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Mr. President, I would like to thank the Secretary-General for his briefing and for his report “The future of United Nations peace operations” that proposes ways forward to implementing recommendations submitted by the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations. We appreciate the Presidency’s efforts to focus this briefing on a few specific recommendations and hope that this will contribute to a more streamlined conversation among Council members. The need to refocus UN’s efforts to preventing conflict is a constant refrain in our discussions. However, the gap between declarations and actions remains wide. The Panel has hit the nail on the head by describing the UN as focused more on bringing the ambulances to the bottom of the cliff rather than trying to prevent the actual fall. Preventive measures are many. Among them, early warning and alerts capacity, this Council engaging early to address emerging threats, mediation and good offices, better partnerships with regional and subregional organisations and their respective early warning mechanisms.

We are aware that at times proactive UN engagement may not be enough to stop a conflict from erupting, as evidenced by the unending human tragedy in Yemen. However, the risk of failure is not an excuse for not trying. The Council should remain pro-active and flexible in quickly bringing emerging issues for discussion, whether through re-establishing some form of “horizon scanning”, informal briefings by DPA or use of “any other business” item. The Secretary General’s Rights Up Front initiative should also be further developed and applied systematically as an early warning tool, providing prompt, reliable and unsanitised information about serious human rights violations. In this context let me stress that the need for rapid deployment cannot serve as grounds to compromise on the zero-tolerance policy towards all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse by the UN and related personnel. Preventive approach is paramount, including pre-deployment training, adequate mission staffing with gender, women’s rights and child protection advisors, viable complaints and disciplinary mechanisms, as well as adequate vetting procedures. The recommendations of the 2005 Prince Zeid report on making the complaints investigation mechanism more independent from missions also remain valid. Mr. President, To have a meaningful impact on the ground, as the Panel notes, the United Nations should be able to deliver more “right fit” rather than “template” missions. The Council and the Secretariat must ensure that mission mandates are sufficiently clear and robust, adequately financed and supported by necessary materiel. Peacekeepers must have the will and the capacity to act in defence of those they are mandated to protect. As the UN is forced to operate with insufficient capacities and drawn-out force generation, prioritising and sequencing mandate tasks might indeed be the most suitable approach in situations where every day of inaction means more deaths and displacement. Recently, such sequencing was introduced in MINUSCA’s mandate and was welcomed as an example to follow. While fully appreciating this innovation, we should continue to carefully observe the impact of sequencing where it is applied and draw lessons for its improvement. On the ground, concerns have been expressed about the impact of such sequencing on the missions’ capacity to support SSR efforts at a time when this issue is causing especially heated reactions among political circles as well as the population. As security in the CAR continues to suffer setbacks, the need to invest in the SSR process, to promptly carry out the vetting procedures and proceed with building viable and professional security and defence forces could not be more urgent. Lack of progress on the matter, furthermore, could have a negative impact on the protection mandate, especially as elections approach. In South Sudan, with almost 190 000 civilians seeking protection at UNMISS sites, the Mission’s urgent protection tasks are as relevant as ever, yet it is expected to deliver more. We have heard SRSR plead for flexibility and adjustments of mandate in order to be able to deliver some low hanging fruit in an environment where the hostility to UNMISS is high. In October the mandate was adjusted to support the implementation of the peace agreement. Next month the Council will again revise the mandate to reflect a need for greater political engagement. How best to balance the core priorities with measures needed to build trust with the host country while ensuring the necessary resources and force enablers is for the Council to decide. In Mali, MINUSMA is facing a complex set of challenges, operating in an environment under constant terrorist threat, of which we were again reminded today. How to adjust and update the mission to best protect the civilians but also the peacekeepers themselves calls for intensified discussion by all stakeholders. Finally, Mr. President, Mandate sequencing is a concept that should be explored not just when a peace operation is deployed but also as it prepares to leave. Building on the accomplishments by Côte d’Ivoire in national reconciliation, stability, economic recovery and successful conclusion of the Presidential elections, the Council employed benchmarks to measure progress, which served as the basis for gradually phasing out the Mission and handing over authority to the host government and the UN country team. We should apply this model more regularly, since it offers to all sides concerned a clear path towards completing the UN involvement and encourages the sense of ownership over reforms needed to take complete charge of the country’s future. Sequencing and the use of benchmarks could be employed to prevent hasty and premature reduction or even departure of peacekeeping operations. In DRC, the elaboration by the Government and MONUSCO of a gradual exit strategy, bound to benchmarks and indicators in the security, economic and political fields, is clearly a better course of action that can minimize the risk of squandering the gains achieved at a great cost by both the Congolese people and the international community. Had such benchmarks approach been embraced in the case of BNUB, we may have had a different situation in Burundi today. To conclude, we encourage the Council to continue its discussions on implementing the recommendations of the High Level Panel and the Secretary-General, to be followed by concerete action in the very near future. I thank you.