Mr. Chair,

The Chinese delegation thanks the Secretariat for presenting the report of the Secretary-General on the agenda item “Investing in prevention and peacebuilding”, and the Vice-Chair of the Advisory Committee for introducing the Committee’s related report. China attaches great importance to the issue of peacebuilding. The General Assembly and the Security Council have established the UN peacebuilding architecture and have reached positive progress through years’ efforts. The expectations for peacebuilding are growing under current circumstance. It is important to explore sufficient, predictable and sustainable peacebuilding financing. China would like to make the following comments regarding this agenda item:

First, the UN should continuously innovate partnership, and broaden the channels for peacebuilding financing. Peacebuilding is related to economic, social and a lot of other areas. The UN should strengthen strategic programming and coordination, mobilize resources from all areas and form synergy. Any alternation or innovation of peacebuilding financing modality should not change the voluntary nature of the Peacebuilding Fund under current circumstance, which was decided by the resolutions of the General Assembly as well as the Security Council, and should not weaken the historical responsibility of developed countries as the main contributors. Severe difficulties in developing countries’ reality are mostly attributable to historically left-over problems. It is developed countries’ moral responsibility to help developing countries to accelerate development. Traditional contributors should continue to shoulder primary responsibility of peacebuilding financing.

Second, the United Nations should clarify the existing peacebuilding mandates. The General Assembly and the Security Council have decided to establish the Peacebuilding Fund. It must get the political mandate from the General Assembly and the Security Council before changing the Peacebuilding Fund financing modality. “Mandate drives resource” is the basic principle of the UN budgetary and financial work. Member States have not yet formed political consensus. At present, the management, decision-making and oversight of peacebuilding lack effective engagement of Member States and it is needed to reform governance structure, strengthen transparency, and enhance the say of contributors as well as developing countries as the receiving parties. A lot of Member States believe that it is not mature to discuss the proposal of support the Peacebuilding Fund with assessed contributions at this stage, and this proposal is beyond the scope of Fifth Committee as well as against the budgetary and financial rules and regulations of the UN.

Third, the UN should formulate budget requirement of peacebuilding strictly in line with the UN budgetary and financial rules and regulations. The DPPA, some SPMs and Peacekeeping Operations (PKOs) have peacebuilding mandates now, and are funded by the UN regular budget or peacekeeping assessments. It is reasonable and there is merit to moderately intensify resource inputs of certain areas and it should be budgeted and reported to Fifth Committee for review and approval according to the financial rules and regulations. The Peacebuilding Fund should avoid duplication with SPMs and PKOs’ existing peacebuilding efforts, waste of resources as well as unnecessary extra financial burden for Member States. 

China, as the second largest contributor of UN regular budget and peacekeeping assessments, has made important contributions to the UN peacebuilding efforts. I reassure you of China's commitment to engage positively and constructively on this agenda item, and will raise specific questions during the consultations. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair.