The Peacebuilding Commission at 20: Progress, Challenges, and the Road Ahead
To read the full report, please download the PDF here.
At the end of January 2025, member states began the formal phase of the Peacebuilding Architecture Review (PBAR), a process undertaken every five years to strengthen and refine UN peacebuilding efforts worldwide. The current review, the fourth since the founding of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) in 2005, comes at a time of significant geopolitical divisions and escalating risk of conflict in many parts of the world, underscoring the urgent need to step up efforts to build and sustain peace in various settings. It also follows on the heels of The Pact for the Future (2024), which reaffirmed the importance of the PBC as a platform for supporting national peacebuilding priorities.
Against this background, this report offers practical recommendations to strengthen the PBC’s complementary, advisory and bridging roles, drawing on its progress and challenges over the past 20 years. It explores efforts to expand the PBC’s preventive approach, elevate its political profile, strengthen partnerships, and enhance synergies with the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). The report evaluates ways to better support countries undergoing UN transitions and advance policy commitments on issues such as women, peace, and security and youth, peace, and security. The report places emphasis on the implementation of the PBC’s annual programme of work, including by stressing the need to focus more on the root causes of conflict.
The report will serve as input for a closed, informal dialogue hosted by the Republic of Korea (PBC-Security Council coordinator), in coordination with Germany (PBC Chair), bringing together PBC and Security Council members to discuss ways to improve the Commission’s effectiveness and strengthen its relationship with the Council.
