and Mr. Paolo Fontana, Adviser of the Permanent Mission of Kenya and Political Affairs Officer at the Peacebuilding Support Office respectively, provided information on the PBC working methods.