Insights on Security and Development
Council members started negotiations yesterday on a draft presidential statement for the high-level debate on the interdependence between security and development. The Brazilian foreign minister will preside over the debate and five Council members (Portugal, India, Germany, Colombia and Bosnia and Herzegovina) have indicated they will send their foreign ministers. The Secretary-General will give the Secretariat’s views on this issue. Sarah Cliffe from the World Bank will also provide information on the World Development Report 2011, which focuses on conflict, security and development.
Brazil’s permanent respresentative, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, in briefing the press yesterday explained that the aim of the debate is to take a comprehensive approach to the issues of peace and security and to see how the Council can cooperate with other organs in the UN system.
Some Council members appear a little jaded at the idea of another debate which essentially focuses on the linkages between peackeeping and peacebuilding and the need to interact with other actors in the UN system. Others feel that the draft is bland, does not live up to its billing as comprehensive and is less than balanced. But it remains to be seen if there will be interest in pushing the boundaries or even recapturing the essence of past Council decisions.
The high-level representation is perhaps connected to the G4 foreign ministers meeting to be held in New York. When the foreign ministers met in New York last September they agreed to push ahead with Council reform.
