I would like to welcome you on behalf of my organization as well as the other co-hosts for today's event. The President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, the UN Global Compact, the United Nations Foundation, the NYU Center on International Cooperation, and the Quaker United Nations Office. This conference is on the topic of sustaining peace, partnerships for conflict prevention, and peace building. We'll begin the program with opening remarks by four speakers, each providing a different perspective on this topic. We will then have two panel discussions, and the panel sessions will include time for audience questions and comments. A few logistical notes before we introduce our opening speakers. We'll have a short break between the two panel sessions. There's Wi-Fi access, open access under the name Columbia University, and you can also access the agenda through your event bright link. The hashtag for this event is peace 72. Peace 72. And we welcome you to use this if you post about this event, and also to watch it throughout the year for new developments. We have a table with some materials in the back, and this event will be live streamed, and the live stream will be available after this event on the President of the General Assembly's website. We'll provide more information about that later. And last but not least, restrooms are located on this floor and the first floor. So with that I would like to introduce our first distinguished speaker. His Excellency Mr. Miroslav Lacek was elected President of the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly on the 31st of May, 2017. His term runs from September 2017 until September 2018. Please join me in welcoming him to the stage. Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. I want to start by thanking our hosts, partners, co-organizers, for having us here this morning. I'm very pleased and excited to be here and to talk about sustaining peace with you. I'm the President of the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly. I have brought into this job almost 30 years of my diplomatic experience, and for all these years I've been a very strong supporter of the United Nations. I really believe that UN is the bedrock of multilateralism. And the central address we have to turn to when we have issues of global relevance. And I want to use my turn and my mandate to strengthen the role of the United Nations. Because it's not given. The relevance is not given. We have to be able to provide right answers to the big and important questions. And when we see the performance of the United Nations, there are areas where UN is clearly in the lead and is setting global agenda. And here, of course, the best example are the sustainable development goals, and also the climate agenda, that the leadership is accepted, and it's followed. And I really want to see the UN playing this role in every other area of our activities. But there is no room for complacency when it comes to peace. Yes, we have fulfilled the dream of the founders of the UN, and we have prevented the world from the scourge of a global conflict, but there are too many local conflicts and regional conflicts, and nobody seems to be in control. Nobody seems to be in charge, and we don't seem to have rules. And that's why we need to talk about peace, about sustaining peace. Sustaining peace is not a new concept. Terminology, yes. But the concept has been here for years. Sustaining peace is a peace that lasts. It's a peace that is firm, that is strong, and that is resistant to economic downturns, to political challenges, or to natural disasters. Simply, it's the peace that is relevant that it's there not for months, or even for years, but for generations. But there are challenges to this concept. There are new elements such as that we see more and more conflicts within states rather than between or among states. We have different parties, what we see, what we call non-state actors. We also see civilians being killed as a primary target rather than as a collateral damage. And we don't have good mechanisms, we don't have good deals and agreements that would help us to deal with all this. So therefore, we need to address this changed nature of conflicts and try to be a step ahead of them. Because right now the conflicts are a step ahead of us and we are reacting to conflicts rather than being able to think about prevention of those conflicts and about the avoidance of conflicts. The very important development in addressing these challenges happened to in April 2016, when both the General Assembly and the Security Council adopted two resolutions on sustaining peace, the twin resolutions. And this is a new development for the peace agenda in the United Nations. These resolutions are rather extensive, but I would like to stress three elements that are very important. First one, focus on conflict prevention. So over the years, UN has become better known for responding to conflict rather than to preventing them and that's one of the major goals of the resolutions is to focus on conflict prevention. So to stop conflicts before they start and to prevent their recurrence. The second important element in these resolutions is the need for predictable and sustained financing for peace. UN spent eight billion US dollars on peacekeeping missions last year and a mere fraction of this money was invested into prevention. We have facts, we have data, especially the UN World Bank report, Pathway to Peace, that clearly shows that investing more into prevention will help us to save billions on dealing with the impact of conflict. And the third important element in these two resolutions is a call for more coherence coordination and cooperation within the UN system. That means the resolution's call to examine the capacities and expertise that is already there to reconfigure them in support of peace, which means breaking down silos, pulling resources, increasing cooperation and coordination between all actors at the headquarter and in the field. And the next very important element of the sustaining peace agenda are the partnerships. Namely, it's been very clear from the beginning that peace cannot be maintained only by diplomats and the United Nations. We need actors such as you. We need civil society, we need academia, we need business community. We need women mediators, peace researchers, community activists, philanthropists, investors. We need all of you because you have your fingers on the pulse. You have the local knowledge. You can detect the early warning signs to conflict. You have access to peace stakeholders. So if we want to be successful in our efforts to prevent conflicts, we need a very strong partnerships. And that's why we are here today. That's why we ask you to speak about sustaining peace and about prevention. And I'm very eager to hear from you. You might know that on 24th and 25th of April, I will be convening a high-level meeting on sustaining peace here in New York at the UN headquarters. It's an event that I've been mandated to do two years after the adoption of sustaining peace resolutions, but I feel very strongly about this event. I don't want this to be yet another standard meeting. I really want to have a very deep discussion about what do we do right and what do we do wrong in sustaining peace and preventing conflicts? What tools do we have at our disposal? How well are we using them? What might be missing? I really want this high-level event to be, in a way, an event that will give greater visibility to the agenda of peace in the United Nations and greater prominence of the peace agenda. We have invited heads of states from countries that have their experience with conflicts and with the role of the United Nations in preventing them or solving them. And we will also be inviting many of you to that event. But our meeting today is one of the very important building blocks where I want to hear from you. And I would like to invite you to be very open and to speak about the agenda from your perspective and from your knowledge and everything that will be said here will help us to prepare the meeting in April. So once again, thank you very much for hosting this and I very much look forward to listening to you. Thank you. Thank you very much for your inspiring and informative remarks. Our next speaker is the chef decabinet to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ms. Maria Luisa Rebero Vioti. Welcome. Good morning, everyone. Your Excellency, Mr. Miloslav Lychak, President of the General Assembly. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, let me start by expressing my appreciation to Columbia University for welcoming us here today. And I think the President of the General Assembly for his initiative in convening today's discussion. Thank you also to the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the New York University Center on International Cooperation, the UN Foundation, the UN Global Compact, and Quaker UN Office for joining in this partnership. I'm also pleased to note the presence of many personalities from government, civil society, the private sector, and academia. I bring to you all warm greetings from the Secretary General, and I'm pleased to share with you a few thoughts about his broad vision for the United Nations. You may recall that almost one year ago on his very day, the first day in office, he issued what he called an appeal for peace, an appeal in which he expressed his concern about the utter waste of armed conflict and highlighted the need to focus greater attention and greater resolve on political solutions to the crisis we face and on inclusive sustainable development as the cure for much of what ails us in our world. The Secretary General continues to highlight a number of megatrends shaping our present and our future, population growth, rapid and often chaotic urbanization, water scarcity, and food insecurity, as well as major developments in science and technology, including artificial intelligence. It is clear that globalization and technological advances have brought major benefits, including an expanding middle class, increases in literacy and life expectancy, and decreases in child mortality and the number of absolute poor. At the same time, we know there have been unintended consequences. The benefits of globalization have not reached everyone. Inequality and exclusion have grown with clear impacts on the cohesion of societies. I can also tell you that one year into his tenure, the Secretary General is very troubled that some of the threats we face have only grown more acute. You will recall that the Secretary General highlighted a number of these challenges in his speech to the General Assembly in September. Global anxieties about nuclear weapons are at the highest level since the end of the Cold War, as a result of provocative nuclear tests by the DPRK. Protracted conflicts have not abated, as too many warring parties believe war is the answer. Counterterrorism efforts have disrupted terrorist networks, but we have yet to fully address the roots of radicalization and avoid counterproductive approaches. There is still inadequacies in global solidarity to address the challenges of refugees and migrants. Cyber security threats have moved from the pages of science fiction into the real world. And of course, climate change and the emerging new normal of extreme weather events continues to put our hopes in jeopardy. These challenges highlight the key element of the Secretary General's vision, the need to prioritize prevention in all its dimensions, crisis prevention, conflict prevention, disaster prevention. First, the Secretary General has been pursuing what he calls a surge in diplomacy for peace, striving to use all our tools and approaches from discreet behind the scenes discussions to public principled, outspoken exhortations in defense of UN values. We are exploring where UN engagement might make a meaningful difference and building closer ties with key partners, such as the African Union and the European Union. The Secretary General has established a high-level advisory board on mediation to strengthen our efforts and our work in this area. But we also recognize the need to support local mediators, women's groups, young people, and religious or community leaders. Second, we are striving to integrate prevention into everything we do, from executive decision-making at headquarters to country-level action by UN agencies. The sustainable development goals offer many entry points to advance preventive approaches and address many of the drivers of instability, including poverty and inequality as well as weak institutions. Third, the sustaining peace concept offers a further path towards increasing coherence and decreasing fragmentation. We are preparing a major report that will be ready in time for the high-level event on peace building and sustaining peace convened by the President of the General Assembly in April. Fourth, gender equality is crucial. While there is a clear recognition of the relationship between women's participation, stability and resilience, too little is being done to operationalize this understanding. To ensure that the UN brings this agenda to life, we are pursuing a wide-ranging effort of reform on which I can report good momentum. We are deep in discussions with the member states about ambitious yet practical proposals for repositioning the development system, strengthening the UN peace and security architecture at the secretariat, and streamlining our internal management. We have introduced a detailed plan to achieve a gender parity across the UN system. We have also introduced a new approach to preventing sexual exploitation and abuse by UN personnel and are determined to ensure that there is zero tolerance for sexual harassment. We want to make sure that the organization observes the highest standard and is perceived as such. All of these reforms are based on the profile of the United Nations as a large field-based organization focused on better delivery across the pillars of our work. Ladies and gentlemen, for too long, the world has tolerated the unsustainable costs of armed conflict. For too long, we have watched as resources that should be channeled to sustainable development instead go to emergency response. We need to change this logic and really work and join up all of the UN, all of society approaches. At the United Nations, we look forward to working with you to bring all our tools to bear on these challenges. In that spirit of partnership, I wish you very fruitful discussions today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you to our two speakers from the United Nations. We're now going to switch gears a little bit, and we will have a speaker from academia and a speaker from the private sector. So our next speaker, our next speaker is my boss, Professor Jeffrey Sacks. He is a special advisor to the United Nations Secretary General on the Sustainable Development Goals and director of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. And he's going to speak on the link between sustainable development and sustaining peace. What is it? Good morning, everybody. It's wonderful to have you at Columbia University. And thank you, PGA and Chief of Staff, for being here. I really want to congratulate the Secretary General and the President of the General Assembly for taking this issue on so centrally. And we are certainly in the most frightening period in memory on the issues of war and peace. This is an extraordinarily dangerous time, unfortunately. And so these issues are of paramount significance for the world. This is also an issue of profound personal angst for me. This week, former President Saleh of Yemen was killed. And he had invited me several years ago to come to Yemen to look at the situation in Yemen. And it was one of the most searing experiences of my life. I'm trying to remember exactly the date. Around 2006, 2005, I became immortalized in WikiLeaks because my speech there was then picked up in one of the release of US government cables because the US ambassador sent home a report. And the report said that Saks said this place is collapsing and it's a great danger for the world. That was 12 years ago. And one of his paragraphs, Saks attacked the IMF's plan for Yemen as, quote, baby economics. He said it offered the country nothing more than an austerity program without a real development strategy and would lead to a collapse of living standards for most Yemenis. And my only point in this is that with a trained eye, probably even better with an untrained eye, perhaps, you could look at the situation and say this is absolutely a disaster. And I was horrified by what I saw. I came back to Washington. Everybody shrugged their shoulders. Why should we care about Yemen of all places? I came back to the UN, shrugged shoulders. And of course, Yemen became not only an utter catastrophe but a continuing danger for the region and for the world. And just horrific. Well, our system was unable to respond in any way intelligently to the underlying challenges of ecological catastrophe, growing poverty, cot addiction. You name it. It was horrible to see even a dozen years ago. But you could tell that this is a place that's sliding into chaos. And with all the provocations externally. So I think we should start from the proposition we're not, we don't take this seriously. We don't take war and peace seriously, unfortunately. And we don't focus very much on it. In general, as an economist, I would say that this is, of course, war is the stupidest, most costly, most destructive of all human activities. And the costs are absolutely phenomenally large. And they swamp by orders of magnitude anything we do for active development purposes. If you look at the costs, which we generally don't do, I just make a list of the obvious points, all of the direct outlays on military and armaments, the destruction, all of the basic needs and emergency response, the reconstruction and resettlement for what we blow up one day. And then we have a donor's meeting to reconstruct it the next day, absorbing all our development assistance, the refugee movements and displacement, the costs of peacekeeping. It's unbelievable what we pay. Try to get a penny for development ahead of time. And you're told, why should we do that? Why should we open our wallets for them? And then $10 trillion later, literally, we wake up to the next thing. Or we have a quick war in Gaza. Then we have a donor's meeting to raise billions of dollars for what we just bombed the weeks before. So this is not right. We don't have the institutions to address this. We have some very interesting think tanks, for example, at Brown University that now spends its time trying to cost some of these elements. The direct budgetary outlays for the US adventures in the Middle East have been about $6 trillion since the Afghan war began in December 2001. $6 trillion. I can only tell you from the SDG side what $6 trillion would have meant for saved lives, for children in school, for stable societies, for economic development, for ecological safety. It's unbelievable what we lose and what we squander our money on. I commend to you the peace index of Steve Killea and his foundation. Their estimates are, and I think they're valuable estimates, that the annual costs of violence added all up are on the order of 11% to 13% of global world product. And that means, since the world product at international prices is on the order of $120 trillion, that the annual costs all in of violence are more than $10 trillion per annum of what we are squandering, what we're spending on military outlays, on policing, the costs of lives lost, the costs of damage, and so on. The United States, shown in yellow here, my country does not rank very high on this index. It's one of the most violent and one of the most costly places in the world. And I think that that is absolutely correct. We have a principle and sustainable development that polluters pay. And the idea of polluters pay is that you internalize the costs of pollution that way. We need a warmongers pay idea as well. War is an externality. It's the ultimate externality. It is imposing costs on others. We need to internalize the costs of the externality. My view is, if you blow it up, you rebuild it. If you blow it up, don't have a donors conference asking for other people to rebuild it. And we need to internalize the costs. We need to put the costs more on the UN Security Council members and the P5. They're responsible for the peace in our international system. And they should be responsible for cleaning up the mess when the peace fails, because it's often a failure of the Security Council to keep the peace. So I really believe we need to think about the economics of this, how horrendous, wasteful, and how externalized the costs of conflict are, and to bear some responsibility. So I'd like to suggest a warmongers pay principle. Maybe you can phrase it a little bit better. But to my mind, this is part of what we need. Of course, we need to be systematic about this. Conflicts come in many shapes and forms. I think there are at least three kinds of conflicts that we're dealing with constantly. True civil wars, though there are many fewer of them than seem to be the case. Proxy wars, and there are many more of those than we acknowledge, and then interstate wars. Most civil wars in this world are proxy wars. They exist, and they're stoked by major powers. So they're funded, armed, lots of covert operations. And I regard the Syrian war, for example, not as a civil war, not even as an uprising against Assad. But as a proxy war, where regional powers in the United States tried to bring down a regime, it failed. But it did displace 10 million people. And it cost billions of dollars of damage. And it totally created upheaval in Europe because the refugee crisis was a predictable, tragic consequence of this attempt at regime change. So we should understand what the origins of these crises are if we're going to deal with them more effectively and make those responsible bear the costs. There are many causes of these conflicts. I put on this list of rows geopolitical and strategic. And I'm sad to say that's probably the main cause of conflicts in our world still today is that there's too much meddling by major powers rather than the local conflicts. Because local conflicts, generally the local combatants, don't have the means to carry out large sustained military operations unless they're funded by the outside, unless they're armed by the outside, unless there's meddling by the outside. War is expensive. Destruction is expensive. Somebody has to pay for it. And generally, that doesn't happen just internally. So I think a typology is really important for us to understand this and for us to be able to get a handle on this. There are lots of studies of sources of conflict and lots of risk factors and the ability to identify risky places. What I could see with my eyes in Yemen surely would have shown up in Ladbrook's risk estimate if they were running a betting pool as a high risk environment. So there's lots of capacity to identify underlying risks and to anticipate where these conflicts are likely to come. We don't have that. And I think we're missing, therefore, many important institutions if we were to take this seriously. As far as I know, and I'm not an expert on this, but as far as I know, the UN Security Council does not systematically do risk assessments. There's no systematic reporting of likely flash points in the world and using statistical techniques also to highlight risk areas. We have obvious flash points in the world today where there is, in my view, no effective mediation taking place. Of course, there's diplomacy, whether it's effective or not, we'll find out. Maybe we'll find out because if the worst happens, we won't have time to find out. But we're in dire circumstances in several places in the world and war could break out that would be completely catastrophic. And I'm not sure that mediation is really occurring. When conflicts occur, we do not have clear reporting of costs, damages, combatants, external influences, arms flows, and so forth. I've never seen more misinformation than in the Syrian conflict, for instance. Terrible reporting, unfortunately, missing the big power picture, casting it as an internal conflict, not properly reporting actual arms flows, actual covert operations, actual regional and proxy aspects to the conflict. And I think that this allows these wars to go on in very dangerous ways. We do not have systematic analyses, as far as I know, of war and peace inside the system. How much did a conflict cost going through all of the different dimensions? Who's going to pay for recovery for peace building, for so forth? Who put in the weapons of destruction and who needs to bear the burdens? And we don't have effective institutions for funding, either prevention or reconstruction and peacekeeping. Again, we do not internalize in any way the externalities right now. Most of the system is designed for misdirection to keep the fingers not pointed at culprits and to, I think, diminish rather than clarify what is really at stake. Well, that's how big power politics works. But on the other hand, the United Nations is not big power politics. The United Nations is our most vital system for keeping the global peace. It is, in my view, the best hope for the world and strengthening the UN's capacity for honest and transparent and important and anticipatory assessments is our best hope for survival. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jeff. And I just want to note, in the interest of time, we're giving very brief introductions. But you can find more complete bios for our speakers. If you go to your Eventbrite and click on Read More, you'll see a link at the bottom to speaker bios. I'd now like to introduce our fourth keynote speaker, Ms. Shamena Singh. And she will give us the perspective from the private sector. She is president of MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth. Welcome. Thank you, Lori, for that introduction. Your excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I'm honored to be here today to address the private sector's role in advancing the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, and in particular, Goal 16, Building Peaceful and Inclusive Society, and what that means to MasterCard. First, I'd like to commend his excellency for making the cause of building lasting peace a key priority. And through your call for partnerships, acknowledging the role the private sector can play in assisting governments and the UN in fulfilling this goal. While many of you may think of MasterCard as the piece of plastic in your wallet, all of your wallets, we are actually a technology network built on virtual trust that allows buyers and sellers in 210 countries and territories to transact in a simple, stable, and secure way. We have more than 50 years of experience connecting people and businesses who trust that the MasterCard network will connect them and seamlessly move their money from point A to point B. It's this foundation of trust built on technology and expertise that we believe contributes to today's conversation on sustainable peace. Just as I wouldn't expect you all or the panelists to represent all of the perspectives of civil society and government, I cannot speak for the entirety of the private sector. Rather, I'm here today to share our approach to engaging private sector actors to help build peaceful and inclusive societies. When we think about the targets for goal 16, reducing trafficking and violence, illicit arm flows, corruption and bribery, and providing legal identity for all, we see our vision of a world beyond cash playing an important role. The fact is, cash usage has become a major threat in our society. It's expensive. It's inefficient. And it facilitates crime and corruption. Terrorism is funded by cash. Black money moves across borders in cash. Drug wars are fueled by cash. And the wrong public officials are corrupted using cash. Yet cash still accounts for more than 80% of the world's transactions. In the US, that number is 50%. In India, it's 90%. And in Brazil and Germany, it's 80%. The high cost of cash is not just a developing market issue. It's in developed markets, too. And it's undermining the peace-building efforts of every person in this room. We estimate that cash costs developing countries $1.26 trillion per year. That money could be much better used to lift those who are living on less than $1.25 a day out of poverty. And with $2.4 trillion a year needed to achieve the SDGs by 2030, cash is a saboteur that we can't afford. Two of the biggest problems of the world, and catalysts for conflict, are inequality and exclusion. And cash fuels both. The inability of 2 billion people to safely receive and store money, pay bills without standing in line for hours, save for education, or invest in starting a business, hinders their productivity, and limits their potential. We believe sustained peace can be achieved by ensuring fair, lasting, and shared prosperity for all people leading to a stronger middle class and more inclusive societies. In 2010, our CEO Ajay Banga laid out a vision of a world beyond cash and directed the company to commit to eliminating cash through financial inclusion. He believes that doing well as a company goes hand in hand with doing good for society. They are not competing values. So we implemented a purpose-driven business strategy to be a force for good in the world while creating opportunities for sustainable, long-term growth by aiming to reach the more than 2 billion people around the world who have been excluded from financial services. Since that time, we have worked with governments on more than 1,500 programs in 60 countries and connected 360 million people around the world to financial accounts. We are over halfway to our goal of reaching half a billion people by 2020. With the majority of the financial excluded being women, we've learned that when you empower women and give us more control over household finances, we are much more likely to invest it back into our families and communities for the betterment of society. For example, a study in Mexico showed that debit card disbursements to low-income mothers receiving their social subsidy resulted in marked increased savings. But what good is a debit card if that mother in Mexico has nowhere to use it? That's why we've also committed to connecting 40 million merchants to financial services by 2021. When you connect these businesses to the formal economy with affordable ways to accept electronic payments, you catalyze inclusive growth. And this is where industry players like MasterCard can contribute with solutions that offer low-cost electronic payment options for smaller merchants to join the digital economy. We are also partnering with other purpose-driven companies like Unilever to help small merchants grow their businesses and local economies. We're also addressing exclusion for the 1.5 billion people who don't have formal identification. This is a key target for goal 16. Despite recent progress, more than one in four children under the age of five don't have birth certificates. My mother included. In countries like Egypt and Nigeria, we're linking digital identity to payments through mobile phones and cards because we know that universal ID not only empowers citizens to claim their rights and the benefits owed to them, but it also generates cost savings for governments and accelerates inclusive growth. Yes, we are doing all of this because we believe it's the right thing to do, but it's also key to our company's future. Business cannot succeed in a failing world. That's a practical reality. Peace, justice and inclusion are good for business. Businesses like MasterCard are in an ideal position to be a force for good in the world by linking our development efforts to opportunities that can foster long-term peace and prosperity. It's a missed opportunity when we don't leverage what the private sector does best, which is bring investment, innovation and scale to the table to create solutions that reduce conflict and build towards peace. Research shows that companies pursuing strategies aligned with the global goals could open economic opportunities worth more than $12 trillion and generate up to 380 million jobs globally by 2030, but we cannot do it alone. Our success, indeed your success, depends on strong and sustained partnerships. There's a song often sung around this time of year that goes, let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. There is unlimited need in the world and the resources to meet these needs must be organized to maximize. So achieving peace on earth has to begin with us all working together. There are too many problems and too many expensive problems in the world to solve purely by putting philanthropic and government dollars to work. We have to combine those resources with the capital, energy and intellectual horsepower of the private sector. If we do this, we will have made a contribution greater than any single company, government or development agency could have done on its own. This will light the pathway from poverty to shared prosperity and we stand ready to blaze that path with you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would like to invite our first panel to the screen. I'm sorry, to the stage. We're gonna adjust the screen and I don't know about you but I've already had a wealth of ideas on this topic from our four opening speakers. So thank you all again very much. So while they're preparing I will say a few words about this first panel. This is on the topic of conflict prevention in sustaining peace. This panel will emphasize how conflict prevention can play a key role in sustaining peace and will situate in the context of other mutually supportive agendas such as those for sustainable development and human rights. The panel will also look at how different actors can best contribute to the preventive aspects of sustaining peace. The moderator for this panel will be Ms. Paige Arthur who is deputy director of New York University's Center on International Cooperation. Paige, I turn it to you. No, it's on, it's on. Just wasn't close enough. Hi, good morning. Welcome and first of all I would really like to extend thanks and acknowledgement to the office of the president of the General Assembly for organizing this event and for all of the people who have put this together and worked very hard to do so. In this opening panel I'd actually like to bring your attention back to the remarks of the president of the General Assembly this morning. Our panel is about prevention and sustaining peace and as he mentioned we are facing today violent conflicts that are significantly more complex than they have been in the past. And this includes new conflict drivers. Many of them mentioned by the chef de Camunet in her remarks. These new conflict drivers are laid on top. They overlay old conflict drivers that we're used to and the devastation of these conflicts we're witnessing them in places like Syria, like Yemen as discussed by Professor Sacks in such moving and human terms. So what specifically does prevention mean in this changing world? How can we make the case for prevention when as Professor Sacks showed most of our money as being spent elsewhere? And in this regard I wanted to urge you in the audience to look again at the economics of war described by Professor Sacks and perhaps take a look at the new pathways for peace report released by the UN and the World Bank in September which has a very interesting piece of research making the business case for prevention and they've developed those numbers in the very first section of that report. So this panel is about sustaining peace as a way of meeting the challenge of prevention and sustaining peace in this regard as a guiding concept that can help us reframe our analysis, reframe our objectives, think more jointly about analysis, jointly about objectives, develop new partnerships, be creative and ultimately change our practice, the way that we do things. And so with this said, let me just highlight the four questions, both for you and also for our speakers for this panel. So we were interested in discussing the specific ways that sustaining peace approach is helpful in preventing conflict. We wanted also to talk about the relationship between sustaining peace and other regimes and frameworks which we've already been discussing actually in opening remarks such as the SDGs, SDG 16 on peaceful, just and inclusive societies, the guiding principles on business and human rights, women, peace and security, other relevant frameworks. Is this something new or is it really complimentary and mutually supportive of these other frameworks? Another question is where in the cycle of conflict do actors in your field, whether it's private sector, human rights, peace building, where do they typically engage or intervene in a conflict cycle? And how does sustaining peace offer new ways to think about when and how to engage? And then finally, how have a wide variety of actors, whether it's the UN, private sector, civil society, already been engaging in a sustaining peace approach, whether they've been calling it that or not and if we can identify some concrete examples of that to give some flesh to this, I think that would be very helpful. So we are going to start the panel today with a representative from the United Nations and I'll just go in order of the listing of the speakers on the agenda. So our first speaker is Asif Khan, who is the Chief of the Mediation Support Unit at the Department of Political Affairs and of course works on these issues every day. Thank you very much. I'll make some brief comments, but before I do that, I just want to say I'm really happy to be here, to be at my alma mater, so I used to live right next door, so it's a good day for me. Thank you very much for organizing this event and I want to of course thank the President of the General Assembly especially for his focus on this issue of sustaining peace. And I speak here today on behalf of my department, but also the wider peace and security sort of area in the United Nations. I think in our imagination when we think of diplomacy we associate it with high level mediation, some of the work we support in our team with Security Council debates and a lot of track one work which often happens behind closed doors and away from the public eye. So when Professor Sacks talks about mediation not happening in a number of key areas, I think to some extent that's true, but it's also true that there are a number of efforts that go nowhere, that we keep trying, but that is away from the public eye. But that's sort of the public imagination on what diplomacy is. We know that these efforts, if they're pursued in isolation and important as they are and high level as they are, the numbers show that they do not prevent the lapse or relapse or escalation of conflict in the long term. The numbers on return to conflict in a number of areas after peace agreements have been signed are quite startling and disturbing. So this is why obviously we think from the point of view of my department but also the UN that the sustaining peace agenda is an integral part of our core mandate which is to prevent conflict and we're very much invested in this. And I think on prevention, before I say anything else, I think the one thing that I would like to say as a starting point or as a fundamental bottom line is that when we think of prevention and when we think of early warning, there's a lot of discussion about early warning. We need to do better early warning. We need to collect better information. I think a lot of that is very true. We do need to do better conflict analysis. But quite often we do know, we do have all the early warning signs. We do know what's coming on the horizon. It's the entry points that are the problem. It is finding the leverage, the resources, the means to be able to address a number of brewing conflicts. So we know for instance that in a certain country, leaders who stay in power for too long, that there will be warning signs and that there will be problems on the horizon. But we're basically stuck for a number of reasons, whether they apply to the region, whether they apply to the dynamics of that country or whether they apply to the most basic thing which is a lack of political will. A few words on demystifying sustaining peace, so to say, at least the way we look at it, which is obviously it is about getting the Department of Political Affairs, but also our colleagues in peacekeeping or in peacebuilding together, inside and outside, to work together coherently for a long-term inclusive vision of sustaining peace. Now obviously that is easier said than done, but this kind of inclusive vision must include a few key factors. The first of all, fundamental is to work with the host government and to try and ensure that their vision is similar to our vision, but their vision is the most important thing. You have to work with the authorities, with the host government rather than at cross-purposes or as international external actors who come in and say, we are going to tell you how to do things. No, it really has to be owned by them. That will bring you the biggest chance of success. All of this is also the guiding principles for the UN's engagements in these countries, and that includes, of course, not just the political and peace and security actors, it includes development, human rights and humanitarian. And again, I think it goes without saying that it's not easy to do, and quite often we do, even within our system, sometimes work at cross-purposes. I think it also has to guide our partners, and then that includes those that are regional organizations, sub-regional organizations, the IFIs, international financial institutions, civil society organizations, and the private sector. So this being said, I think I should say that a call for coherence must sound familiar to you. It's not the first time the UN has said this. I mean, we've been talking about delivering as one and one system and one team for many, many years. And I think it's important to say that a lot of what's planned for under the sustaining peace agenda is already underway. It's really to try and reformulate it and try and encapsulate it in a way that everyone is included. It requires, I think it requires political will. As I said earlier, it requires financing. Financing is important, and it's some of the proposals on financing are really at the heart of the report on sustaining peace that is due out soon that the Shapti Cabinet was mentioning earlier. And of course it requires a change in mindsets and bureaucratic cultures inside the UN and with our various partners. I think just a few words on the SG's Secretary General's report on sustaining peace, which is going to come out soon. I think it pushes the envelope further because it talks about a few key things. One is coherence. What does that mean? It's easy to say. That means basically joint programming. It means joint conflict analysis. It means basically redesigning the way country teams work in a number of countries. It's about how basically resident coordinators in non-mission settings work. So there's real, there's some real concrete recommendations behind what coherence means because of the seeming divide or gulf between what are development actors and what are peace and security actors. It also addresses leadership. Leadership is fundamental. Somebody has to do some of these things. And so that's quite important. And then finally talks about partnership. I think I'm running out of time so I'm just gonna very quickly say right at the end that one concrete example on the sustaining peace agenda and one good example is the joint program that we have between the UN Secretary between DPA and UNDP, which is really about having peace and development advisers across the world. Right now it's about 45 to 50 countries, but it's something we want to replicate. It's a good example of how to link prevention and development, which is really at the core of the sustaining peace agenda. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Khan. So in the interest of time, I'm not going to summarize any comments. I know that we're running a little bit behind and maybe someone from the Office of the PJ could signal how long we want this panel to go since we're about 30 minutes behind. But I'd like to now introduce Mr. Narendra Kakkar, who's the permanent observer for the University of Peace in Costa Rica and thank him also for coming all of this way to share his thoughts on prevention and sustaining peace. Thank you very much. I think we need to commend the initiative taken by the President of the General Assembly, His Excellency Miroslav Lasha, to convene this dialogue on a subject which we in the University for Peace consider to be crucial in the process of conflict prevention and peace-building. And for putting emphasis on partnerships, the involvement and active participation by all stakeholders is key to the success of efforts in peace-building. I would like to distract and go to the comments Professor Jeffrey Sachs made about Yemen. As you might have noticed from my biographical data, I went to Yemen 49 years ago to start the UNDP program. I wasn't the head of the mission. And Yemen was going through somewhat of a similar situation even at that time. The former ruler, Imam, had been overthrown and he fled to Saudi Arabia, but he had a band of soldiers or forces, you may call them, who were trying to create unrest. And he was actually controlling the North Eastern part of what was then North Yemen actually. They were two countries at that time. And of course the fighting was going on between the royalists and the Republicans who were led by the army. And it really, 49 years down the line, I see Yemen hasn't come out of that situation. It's really very, very painful. And Yemen is not the only example, as Professor Jeffrey Sachs said. There are many others which for external reasons get into situations like that. Now, let me for a minute talk about the organization I'm representing here today, the University for Peace, which was established pursuant to a General Assembly Resolution 3555 of December, 1980. The former president of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Carazzo, late Rodrigo Carazzo had made the proposal to the General Assembly to set up an institution of higher learning for peace building and conflict resolution. So the resolution that established the university of peace had the aim of providing humanity with an institution of higher learning and with the aim of promoting among all human beings the spirit of understanding. The wider mission of the university should therefore be seen in the context of the mandate and aims of various activities of the United Nations. The central importance of education, training and research to build the foundations of peace and progress to reduce prejudice and hatred on which violence, conflict, and terrorism are based was recognized while the university was established. I'm reminded here of the idea of peace through education. That is the disarmament of the mind. Disarmament of the mind of the urged and evil thoughts that result in conflicts. This principle is very well enshrined in the preamble of the UNESCO Charter which says since wars are born in the minds of men, it's in the minds of men where we have to erect ramparts of peace. And how do we do that? In order to achieve peace, we must put to use one of the greatest and most effective means of ennobling and transforming man. And that is education. In this way we can forge in the minds the thoughts and habits of peace, bring peace into our hearts and minds and then into the world of politics. Also we have to keep in mind that peace is not the end of conflict or an interlude between conflicts. It's a constantly renewed challenge. It requires by its very nature, measures of precise and diversified knowledge, both theoretical and practical. What is involved is marshalling of our intellectual faculties. U-Peace, talking about what the University of Peace, which is popularly known as U-Peace, has incorporated the concept of conflict prevention for peace building in the curricula of all its programs, all its master degree programs, putting emphasis on conflict prevention, conflict analysis. In addition to conflict resolution, I think most of the time we talk of conflict resolution, but conflict prevention does not get much attention. In the peace and conflict studies programs, there's a specific master's degree program on peace and conflict studies. Students get training in specialized courses and the subject, in addition to the general course, taught in programs. U-Peace has been involved on different initiatives over the years, providing, for example, training for capacity building of armed forces, police forces, in different countries around the world. For example, Honduras, Uganda, Colombia, among others. On the area of social intervention, the case of, I'll give some examples, three, four examples of what we're doing. For example, on the border of Uganda and Kenya, we have a project called Karamoja Region. The university launched this program four, five years ago and it's a cross-border project aimed at mitigating pastoral violence within the Karamoja cluster of Kenya and Uganda. The project uses people-to-people approaches with a focus on community theater, sports, et cetera. And various academic research and governmental institutions are involved. Another one is on disarmament and we have carried out programs to train women actually, specifically women, on peace-related issues, focusing on strengthening tools for women's education. There are many such examples which I could give if we had time, but U-Peace, I like to raise the point of financing, adequate financing. U-Peace does not get any subvention from the United Nations or from any assessed budget. It gets its resources from voluntary contributions from some governments, from some NGOs and some research institutions. A reference was made by Professor Sacks about the cost of conflicts, $10 trillion a year. I mean, if we could get just a small percentage to focus our attention on education for conflict prevention and peace-building, the world would be much better. So lack of adequate financial resources for peace-building and conflict prevention is a major problem. We have therefore to develop awareness of the need for conflict prevention for sustaining peace. Conflict prevention costs for less than the large amounts needed and spent on conflicts. We are glad that the president of the General Assembly will convene a high level meeting of the General Assembly on peace-building and sustaining peace. In April next year, U-Peace looks forward to participating in it and offers its services to prepare in the process. I would have liked to say much more, but I think in the interest of time I have to cut it short. But again, I'd like to thank Costa Rica, which not only was responsible for the establishment of the university, but also for giving us host facilities and support financial and otherwise from time to time. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you so much, Mr. Kakar. And now I hand things over to Brigitte Moix, who works at Peace Direct. She is the U.S. senior representative and head of advocacy there. Great, thanks. Great, thank you. I just want to echo thanks to all the organizers of the event and to the president of the General Assembly for his invitation to be open and honest. And I'll do my best and hope we can have that kind of conversation. I'm very glad to be here at Columbia. I'm also an alumni. And after I graduated here in conflict resolution, for my master's, I went on to the Quaker UN office and worked on the first secretary general's report on what at that time was just called the Prevention of Armed Conflict. So it's both hopeful and also a bit, you know, gives me pause to see the great progress that prevention and sustaining peace is now at the head of the UN's agenda. I mean, this is very important and it demonstrates how far we've come. And yet also all we've heard about the state of the world and how difficult it is to actually turn these words into real change in the world. So I'm here. I work with Peace Direct. We support local peace builders around the world. We work with partners in about 10 countries impacted by violent conflict, places like Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Burundi, a number of others. And our mission is really to support local people who are working to prevent violent conflict and sustain peace in their communities as the leaders in that work. To support them in doing the work they believe is necessary. We believe they are the experts on the problems they face, those most impacted by violence understand it and they know what solutions are needed and to partner with them in ways that can support and strengthen their work and really put them at the center and the lead of peace building in the world. So we very much believe in local leadership and I wanna talk just briefly about sort of the role of civil society in terms of prevention and sustaining peace and particularly bring in some of their perspectives on this agenda from a survey that Peace Direct and the International Peace Institute undertook earlier this year. Identify a few gaps that local civil society who are working for peace around the world saw and then focus a little bit more on the solutions and recommendations that we might bring into this discussion from that perspective. So just to note on the role of local civil society I was at an event a week or two ago in Washington DC where I'm based and the head of the World Bank, the head of the Pathways for Peace initiative there was speaking and I asked him about the role of local civil society in their study and what they had found and he said that he grabbed it and said it's actually very critical. One of the things that they found is that in those cases where the conditions for broader war and violence seem to be there but they did not erupt into that there was always a strong role for local civil society. So it is one of the factors that's very important in terms of prevention and the diversity of roles that local civil society actors can play is also very important. So and when we talk about inclusivity which is such an important part of this agenda local civil society play every role throughout the spectrum of violent conflict from early warning to response mitigation, mediation in the midst of violence to trauma healing, post-conflict peace building to nonviolent action that helps hold governments accountable to these agendas. So that role of local civil society is very critical and we think about local peace building not just in terms of the conflict affected countries that I mentioned that are in the headlines but the role of local civil society in the global North countries, in the UN Security Council countries, in my country the United States and how we are making sure these agendas are implemented in every country. So the survey that we undertook looked at it was a qualitative somewhat informal survey with our network of local peaceful building experts around the world but it did get responses from all regions of the world and we asked them well what do you know and what do you think about the sustaining peace agenda and what would you like to see from it in your communities where you're doing this work daily. And they identified lots of things and there'll be a policy brief coming out soon with more details but the three sort of gaps that I wanna identify that I think are important for us in this discussion. The first is a recognition and respect gap. Local civil society who are working, doing the work of peace building in this most difficult circumstances, they often feel they're overlooked. They actually said we don't feel valued, we feel somewhat overwhelmed, we feel the UN and the international community keeps us out of the discussions and that their local efforts which are very impactful, very scalable, very sustainable if they have the right partnerships and support are often sort of overlooked for international interventions that come in from the outside. So they said the quote that I like to lift up on this is they said the UN is often like a guest walking by and I like it because it's a guest. It's not an intruder, it's not someone they don't want but it's a guest that's walking by. So the second gap is the resource gap and we've already talked about this, the financing for prevention that's not there, the sustainability of funding through conflict cycles and beyond and so that was definitely for them something they have difficulty accessing for lots of reasons we can discuss. And the third gap was the sense of solutions, the solutions gap. So they really felt that the issue of stronger partnerships with the UN and the international community was vital for more effective solutions. They know their work is not everything it could be, they're not reaching the potential they could have but they think that the solutions that they have identified and are working on are often not in the equation, they're simply not at the table to be bringing those solutions forward and I just wanna lift up this idea that peace is a process, it's not a project. So local people, they're there for the process. International folks like me often are there for a project so their role is really critical. Then just to turn quickly to some of the responses that and recommendations we've been thinking about with them in terms of these gaps. So on the recognition and respect gap, we really do think that there is a stronger role that local peace builders and local civil society can be playing in these conversations. Are they at the table, are they recognized? Will they be part of the conversations at the high level event? How do we do that in a better way? We have often been trying to bring local peace builders even to policymakers directly to say let's have this conversation and that's often very fruitful from all sides. On the resources gap, funding prevention, how do we actually look at strengthening local resilience, local peace building as a critical part of this equation before the crisis hits? And having funding streams that are flexible, integrated, innovative, sustained, and breaking down silos between things like development and peace. And then thirdly, the solutions issue. And this is where I think we need an even more transformative change. We really need to not just change particular practices or bureaucracies or funding streams, but actually shift the power balance, shift how we think about peace and how it's constructed and sustained. It actually absolutely requires local leadership and that they're empowered and that sometimes we step back and absolutely let them lead from start to finish. So I would love to share more examples directly from our partners, but we have a very good moderator. So I'll just say that our conclusion on this agenda is that peace building and prevention, they need to be locally led, regionally anchored, and internationally supported. And I look forward to talking more about how we can do that. Very nice. And maybe we can get into some more of those examples in the Q&A section. I hope so. So now handing the microphone over to Mr. Teresa Jennings, who is head of the rule of law department at Lexis-Nexis Legal and Professional. Thanks, Teresa. Thank you so much. And it is my honor and privilege to be here today. As the head of rule of law development at Lexis-Nexis, it's my role to make the corporate mission of our company the focal point for my activities. And we have a corporate mission and vision to advance the rule of law around the world. Now, what I'd like to say is that it's not unique. I mean, it is unique for a business to have that sort of a corporate mission, but I hope that we won't be the only ones. So how did we get there? Well, it started with the leadership within the top of our company. Our CEO wanted to really use our core skills and solidify the efforts of all of our employees toward one really tangible goal. He tasked my boss, the executive vice president and general counsel to look into this. He examined all of the definitions of the rule of law around the world, including the UNs, and he came up with our own definition, which is transparency of the law, access to legal remedy, equal treatment under the law, and independent judiciary. And we feel that when each of these elements are in place, you're building your country, and in fact, your business on stable ground. But think if you try to build a house on a foundation where it's missing or cracked. You can do it, but it won't stand. We also looked at what our core skills are, because if you try to do a corporate mission and you don't know what you're good at, you're not necessarily going to achieve it. Well, we have 10,000 employees supporting customers in 145 countries around the world, and our customers are you, their governments, their lawyers, their civil society, their academia, and others. Those of you in the United States probably know, oh, well I used LexisNexis when I was in law school or I use you all the time in the UN. But for those of you who are not familiar, we make laws clear. We make cases clear for judges. We help train, and more frequently, we are using technology and data to do so, another of our core skills. With our parent company, Relics Group, we are one of the fourth largest paid digital content providers in the world. That's pretty big. We are also using our technology in innovative ways, layering in AI into the data so that we can not only see what has happened, but start predicting with great accuracy what will happen. Why? Because our customers require that. When you marry that into conflict prevention, you have some really robust tools. I want to give one example and then wrap it up quickly because I know we're short on time. So I worked in Central America on a rule of law summit and we brought together business, academia, judges, legislators, labor, people doing civil society work. And what we found when we started talking about rule of law is that folks from the legal side said we have a real problem with court delays. It's taking up to three years to get a simple divorce. And then another part of the room said, well, I can tell you what's happening because of that. We're having a spike in domestic violence that is creating a problem because the husband and wife are forced to continue to live together during that three-year period. And then academia said, and I know what's happening to the children. They're turning to gangs and to drugs because there's a lack of stability in the home. So in that old adage for the want of the nail, the horseshoe was the lost and it goes on and on to the battle. What we can do as business is look at those small steps how to prevent those problems before it becomes a true conflict. We can't do this alone. And we must work in partnership. It's not our role as business to step into a war, but it is our role to step in with our partners and do the right thing. I'd like to highlight a couple of partners that we've worked with. Some are here in the room. One is the UN Global Compact. So Lexis Nexus with my boss worked to establish the business for rule of law principles and we were deeply, deeply honored when Ban Ki-moon made that a UN Global Compact initiative that turned into a before rule of law framework that has been embraced by 700 companies. What we know is that that's now turning into an action plan that's being rolled out and we also know because we're a part of it, businesses are starting to coalesce and watch in 2018. We are ready to support you. I'd also like to call out the Global Alliance for Reporting Progress on Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, a tripartite group that has done remarkable work already around the globe, working with member states yourselves, civil society and with private sector at the table. And one of my colleagues will be speaking in just a moment for my case. It has been a privilege and an honor to work shoulder to shoulder with all of you in that venue and we look forward to that continuing. It is the right thing to do. It is also right for the bottom line. With that, I look forward to your questions and thank you so much again for inviting me here today. Thank you. And then we have our final speaker on the panel, Mr. Abel Lear-Welley, who is the Executive Director and the Founder of Camp for Peace in Liberia. Thank you very much. I want to take this time to extend my thanks and appreciation to the President of the General Assembly and all of the organizers for this event. I was really honored and proud when I received your open invitation to travel here in New York to share some of the experiences we have from Liberia. I think the topics on our discussion, Sustainable Peace, is very important. And that is where the international community have fallen short over the period of time. And I think this is the best time to engage the process of sustainable peace when there's a rise of conflict all over the world, especially civil conflict, internal conflict. The UN did a lot of work in Liberia. And what it did in Liberia, we think that it's gradually yielding result, but that result need to be solidified than even what we see today. The major elements of people that actually participated in the Civil War in Liberia was predominantly the youth, the youth population. They were actually deprived of their rights and privileges to cause atrocities and mishandling against them and the people and their family members and destroy their own property. But what we notice is that the UN intervention was timely and good, but there were a lot of losses. What one has to do with the process of disarmament demobilization, we think that that process was not done right. The UN engagement did not actually meet the realities of those that were affected. Yes, we agree, the UN did disarmament. They took away the guns and they were able to demobilize the soldiers, the fighters. But one thing that they feel was an aspect that has to do with reintegration. The rehabilitation and reintegration process was really very poor. And they actually set Liberia on a time bomb that had the chances of relighting back into conflict. So what we did as both victims of the Civil War was that to also come in with our own story of transformation to see how we could flicker these stories to a lot of young people who see reasons to initiate a process. So one of the things we did was to engage them by giving them empowerment tools. Because when they went back after the disarmament process back to their community, most of them were being rejected and discriminated by the very community people who they created some of these atrocities against. So then the issue of national reconciliation became a very serious issue. But then how could we approach it from different levels? So one of the things we did was to actually give them some sort of empowerment backed by the kind of cycle social support to go back to their community. And we introduced that model and worked very well. So community people who once saw young people being perpetrators, they began to reconsider them after they had possessed certain empowerment and contributing back towards the reconstruction process of their country. But one thing we said is that we always said is that we don't only look at the perpetrators, we also have to look at the status of the young people. As much as we agree they were perpetrators, they also became victims of the civil war because it is they that actually witnessed the gruesome killing of their own people and they were being deprived of life opportunity, including education. So there were no way that we could rebuild or we could rebuild Liberia without including this group of vulnerable youth. And one of the way we can include them is to give them a tools and empowerment where they would be able to speak up with those tools and empowerment through a more positive process that they can contribute back to their country. And that's why we've done with Saucida in doing that. Up to the presence that we speak, we have a statistic of over 500 young persons that have gone through our social rehabilitation program and they have gone back to their community while in power with skills to deliver and to serve their people. And through their engagement, through their services, that is also opening a pathway for reconciliation between they and their community. So that have been very, very well. And another issue that we also look at as many of you in the room may be aware is that Liberia is going through a process of transition. Right now we have our first post-war elections that is exclusively supervised, monitored and conducted by Liberia themselves. The last three elections have more or less banned account for elections, policed by the international community like the United Nations missions in Liberia. But this time around it's about Liberia doing it themselves. So there were fears so much across the broader spectrum of our country that in the absence of all male Liberia was going to realize back into conflict. So what we did as civil society group was to commemorate our effort, to put our effort together and say this is not about the UN, not about the government alone. So civil society have to be greatly involved. So we engage the entire community with the message of peace, with the message of tolerance. And our focus was mostly on young people because they are in good numbers, the youth. You find them in a very political party's headquarters. You find them in every street corner of our country. So we needed to positively engage them at all levels. So the message of peace were being preached and practiced by the very youth. And we see that that is really resonating very well with our country right now. As you witness, listening to the news, there have been so many political stirs around our elections. But one good thing we can say is that these political disruptions have never entered into major violence today. The brands have remained very patient, very stable, and the youth have remained very stable. So we are very proud of that. And we hope to continue using these kinds of engagement. So the issue of sustaining peace and including local stakeholders into the process of peace building is very key to the sustainability and development of any institution. So I will stop that fire and then entertain questions. Thanks very much. I actually think this is the perfect way to conclude the panel because it wraps up, I think many of the themes that we've been talking about, in particular the need for nationally led processes, for them to be inclusive, but also the need to solidify gains that have already been created. So I'm going to open the floor now for some questions and answers and dialogue and even maybe probing some of the speakers on some of the examples that they wanted to give, but didn't have the time to do so. And I'd like to get a signal for how long this should last because according to my clock, we only have eight minutes for this discussion. So perhaps we can have a discussion. So we'll do about 20 minutes. I think that would be great. So let's just start with the first round and I... Yes, please, of course. Your first question. Thank you. I want to thank all of you because you are bringing into this discussion exactly what we asked for, experience from the ground and from different perspectives. And this is so much needed when we are discussing how to avoid conflicts and prevent them. One question that I would like to hear from you and also from the audience, it is practically one of the problems in successful conflict prevention. The concept of state sovereignty. What if the country on the verge of conflict is not willing to engage, to avoid conflicts? What can we do? And I also have to apologize because I have to go back to the United Nations, but my team is here. Of course we'll stay till the very end and once again want to thank you all very much for being here and for helping us to prepare this good event. Thank you very much. So on that note, I think we should probably address that question now. So I'll open that up to the table. I have an example that I was going to give before and that was a solution that we worked on with the International Bar Association. They were struggling to find a way to allow people who saw atrocities within a country have them preserved for international courts. Unfortunately, there was a genocide. The photos and videos of the genocide were not permitted because the metadata was not preserved. And so we worked with them because technology is our gift to preserve the metadata but also find a way to wipe it off of your phone. So you take the app, you have the video, but it's clean so that if somebody takes it, you won't be the next victim. So that's an element of how the people who are not necessarily those in power have power that is useful later. Okay, thank you very much. I always said a very practical and a local example. In our work, we have realized that most people who were victims of the civil war, they are being reduced to trauma and it's very difficult for them to really speak on the issues that really affect them. They turn to hold in all of their hugs and their grievances without putting them out. And no amount of engagement can easily get them actually altering or putting forth those things that it went through. But I think one of the things we did was that people were listening to their peer much better in a situation. If people in the same situation trying to kind of engage each other and embrace each other, advise us and so forth. So we went through some other women group who also feel victims of rape and other situations during the Liberian civil crisis. To actually engage the women on ground to speak with them, to ask them about what happened to them and what they need to do in order to overcome their traumas and to re-engage life in a more different way. And we saw that this model went very well. So another example is if you are looking for former fighters or former child soldiers, if you just went right into the community, I'm looking for former child soldiers, you will need to find them. So the best way you can find them is to use another victims or another former soldiers, combatant or child soldiers who have been transformed to some level to engage their communities. So we also tried this at work. We used other fighters, former fighters into the process of recruiting child soldiers, former child soldiers as combatant for the community. And we noticed that their expertise resonated very well by pulling good number to come to our rehabilitation program. So I think that can also be applicable in other conflict setting society. Thank you. So we'll do Narendra and then Bridget. One of the shortcomings of some peace-building efforts is the lack of involvement of regional groups. I think sometimes the Security Council tries to deal with the issues just by itself for various geopolitical reasons, but I think regional organizations and even sub-regional organizations should be involved in the process, not just of conflict resolution, but of conflict prevention too. And I think for that it's important to build the capacities of national institutions, regional institutions in the area who could be helpful. Thank you. I mean, there's no easy answer to that question and that's the dilemma at the UN, right? That's the biggest dilemma at the UN. So there is a diversity of roles and diversity of actors, I think, is critical to that and figuring out who plays what role, when, how. But I do think that the work that's been done that needs to continue in terms of helping states, all states understand that prevention is in their interest. Development goes hand-in-hand with prevent, you know, violent conflict is development in reverse and engaging all state leaders in a way that helps them see outside of the specific context of the moment of a crisis, but way before that, look, how are we building capacities? This is in your interest for prevention of violent conflict. So, you know, that's not easy. It's not, and it's not a full answer, really. The other thing that we've been talking a lot within civil society about is, you know, the role of nonviolent social movements and the role of citizens in holding governments accountable and this essential focus of good governance and how we really make that part of our work, but also a more central part of this conversation at all levels. I'm building trust over time. Professor Sacks, let's, we'll have Professor Sacks in. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Just a word to repeat that it's really important to differentiate what we're talking about. Some crises are really local. Most are not, I would argue. Most have the intervention of the United States in them, for example. Most are provoked. Some are deliberate wars. The United States has military in 180 countries.  This is not easy to talk about, but if we're serious about peace, we need to talk about it. And a lot of what is happening is attributed to local actors when it's not about local actors. Okay, we're all tongue-tied about this. It's even more dangerous now. So I want us to be untongued because this is an international system. It's not one country. And responsibility is really important. And we're on the verge of another war in the Middle East and we're on the verge of a war in Northeast Asia. And either of them could be completely devastating. So this is a function of the UN. It's really a responsibility of the UN. So I just welcome any comments. Great, so I'd actually like to open it up to the floor since we have limited time and make sure that we have enough room for people in the audience to speak. So I saw a hand back here and there was another hand up somewhere else as well. But just signal if you have a comment or a question. Yes, thank you. My name is Juliet Coleman from Security Women. Following Professor Jeffrey Sachs, I have to say yes, I would welcome a discussion on what you've just said. But I'd like to raise the issue of gender equality in sustaining peace. Research has been done, which actually shows that where a country has greater gender equality, it is less likely to fall into conflict. The Women, Peace and Security Agenda, which was passed in the year 2000, the resolution not much has happened since then, I would argue. I would also like to raise the issue of UN peacekeeping in sustaining peace and the importance of women as part of UN peacekeeping. At the moment, the percentage of women in peacekeeping is pitiful, about 3% of, okay, 4% of female military peacekeepers. Female military peacekeepers. And it's about 10% in police peacekeepers. And I would argue that actually, if we can actually get those percentages up, then that would make a huge difference. I appreciate that the narrative very much that UN at the moment is about localism, but I think we need to get these big structural changes happening as well. Thank you. All right, thank you. Do you have another question or comment at this time? Anyone? Here, we have someone here. Let's take two more, and then we'll go back to the panel. Good morning. I'm not really from society or academia, but UN, from the UN Human Rights Office, but I want to raise the question of how human rights fits into this. I was thinking about what Professor Sacks had said about Yemen and quickly looked up on our website some of the reviews that are taking place of Yemen in the preceding years from the human rights treaty bodies. And there's also the UPR of... And I think part of the problem is that the treaty bodies themselves don't realize what they're doing, but it's one of the only areas in the whole of the UN where there is a systematic review of almost every country in the world. Even DPRK goes through this process, and they don't realize it, but they're picking up on the root causes, the drivers of a lot of these problems very early on, and yet we don't acknowledge that, understand it, and use it to best effect by the whole of the UN system to really get to the heart of these issues early enough for us to make a difference. The Secretary General said at the beginning of the year at the opening of the Human Rights Council that the best prevention tool we have is human rights, and he hit the nail on the head, I think, in understanding the link between the normative framework, so the standards that apply to every country in the world, the how that helps you to identify the problems and also how it helps you to find the solutions. And the focus on the 2030 agenda and how development can help really address those long-term drivers, speaks to this whole issue of rights-based development and how we can really leverage that to best effect. So I'd be interested in any observations or comments on that idea, thank you. Great, and one more. Hi, I'm from the School of Social Work at Columbia, and a lot of the stuff that I'm hearing, especially from you Brigitte, it's very applicable to small communities as well as the overall world community, but what I, the way that I see peace is that, I see peace as a value, and I see peace as a process and an intermission between conflicts, but I also think that it has to be something that is a lifestyle and how do we address people who don't value peace? And that's where I struggle with that prevention and conflict resolution. There are closed states that in Northern Asia that don't seem to value peace. They're leaders in this country and all around the world that doesn't seem to resonate with them, so that's where I feel like things need to happen, otherwise we can be spinning our wheels for a very long time. I don't know that we all have solutions, but I think that's where we need to be looking for solutions, maybe using the media or other methods of technology. Thank you, thank you. Great, so I want to thank everyone in the audience for these comments, and sorry that we have to cut them a bit short, but I want to give all of the panelists at least two minutes to respond to some of the comments, so I think I'll just go down the row and start with you, Brigitte. I'll just pick up on a few threads. On the human rights question first, I think that the issue of silos at the international level versus how local people who are experiencing violent conflict and working for peace is part of my response to that, so our partners work on human rights issues. They have a rights-based approach to peace-building a lot of times. They work on development issues. They work on livelihoods. Their approach is not the silos that we have at the UN, right, and in funding streams, so yeah, absolutely. We have to figure out how do we have a more integrated approach that recognizes the relationship between these various streams. In terms of women and gender, I know that one of the speakers who wasn't here, that was her focus, so I'm really missing her voice, but I think that we gave a word on women-led peace-building and absolutely, I would just say the institutional change at that level is fundamental to this agenda. Peace is a value, and how do you address that whole, you know, the militarization of our society? It's a lifelong process. I think the peace education piece is critical, and so maybe others have better answers than I do on that. And then finally, Professor Sacks, absolutely. I really appreciate your comments. Peace Direct has really been thinking a lot about what does it mean, our message of local peace-building in today's world? And absolutely what we've started to do is say it means that we, in the United States, in the UK, in any country of power that's interfering, that's intervening, that's playing a role, we have a role. So, Peace Direct has a mapping website called peaceinsight.org. We've had it for a number of years. We map local peace-building groups in a number of countries, about 40 countries around the world, so that people can see. There really are local peace-builders doing great work. This year, we spent time mapping, starting a mapping of US peace-building groups, and we'll launch that early next year, and we're gonna do the UK, too, we're a UK-based organization. So, it's a very small piece of us saying this work needs to happen at all these levels because of the role of intervening states. The other hat that I wear is that I have lobbied for many years, it was my career before, now it's volunteer, on US foreign policy. And as an American citizen, how do we try to influence and change the things that our governments are doing? And that's part of our role as peace-builders. So, we still believe the local people who are experiencing the realities of this violence, their voice has to be at the lead of solutions. They have to be, you know, we have to create that space for them.  Thank you. Just to go back to the first question, but also link to the questions from the colleague in the audience who asked about WPS and other things. First of all, when it comes to member states, when we speak about partnerships and we speak about sustaining peace, but all across this agenda, this is a joint project, it's a joint program. So, asking the UN to do things, yes, there's a UN which has an autonomous voice, but it's also made up of what the member states do and say. Member states do not want interference in their backyard. So, they're quite happy to be here and say that we believe in conflict prevention, we believe in sustaining peace, you should do this and we should do this kind of mediation as long as it's not happening in my country. And that is across the board the problem because they're quite happy to talk about collaboration regional organizations, sub-regional organizations, and pushing on opening regional offices, but we also have a problem, not in my region. So, you know, this is a partnership and it cannot work unless member states engage in it far more sincerely than they have over the last six, seven decades. I mean, that is the central dilemma of the multilateral system, I think. And that relates to the question on peacekeeping. Yes, I mean, the numbers on participation or sorry, the number of women personnel in peacekeeping is absolutely dismal, but it can only happen when member states provide the troops and the police personnel for doing so. On the UN side, I think we have to do much more in terms of civilian personnel, for instance. Those numbers are also, I mean, they're not as bad as on the armed or uniform side, but certainly they need to be improved. But I think there's a wider problem on that, which is that peacekeeping has fallen into a rut. It's fallen into a design and planning process where we do basically cookie cutter templates. So we see a conflict, we send a planning team, it goes in with every single section from the secretary to represent it, and we come up with pretty much the same thing. And then on the side of the security council, they come up with mandates that are either these Christmas tree mandates where everything is slapped on, or they just basically sign off on what we've given them. And I think the issue really has to be each conflict deserves a slightly different or radically different response, and that applies to the kind of solution that you're providing, whether it's short-term, whether it's peacekeeping, or to the peacebuilding or development side also. So these are some of the central problem that I think some of the reform process that's going on now is going to address that. But it's going to take us only so much or only so far, because that is how much the bandwidth is going to bear. We will have to come back and do some redesigning. So I speak quite frankly here. The WPS agenda, I think what we've done quite successfully in the last 17 years is to completely bureaucratize it. So we have a process where we're able to get indicators for that there's more mention of women's participation in sexual general reports that more gender advisers have been hired. We've really sort of boiled it down to little sort of indicators, but on the bigger picture, you're absolutely right. I think we've made very little sort of progress. So my feeling is I think that with the new sector general, the gender parity agenda for the UN within itself is fundamental because having gender parity amongst those who are going to lead these efforts is also going to have an effect on the kind of processes we support. Having more women, it has a natural sort of, will bring us some I think value added in that sense in terms of you need to have more of them, you need to have them basically half men, half women and then to move forward. But it does require that in all these societies that we're going to be working on that you need more women's participation. So that means more engagement civil society, but it also means that when you have for instance mediation processes, you know it's very difficult to get women in delegations for instance. So when you have two sides that you're trying to mediate between to, in order to tell them, look you've got to have more women in your delegation. They're like, who are you to tell us? We'll bring the people we will. So with Syria for instance, we've had a constant struggle. So we've, you know the mediator, in this case Staffan de Mistura, has tried to basically subvert that process by adding a women's advisory board on to glomming it on to the process. But when it applies to the government or to the opposition, I mean they see this board as just an add on, as not really representing them or speaking for them. So there are a number of different things that we're struggling with. I hope we get a bit of a boost from this reform process. But again, it comes back to we can put the ideas on the table where we need the member states to help us, you know, move this forward. So it's a joint project. It's not either us or them. So I'm not trying to pass the blame, but it's really like a joint thing. On gender equality, there's no disagreement. I fully agree with you, ma'am. And I think the Security Council Resolution 1325 needs to be implemented fully. University for Peace has a separate master's degree program on gender and peace in which the university tries to build the capacities of women. And they're not young people. Some of them are in their 40s. So they go back to their country. Some of them work for the UN system are with NGOs. So we try to build the capacities of women under the umbrella of this program for our conflict prevention and conflict resolution. Secondly, I want to follow the lead that President Jeffrey Sachs gave on conflict resolution. And Syria comes to mind. President Sachs would remember that way back in 2010, Kofi Annan was serving as the representative of the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. And he submitted a report in which he stressed that we should not insist on excluding Assad from the negotiating process. Let him be one of the parties who sit on that table to negotiate. Former President Carter was also sent. I don't remember under what umbrella. And he made a similar recommendation that President Sachs can correct me if I'm wrong. But it was neither the Security Council nor the US administration that followed that route. And six, seven years down the line, where are we? I think it's a very serious question where various international institutions, regional institutions and major powers need to perform their part for conflict resolution. In this case, conflict resolution. Thank you. On the diversity question, I would say that that's something that business has been looking at for quite some time. When I started in my career 30 years ago, it was quite rare for a woman to be a lawyer and a lobbyist. And now it's probably more than 50% in that field. What I'd say is you need to have leadership, support this, you need to have mentors with protégés who are bringing up in the ranks, women who are ready, and good training. That's what businesses do, and you could take a page from that. On human rights, I would say that in baking in human rights is something that particularly the millennials look to. So when we are interviewing, my boss would say it used to be the first question out of the box was what are my chances for advancement? Where can I get more money? And now it's how can I do good?  And finally on peace as a value, I would say that if people are not seeing peace as a value in a lifestyle, try something different. So in one country where we have been trying to make the laws transparent for the first time, the normal, it's the right thing to do, people can see the laws was not working. We change the dialogue too. You realize that people who want to invest in your company have no way, or your country, have no way of seeing your laws and seeing if their investment is going to fit. And that is the one that is struck with them. So change your dialogue and maybe you can make it a value. Thank you. What I would say about the issue of human rights is that I think the introduction of peace education in our very institutions is very important. Like in our case what we are currently doing is to train our young people about the issue of peace education where they will be able to respect their own value, respect their peers, and then respect society as a whole. And we think these kind of practices were eventually built up so that people get to understand the dynamics of why he more acts is. Because you cannot just jump the boat. It's not possible that people should start committing violations before you begin talking about education. So you need to be more proactive. You should engage it from the grassroots. When people are very young, if you have a massive education across country about the issue of human rights, issue of respect, I think we will make a better game in this process. And talking about the issue of women participation in parliament, my country, I have a woman president. So that's just a clear example that Liberia is really supporting that agenda. And that was demonstrated by us in 2015 when we voted the first female president. Though there are still challenges at the grassroots level, there are still a lot of women who are shutting away from participating in development. But some of the strategies we're using is that in all of our programs and activities, when we are recruiting people to participate, no matter who is available or not, we always say 50, 50% that is. If you bring in 50% male representative, there must be 50% female representative. And we need to do that. This is the only way we'll be able to encourage women to actually turn out, to participate into decision and processes that affect them. And talking about value, peace is a process. It takes an inch to describe, but it takes a lot of time, energy, and resources in order to restore peace. So people who reside peace, you cannot leave them anywhere. As my colleague said, you have to change your approach. If you use one approach and it doesn't work, you have to move to another approach until you are able to realize what you really want in terms of value. Thank you. So I'd like to thank the office of the president of the General Assembly. I'd like to thank the panelists. I think we've learned a lot today about the role of prevention and sustaining peace and how it means addressing root causes in addition to reacting to crisis. I'd now like to introduce our second panel, which is on the topic of partnerships. We talked a little bit about that in the first panel, but now we're really gonna delve into partnerships and how they can help with sustaining peace. Equal, inclusive, and sustainable partnerships with diverse stakeholders are essential for promoting, developing, and maintaining peace. These actors are often those who possess localized knowledge and expertise. This panel will explore how partnerships can work towards these goals and discuss some partnerships that emerge between the UN and other actors. Our moderator for this panel will be Mr. Andrew Tomlinson, who is director and Quaker UN representative at the Quaker United Nations Office. Welcome. Thank you very much and thank you all for staying with us. And I did want to let you know that although the president of the General Assembly did have to leave for a meeting, we are joined by his shifter cabinet. So thank you and we still have a senior presence from the UN with us and we really appreciate that. Thanks also as I add my thanks to all the organizers here. And this panel, as we say, is about partnerships. And I think, you know, we've talked a number of times and you heard from some of the speakers already that peace is a process or peace is a group process. Peace involves everyone in societies and outside societies, internal and external actors. And that is something which we have to get right and in some ways this is the hardest piece. So I just wanted to start off with a couple of thoughts to get brains working. One is that we have this issue that inclusion is a fundamental component of sustaining peace. It's not an add-on, it's the heart of the problem. And issues such as reconciliation and addressing grievances, which we haven't talked about so much today, are really critical and not even just in the most extreme situations, but for most of us in most countries in everyday situations as well. Secondly, the sustainable peace is as much about relationships as it is about actors. It's based on strengthening the social fabric, fostering more robust relationships between governments, individuals, their communities, and other major social actors, including the private sector, religious actors, and women and youth groups. Thirdly, that peace, justice, and inclusion are still at the heart of the sustainable peace. The 2030 agenda was signed two years ago, but actually that contains a huge amount of actually what we need to do this. And it has two very important characteristics. One is that the 2030 agenda comes along with a plan for implementation. So every country in the world is working on their plans for implementing all of the goals, including all of the goals and targets that relate to fostering peace, justice, and inclusion. The plan is there, it's actually happening in every country in the world. Secondly, that approach is universal. And we've talked a little bit about this problem when you start to think about trying to prevent only certain cases or try to work out who is the most likely to fall apart next year. That immediately starts to get into political issues and sensitivities. If we see this as a shared problem of mankind in every country on the planet to work on peace, justice, and inclusion, do any of us from any country believe that the issues of peace, justice, and inclusion in their own country have been fully addressed? I think not. So if this becomes a universal agenda, it can take us to a different shared space of responsibility for peace across the planet. And that lastly, that local and international actors need to find ways of working together much better. We've heard some very good examples of when it can go wrong, when we have particularly external actors that could not only not necessarily be helping in the right ways, but can actually precipitate violence in many, many forms and with dreadful outcome. But it can work right. There is the possibility for external actors to provide a supportive environment. And this is not just in a paradigm of rich countries helping poor ones. It's all countries helping one another. We've seen extraordinary examples of South-South cooperation and countries across the world being able to share their experience in this we need to do so much more. But so then, to help unpack this question of partnerships, we're privileged to have a rather extraordinary panel of experts with us here today. Sometimes it seems as if our discussions on peace-building and prevention are perhaps a little theoretical. And our first speaker comes to us right from a country at the cold face of peace, living daily with the challenges of implementing last year's historic peace agreement. And so we're delighted to have with us Ms. Maria Emma Mejia-Vales, parameter representative of Colombia, and that's the day you have the floor. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew, so much. Thank you to the PGA's office. Thank you to the chef, the cabinet, that is here with us. And of course to Jeffrey Sacks and all the team and colleagues from UN and others in the panel. The question is very pertinent. Partnerships can support sustaining peace. They have to support sustaining peace. And as Andrew said, I come from a country like Colombia that was involved in over a 50 years conflict with two very major insurgent groups, FARC and ELN, but also had many other types of difficulties over the years, particularly in organized crime and drugs with the Medellin and the Cali cartel. How a country with such a conflict sat in Habana for five years in a very close manner of negotiation. And we were able to achieve a peace agreement that was signed a year ago, exactly a year ago on this last 24th of November. But the implementation, as is said here or in the panel before, is the hard job begins when we talk about implementation. And there is when we need partners that maybe couldn't come to the table because it was a close negotiation, a political close negotiation. And now we need to introduce other partners. It was a costly process, but not only in lives, but I would say more in how the country was divided. The rural Colombia where the conflict was there was unseen. It's like if we had a wall, a Berlin wall or a glass wall that couldn't allow the city, the middle class that progress in those five decades. So we had at two countries, two very divisive situation in Colombia. How do we reintegrate the countryside where the guerrillas were there, where we didn't have very little rule of law, very little presence of the state? And that is our most important defiance now. And that's where the private sector UN comes into play. So we have a political mission, a special political mission. It's no blue helmets, no armed personnel observers. They finished their job of disarming all the laying down of arms of FARC. And now we're in the second political mission in which the observers and the civilians, 20% women, which is something that we're driving for, more and more military and civil personnel, women personnel, because this peace process had an inedited situation in which had a gender commission from the beginning. Don't forget that FARC has 40% women in their ranks, in guerrillas, in the first front rank. So of course it's a guerrilla of peasant girls and boys that somehow got into that divisible country. So the situation now, particularly in the private sector, and I see we may have many examples, but in the Cauca region, in the Pacific, we got with the UN fund, SDG fund that we could work with. We created this umbrella fund with the multilateral cooperation and we began working with civil society and with business partners from the region. So that gave us a leverage, a very interesting leverage of how we brought academia, we brought private sector, we began particularly in the peasant areas to maybe grow a new country, maybe that those two countries will soon in the near future recognize one another. So I think we are in a right moment, I am a bit more optimistic in the sense that we have the SDG agenda, that is what needs to break the root causes of this conflict, the developmental scenario. I think we have at the UN level, a secretary general that introduced reforms, essential reforms, sustaining peace, we just saw it, and we just saw prevention. And we have an international community that with a lot of respect is working with us in a Colombian-made process and in a Colombian-made solution. Just contributing to our design. So I think that gives us an initial opening to respect my moderator's time. But I think like Liberia's example, the Gambia last week, we had a meeting on the Gambia, it was very interesting to see their first democratic process ever. And there we are, I mean trying. Some countries were trying and we need just when the grace come into the picture, not the good news, but the grace come into the picture for the international community and the academia like we're seeing today, as it stays with us and reflects on the future. Thank you. Thank you so much Ambassador. Thank you for your insightful comments, but also for modeling for everyone, your timekeeping. I see five minutes and 10 seconds, which I think is quite an achievement. So thank you so much. The private sector contributes not only as investors and employers, but can also be a vital source of technical expertise. And our next speaker is not only a high powered corporate lawyer, but has handled major cases in the area of corporate social responsibility and works closely with the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation. Ellen. Thank you very much Andrew. I'm actually here today, not so much as a litigation partner at Whitencase, but as the chairman of the Auschwitz Institute, which is the largest NGO in the world for the training of government officials in genocide and mass atrocity prevention. To date we have trained over 3500 civil servants from over 80 UN member states. Our mission is to create capacity within and among states to prevent genocide and mass atrocity crimes. For most of our trainees, the initial training occurs at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where we use the Holocaust and more recent genocides, and the power of that site as a place of memory to introduce important concepts that run through all genocide and mass atrocity crimes. A key theme that we stress is the benefit to states of forming so-called national mechanisms. That is a bureaucratic site within government whose purpose is to focus on early warning, cooperation and prevention. We issue an annual review, now done in cooperation with Columbia University, on those entities, which now number over 25. Another key concept of our training is the role of civil society and what it can do in prevention. And we work to sensitize government officials to better understand and communicate with civil society groups, including by having them at all our seminars. After their initial training, we ask our alumni to identify processes within their societies, which could fuel genocide or mass atrocity violence. We then work with them to consider ways to address or mitigate these processes. And then we encourage them to look at potential programming that they can implement in their countries or regions to address these processes. And then we start the whole process all over again. We also encourage our alumni to work across regions and to act as a network for each other, exchanging information, giving support and comparing and developing best practices. Let me just give you a few recent examples of what our alumni have been able to achieve. In Kenya, one of our alumni pushed for the formation of a national commission for prevention. Among the issues on which this commission focused were issues around electoral violence. Working closely with Kenyan business organizations and business associations, the Kenyan commission has, even in these very difficult times in Kenya, demonstrably achieved a reduction in electoral violence over the last three Kenyan electoral cycles. And Kenya stands as a significant case study in how an engaged business community can actually increase the capacity for peace. In Argentina, our alumni helped form an 18-nation Latin American network for prevention in which Columbia is an extremely active member that recently celebrated at the United Nations its fifth anniversary and also became the first prevention network to begin funding some of its own training costs. The Latin American network, which includes national mechanisms from a number of states including Argentina, Brazil, and Columbia, has embarked on information sharing programs with respect to early warning in the region and has been developing cooperative regional approaches on issues like the rights of indigenous people, LGBT rights, and the design across Latin America of educational programming for preventing hate speech. In Tanzania, our alumni helped establish a national commission that has been implementing meetings around the country relating to religious strife and refugee communities, as well as implementing programs to create greater transparency in how government hires and which groups they hire from. Tanzania also has now taken over the leadership of a prevention network in the Great Lakes region of Africa to improve early warning and other interstate cooperation around prevention in that region. Two concrete issues that might bear further discussion at the United Nations would be how do we encourage states to form and fund national mechanisms and ways that the World Bank and the United Nations could begin weighing into their decision-making processes state participation in this type of capacity building so as to create direct economic incentives around prevention. I wanna end by talking briefly about another concrete example of how states can create a role for business in creating a capacity for prevention. Some years bank the World Bank helped create the Equator Principles, a set of guidelines to be used by financial institutions in assessing infrastructure development financing. The Equator Principles mandate that before funding or continuing to fund, a bank will weigh a project's potential negative effect against 27 UN conventions, most of which by the way are not normative, which include human rights, anti-discrimination, environmental and cultural heritage treaties. Project sponsors prepare remediation plans that highlight where negative effects may occur and commit to a plan for mitigating or remediating these effects. Right now over 90 major banks making up 85% of the project finance market participate in the Equator Principles, including banks from Brazil, China and Mexico. Given the business of my firm, we have been able to speak to bankers about the Equator Principles and we've learned two really interesting things. First, that the Equator Principles have helped banks identify projects that should not be funded, mainly because banks are actually getting pretty good at knowing an honest and feasible remediation plan when they see one. Thus the Equator Principles have helped trim the number of potentially bad deals which then frees up money for better deals.  Thus banks have begun to see the Equator Principles as a risk management tool for predicting project success and managing project finance risk, a correlation that could be used to build a stronger economic case for peace building. In terms of future discussions, we would think that the UN and the World Bank should consider encouraging states to expand Equator Principle participation. In particular, we should be looking to have sovereign wealth funds joining the Equator Principles given their current move into project finance space. States also could consider encouraging Equator Principle participants to tie the involvement of private equity funds in project finance to those funds also joining the Equator Principles. Based on the experience of banks, the World Bank might also consider adapting the Equator Principles for use in its decision making so as to build prevention and peace building into the funding process and risk analysis. Thank you very much. Oh, and thank you very much. And that was interesting that they had a balance between capacity building and resilience within country, but also then, how do we amend the behavior of external actors? And it's this kind of partnership inside and outside that we really need. Now, to outsiders, it may seem that the world of diplomacy is one of limos and fancy dinners, but reality is that the life of a diplomat with the UN posting requires a huge amount of work, not only to represent one's country, but also to grapple with some of the toughest global issues through roles of the UN. Now, Korea is the current chair of the UN Peace Building Commission. And our next speaker, Mr. Han Chung-hee, Deputy Prime Representative of the Republic of Korea, is not only one of the hardest-working diplomats that I know, but someone who's consistently practiced partnership in his daily work, and that's it. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you for leadership of President of General Assembly and Office of Secretary-General with the participation of Chef de Cabine and Professor Jeffrey Sacks in all your leadership, and also all partners who made this event possible, this dialogue possible. I think this is exactly what we meant on importance of partnership for this particular session. As a capacity of PBC, as Andrew just mentioned, I'm the chair of the PBC Peace Building Commission. I'd like to share with you what the PBC Peace Building Commission is viewing on the sustaining peace with focus on partnership. Sustaining peace is defined in identical resolutions on the review of the United Nations peace building architecture in General Assembly resolution 70-262 and Security Council resolution 2282 in 2016 is a shared task and responsibility that needs to be fulfilled by the government and all other national stakeholders. In this regard, national government's efforts to build close partnership with a range of relevant stakeholders, such as the United Nations, regional and sub-regional organizations, international financial institutions, civil society, and where relevant, the private sector is important to building and sustaining peace in their respective countries. This was also recognized by the twin resolutions on the review of the peace building architecture that was adopted last year. The peace building commission can be a key platform for many countries in building this partnership for peace building and sustaining peace while strengthening their national ownership. In fact, recently the PBC has been increasingly bringing diverse stakeholders and partners together to assist countries with their efforts to build and sustain peace. The PBC in particular can help to force the partnership to support countries in transition, such as in the case of Liberia. With the upcoming withdrawal of UNMIL, UN peacekeeping operation, the PBC has been playing an important role in bringing national and local perspectives to New York while discussions on the mandate were ongoing. The PBC will also continue to assist Liberia with its efforts to implement the peace building plan, which was put together to provide a framework for international community to support Liberia. Facilitating peace building partnership with the regional and sub-regional organizations is another area in which the PBC has focused on in recent years. Just yesterday, the PBC chair, our PR, and other PBC ambassadors held a meeting with the African Union Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa with the participation of several PBC member states. Collaboration between the United Nations and international finance institutions, in particular the World Bank, has also been increasing. For instance, the PBC annual session that was held last June, explored the role of international finance institutions, civil society, and where relevant the private sector to discuss ways to finance peace building. At the same time, the PBC chair visited World Bank in Washington, D.C., with several PBC ambassadors for a meeting with the president, Jim Yong Kim, and other senior officials, as well as the board directors of the bank, and discussed how to work together in a more coherent manner to build and sustain peace in the countries and regions that are considered by the PBC. As a follow-up, the PBC and World Bank agreed on a joint statement to hold a regular meeting on an annual basis to support the countries that are being considered by the PBC. The PBC is currently exploring the possible means in the framework of the mandate to better support the countries and regions that are being considered, including ways to work with more effectively with the civil society and where relevant private sector. During the Asian conference on conflict prevention and peace building, which was co-convened by Korea, peace building supporting office, and the Dahamashil Foundation in Korea last month, several Asian countries talk about how strengthening the capacity of the domestic private sector was key in attaining economic growth and, in turn, stability and peace. In the case of Korea, for instance, around 70% of the 14 aid it received from the international financial institutions and major donor countries was said to be allocated to strengthening its private sector, which later became the main driver for its economic growth. The PBC also discussed the role of the private sector in supporting the peace efforts in Columbia, following an event organized by the Global Compact Network Columbia in partnership with peace building supporting office and the Bogota Chamber of Commerce, which brought together over 200 leaders from business, finance, civil society, governments, and the United Nations. Lastly, rest assured of the commitment of the PBC to better help countries with their peace building priorities, they have identified by continuously strengthening the partnership with the diverse stakeholders. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, Ambassador. And I think one thing I just want to highlight there is as we talk about the private sector, sometimes that conversation lodges and just external corporations, particularly Western corporations. Whereas what is particularly important to sustainability is what's happening in commercial activities within the countries and at all levels, but even particularly at like a small and medium-sized kind of business enterprise as well then as creating national champions. And sometimes the UN, which works with governments and others doesn't quite get to that process, at least out in New York. It's better, I think, sometimes in Geneva. But in the end, that and making them part of that whole process is really, really quite important. So as we're seeing, peace building is a complex topic and the UN is a complex place. So it's critical that there are within the UN system some people with deep experience and understanding of both. And Henke and Brinkman is not only a published researcher in the area of economics, but an experienced UN official with posts in Dessa and the executive office of the Secretary General before taking up his current role in the peace building support office. Henke and is another good example of someone who, despite a demanding day job, morning job, evening job, makes a point of reaching out to voices beyond the UN system. Henke and. Thanks, thanks Andrew. So the President of the General Assembly already mentioned this morning that that partnership is really one of the key elements of the sustaining peace resolutions of the UN peace building architecture review that were adopted in 2016. And I think that is really a very important aspect, not to be minimized. The UN is never alone anywhere and rarely it's the biggest operator. And certainly because of the changing nature and conflict where there is a really significant rise in the number of non-state actors involved in violent conflict in Syria, I think alone there are more than a thousand different non-state armed groups. We need to really build their coalitions way beyond the official actors, such as governments and the UN and inclusive society, the private sector, regional actors and international financial institutions which are explicitly mentioned in the resolutions. But perhaps above all, women's organizations and youth in particular. So let me go and mention a few areas of collaboration around these entities. On regional organizations, I think the PBC has shown a really interesting move from country specific configuration to looking at regions. They have several meetings on the Great Lakes recently but also on the Sahel in West Africa. But we're also working very closely with regional organizations, with ECOWAS on the Canadian cell for example, and the East African community on Burundi and providing the New York international community support with these regional efforts. And I think that's one of the major shifts that I have seen during my UN career over the last 10, 15 years or so, that these regional organizations have become so much more important than at the UN in many, many areas. And of course it was recognized in chapter eight of the charter so we can really build on solid international law in that regard. The PBF, the Peace Building Fund that my office manages, has also worked very closely with the African Union. And for example, we have supported human rights monitors in Burundi that the PBF funded but were provided by the African Union. And so that is I think a very important development. The second area is the collaboration with the international financial institutions and particularly the World Bank and Alexander Mark will talk more about that sitting right next to me. But let me mention a couple of areas. First, we have a new partnership framework that was signed by the Secretary General and the President of the World Bank in April that moves very much from an earlier agreement that was focused on crisis response to prevention and building resilience. So that's I think an incredibly important shift. And secondly, we had a very small trust fund funded by Switzerland and Norway to enhance collaboration. And my favorite example is where we put a World Bank staff member in the office of the special envoy that was leading the negotiation on Yemen. And that has led to a continued engagement of the World Bank, even when the war broke out. I think in previous years, the World Bank would have totally withdrawn and said, you know, war broke out, we will return when things quiet down. But now the continued engagement led to an allocation of almost a billion dollars to Yemen to keep the government institutions going during this violent conflict and make sure that social services were delivered to the people of Yemen. And the third area is something we're doing together with European Union and the Bank and the UN and that is a recovery and peace building assessments. And we have done one in Central African Republic that has led directly to the national recovery and peace building plan that led to $2.2 billion in pledges from donors. The third area is working with civil society. And the PBC is, I think, particularly well positioned to work with civil society because it's much more flexible in its working methods than, for example, the Security Council. And it really has a mandate to bring different actors together, including the private sector, international finance institutions, which have a seat at the table already, and civil society. And the PBF, the Peace Building Fund, we have a gender and youth promotion initiative that since two years can give money directly to civil society. So, Bridget, you're talking about the resource gap. We're partly addressing that by giving the money directly to civil society. And actually we have a target of 40% of the money go to civil society. We've also involved civil society directly in the design of programs in Madagascar and Niger, and involving communities in monitoring and evaluation in Papua New Guinea, Niger, and Sri Lanka. On youth peace and security, we're working very closely with civil society. Actually, we created a working group that's actually co-chair for civil society, which is quite unique in the UN, and which developed the guiding principles on youth participation in peace building. And that work also contributed directly to the adoption and security council of resolution 2250 on youth peace and security. That is really the equivalent of the women's peace and security resolution 1325 that was adopted in 2000. It was already mentioned this morning. And then the final area is with the private sector. Perhaps we released advance there, but we are doing quite interesting work in Liberia around concessions of extractive industries and in Colombia as well, and making sure that the private sector invest in areas that were affected by conflict in particular. And we organized a conference in Colombia just recently with Bogota Chamber of Commerce and Global Compact. But the one area, and I also want to mention what I would really like to do is actually not develop something like the Equator Principles, but then for peace, so the peace principles, I would call them. And we are thinking about that also together with the business for peace part of the global compact. But the other part that I really think we need to work on is innovative financing sources for peace building activities, including of the UN. So I have been thinking about, and we will make some recommendations in the Secretary of General's report on sustaining peace that several people already refers to, to work with the private sector on micro levies, for example, I call it pennies for peace. If every cell phone in the world would give 10 cents to peace building, I think we do very well. I mean, you only have to work with two companies to get like 50% of the market. I don't need to mention which companies they are. And secondly, the product red was incredibly successful in raising money for health sector. So I would like to develop a product blue in terms of focusing on peace. And then finally, I think we need to all do more work on social impact bonds where the private sector can provide the upfront investment, and then the donors can provide the payoff and the return when the outcome is achieved. Thank you very much. Thank you. One of the most exciting developments in recent years has been the growing collaboration as you're hearing between the UN and the World Bank. And in no area there's been stronger than work on countries in transition. The potential here is to actually realize how the possibilities of bringing together the financial clout of the bank with the political expertise of the UN. And our next speaker, Alexandra Mark, has been at the heart of these developments. Most recently as one of the lead authors of the United Nations World Bank study, Pathways for Peace, Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Bound and Conflict. The initial findings have already been published in their own World Bank website, and I recommend them to you. Which makes a strong economic case for prevention, emphasizing the important role of strengthening the social fabric, and explores the potential of development as a preventive mechanism. Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure and honor to be here. I would like to thank very much the president of the General Assembly to organize those type of gathering where we can exchange through the last few years. I've been exchanging with my colleagues in particular with Han Kian quite a lot on this