Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry has affirmed Egypt's commitment to support efforts meant to provide an adequate and sustainable financing for the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund under its presidency of the Peacebuilding Commission this year. Addressing a virtual UN high-level conference on Tuesday, Shoukry voiced out Egypt's support for the UN Secretary-General's strategy for the Peacebuilding Fund for the period 2020 - 2024, which includes a vision of how to employ the activities of the fund and its resources to address the political, economic and social repercussions resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. During the event, Minister Shoukry highlighted the "major" challenge the pandemic constitutes to international peace and security saying it has "a profound impact on exacerbating conflict-causing conditions and weakening state institutions," according to a statement by the ministry spokesman, Ahmed Hafez. The United Nations event was co-chaired by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, and others officials under the theme "A high-level Replenishment Conference for the Peacebuilding Fund to mobilize critical support for conflict prevention and peacebuilding against the Fund's $1.5 billion requirements for the period 2020-24.” The Egyptian foreign minister also asserted the need to rely on "innovative" financial sources to finance the fund in order to avoid relying on voluntary financial contributions, Hafez added. The UN event aimed to counter the persistent underinvestment in peacebuilding and provide this timely, catalytic and risk-tolerant instrument with more adequate, predictable and sustained resources to support national peacebuilding efforts in more than 40 countries around the world.
