(Continued) High-Level Meeting on Peacebuilding…

• Plenary segment

Peacebuilding and sustaining peace have become more urgent in the past decade owing to an increase in violent conflicts to a level not seen since 1945, as well as the changing nature of conflict, which is driven largely by a range of complex political, economic, social and environmental factors.

The demand for the financing of peacebuilding and sustaining peace activities has been steadily outpacing available resources, which has been the case for the Secretary-General's Peacebuilding Fund. In the same vein, the current level of financing for conflict prevention and peacebuilding / sustaining peace initiatives remains grossly inadequate, especially given the increase in violent conflicts, their changing, protracted and complex nature and their dire consequences for peace, security, human rights and development in the affected countries and beyond.

The costs of responding to these multifaceted conflict situations have become unsustainable, and as we are aware, effective conflict prevention and investing in building and sustaining peace have a robust potential to reduce costs for Member States on crisis response.