Excellencies, Distinguished delegates, dear colleagues and partners,

On behalf of UNDP, I would like to thank, both President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission for jointly organizing this important meeting at a time when our joined-up efforts are most needed.

None of us imagined that this is where we would be, when we drafted the 2030 Agenda just seven years ago.

Cascading crises, intensifying conflict, and protracted cycles of fragility have thrown decades of progress in reverse.

For the first time in 32 years, the Human Development is backsliding, globally, for two years in a row.

Can we stop and reverse these trends? Our collective, hopeful answer must be a resounding YES! Then How? Let me offer three considerations:

• The first is on the imperative of integrated action.

UNDP is seeking to further drive effective, genuine, system-wide, cross-pillar collaboration, especially in spaces where the humanitarian-development-peace nexus approach is needed. As a development actor, we are significantly scaling up our collaboration with the Peacebuilding Architecture and with our sister agencies in our work on conflict and fragility, through joined-up advocacy, but also through joint flagship inter-agency programming such as deploying Peace and Development Advisors, the Climate Security Mechanism, Global Focal Point for Rule of Law, and  Transitions work.

But this is clearly not enough.

Evidence increasingly suggests that today’s conflicts are rooted in multidimensional development deficits. The most sustainable solutions to conflict, and the best means to prevent it, rest with development, owned and led by national partners.

Responding to these challenges, we recently launched a new Crisis Offer reflecting the ambition to break the cycle of fragility, get ahead of the crisis curve, and sustain development throughout crisis to invest in hope, from jobs to justice.

Today, UNDP deploys this full-spectrum approach to help countries anticipate, prevent, respond to, and recover from crisis in every development context.

Among other challenging contexts, in Afghanistan, UNDP works through area-based programming to sustaining local delivery systems, get cash in the hands of people to enable a dignified livelihood, especially for women-headed households, including facilitating their access to clean and affordable energy.

• My second point is on resourcing. We continue to play catch-up, firefighting rather than preventing the fire in the first place. Today, investments in prevention make up only 4% of global assistance, according to the latest OECD data.

We must acknowledge that sequencing humanitarian, development and peace engagement is a damaging myth that delays recovery, promotes siloes, and only incentivizes competition in a real or perceived context of resource scarcity.

As the Financing for Peacebuilding resolution indicated, we must re-imagine a resourcing model that incentivizes preventive, holistic and coordinated engagement. Together with member states, Agencies, Funds and Programmes, International Financial Institutions, and civil society, we must find creative ways of engaging more diverse actors, including the private sector –to build even broader coalitions for peace.

• My third and final point comes from the finding of the Special Report on Human Security, on the state of multilateralism, and it is also an appeal.

Member states must be in the lead to transform the environment in which we operate. Without an effective, collaborative, networked multilateralism, all our efforts to promote human security will fall flat. We must deliver on our mutual commitments and promises, use data and digital solutions as tools for inclusion not polarization and maximize the use of dialogue as an instrument for peace.

The voice of women and young people, especially when it comes to peace and security, like we heard in COP27 on climate change, must be offered space in our platforms. This is a legitimate right for future generations.

Dialogue platforms such as the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (IDPS), for which UNDP is the new secretariat, represents a unique multistakeholder model to reinvigorate trust-based partnerships at the global, regional and country level.

Distinguished delegates,

As we approach the 2023 SDG Summit and the 2024 Summit for the Future, including the New Agenda for Peace, we face many emerging challenges. There can be no new agenda for the future without a new agenda for global hope and solidarity.

In this effort, UNDP remains firmly committed to accompanying you, working across the UN system as steadfast stewards of the norms in the UN charter, to create lasting impact towards sustainable development and peace. 

Thank you.

Watch event recording here.