Statement
by
Ambassador Ivan Šimonovic Permanent Representative of the Republic of Croatia
in the Security Council
Open Debate:
On the Way of Making Intensions Real
a Follow-up to the Security Council Summit
New York
7 March 2001
Mr. President,
It brings me special pleasure to greet our former colleague and member of the Eastern European Group in the capacity of the President of the Security Council on the occasion of this open debate, which provokes us to examine: Do we practice what we preach?
The Security Council Summit was a monumental event in many respects. Besides its symbolic value, that should not be underrated, it certainly brought us closer to a shared vision to ensure an effective role of the Security Council in the maintenance of peace and security in each and every region of the world. Building on that momentum, in a series of open debates and several actions by the Council in the past six months we have reaffirmed repeatedly our conviction that the UN remains indispensable to safeguarding the world peace.
We have reaffirmed the importance of a timely, competent and otherwise effective peacekeeping, which increasingly acquires more and more complex formats. The troop-contributing countries that shoulder the greatest share of peacekeeping in the field told the Council in January what they need to carry out their duties as they are expected and called upon to do. And so did the Member States on the issue of women, peace and security last October. Also, just last month we moved closer to outlining a comprehensive strategy for peace-building. Throughout these debates, we said again and again that we need all the political will, mutual trust and bureaucratic capacity to act upon the very causes of conflicts in a timely and effective manner to prevent their occurrence or recurrence.
For the time being, Africa should remain in the special focus of the Security Council, the entire UN system and the regional organizations, but frozen conflicts in other regions should not be underestimated either. Given the extent of poverty and spread of infectious diseases that are occurring at a greater scale than elsewhere, the need for convergence of the peace and development agendae figures prominently particularly in Africa. No development can be sustained either without peace or without people. Investments in peace thus encompass investments in health, education and environment, as well as in human rights and good governance.
As an advocate for and guarantor of peace, the Security Council must use its visibility and its prestige to consult with and augment the efforts of the UN bodies principally charged with furthering the world development agenda. In this regard, as a member of the ECOSOC bureau, I look forward to future substantive cooperation between the two councils, so as to make our intentions stick in reality.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Press releases
