AMBASSADORIAL-LEVEL 1ST ANNUAL STRATEGIC DIALOGUE ON THE SECRETARY-GENERAL’S PEACEBUILDING FUND
Statement by H.E. Rebecca Bryant, Chargé d'affaires Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations
12 March 2025
Thank you Chair,
Thank you very much to all of our briefers for very interesting remarks today.
I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate our full support for the work the PBF, which has supported more than 60 countries – almost one-third of the UN membership. This is very important to acknowledge.
We wish to make four key points today:
First, the PBF supports nationally-owned and led efforts to address the root causes of conflict – core objectives also reinforced in the Pact for the Future.
The Pact encouraged Member States to develop national prevention strategies on a voluntary basis.
We see the PBF as being well placed to provide support to Member States seeking to develop these strategies, at their request.
Second, we must ensure the PBF remains timely, flexible, and catalytic.
The PBF was designed to enable rapid interventions in line with priorities set by recipient governments.
Its governance structure ensures a balance between accountability and operational efficiency.
At our last meeting, we heard from PBF recipients that more could be done to increase the agility of the Fund to meet peacebuilding needs in fragile and fast-changing contexts.
In this regard, we stress the need to ensure the Fund retains the ability to respond to peacebuilding needs on the ground as they arise, including at the project level.
Third, we see immense value in the distinct but complementary roles of the PBC and PBF.
We have seen successful examples of this complementarity through the Country-Specific Configurations of Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau and Liberia.
Building on this, we need to better incentivise and encourage Member States receiving PBF support to engage with the PBC on their own accord, and more regular.
This will make greater use of the PBC as a platform to exchange information on lessons learned, and bring more sustained attention to the Fund’s work.
Finally, we welcome the inaugural allocation of assessed contributions to the PBF in 2025 and thank you, ASG Spehar, for today’s update.
Looking ahead, we see transition settings as an area where PBF assessed contributions can help to preserve peace gains made after the drawdown of UN missions.
We encourage the PBF to ensure there is continuity in countries receiving assessed contributions, to maximise the impact of multi-year projects.
We would also welcome a broader geographic focus, as proposed by the advisory group, including in the Asia Pacific region.
To conclude,
Australia will continue to fully support the PBF and has nearly quadrupled our annual voluntary contribution in 2025 in recognition of this.
We look forward to seeing the Fund’s impact this year.
Thank you.