Välkomstanförandeav Isabella Lövin, minister för internationellt utvecklingssamarbete och klimat vid Sipri forum för freda och utveckling
Sustainable Peace – What works?
Dettaladeordetgäller.
Ministers, Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am truly honored to stand here before you
today to give you some opening remarks.
First, a quotation:
“I have learnt a trade that I will apply for the rest of my life, although I am a woman”.
These words are from the student, SaabriinAbdalla Mohamed, from Shangani district in Mogadishu. She wants to become a construction worker.
Five months ago I saw her in Mogadishu, Somalia. This time I visited the One Stop Youth Centre just by the Indian Ocean in the middle of the city. Before the war Mogadishu was known as the white pearl of the Indian Ocean. With its white style, Italian Palaces.Its’ Catholic Dome and its’ Mosques and its’ Arch of Triumph. It was really something splendid.
But Saabriin never saw that Mogadishu. She was born after the war broke out in 1991. She grew up in a city completely in ruins. A city with walls full of gun holes, the street full of rubble and men with guns. And the white has turned gray. Gray as in dust. She never went to school, she never had a normal life.
But when I met her at this center for young people where they taught vocational skills, lifeskills and build-your-own-business training, she was absolutely beaming with pride and with joy. She showed me a floor tile of concrete that was painted in green and red which she had done herself.
She said that this work that she was learning as a construction worker was not only about her future, it was the future of Somalia. And now she felt that she was part of the future of Somalia. She said: When I help rebuilding Mogadishu – that brings hope to young people. We must take our destiny into our own hands. And this tile will build Mogadishu. And it will build peace.
Wow! I never heard anything that concreate that explains how we need to work to build sustaining peace and including young people.
“Peacebuilding, sustaining peace – what works?” That is the title of this Sipri conference. We know what works. We need inclusive politics, we need security, rule of law, economic development, we need service delivery to people and we need wealth distribution. This is nothing that I have invented, these are the peace building and state building pillars of the New Deal for fragile states. It’s not even a new deal, it’s something we worked for during many years. It’s very simple. But it’s also very difficult.
Nothing can be more important than to sustain peace and to prevent violent conflict. For the young women and men in Mogadishu, international support for the transition under way in Somalia really matters.
Somalia with its newly and successfully election are now an example of a fragile country finally going in the right direction. I warmly welcome the new minister of women’s affairs and human rights who has now entered in government. This gives us hope. With the right support and with the right leadership, peacebuilding is possible.
-One year ago, at a meeting with the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding preceding this very forum, donor and fragile states adopted the Stockholm declaration on Addressing Fragility and Building Peace in a Changing World. In this we committed to:
- Addressing the root causes of fragility, conflict and violence
- Contributing to implementing the 2030 agenda by using New Deal principles
- Using development aid in more innovative ways to better respond to protracted crises
- Wider and stronger partnerships
-Since then, the UN Sustaining Peace resolutions have also been adopted, aiming at preventing violent conflict, addressing root causes, and moving towards recovery, reconstruction and development. It also relates to human rights, peace and security, and sustainable development in a mutually reinforcing way.
-The facts are clear to us:
- We know that more and more poverty is concentrated in fragile and conflict affected states.
- We know that fragile and conflict affected states in many cases failed in achieving the Millenium Development Goals.
- We are painfully aware of the consequences of violent conflict: the highest number of refugees since the Second World War and alarms of famine in a scale never seen before since the creation of the United Nations.
-Ministers, Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is a privilege and honor to welcome you to the Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development.
-If we are serious about our commitments to address fragility – we need to develop our ways of working and develop our partnerships.Different actors in the international community urgently haveto change behaviour and work closer together in new ways.Political will is key, and desperately needed at all levels. This is why we have chosen the theme Sustaining Peace – what works?
-WHAT we do and HOW we do it makes difference. During my many visits in fragile contexts I have seen for myself ways of working on the country level that have had great impact, and other that have not. We know that in order to promote lasting solutions to protracted crises, a long-term perspective needs to be applied at the very beginning of an intervention.
-We know that if we early on work together and use political-, security- and development efforts for a common goal, we have a greater chance. If we start from the national level, with national ownership and make efforts to include all relevant stakeholders, not least women and youth, we are better equipped to realize sustaining peace, sustained development and leaving no one behind.
-This is why the Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development is such an important arena for exchange of experiences, stimulating discussion and also a valuable opportunity to elaborate new modalities and tools to promote sustaining peace.
-SaabriinAbdallaMohammed has a dream of a future out of fragility.
-Her dream must come true – let’s hope that our discussions here, these coming two days, can contribute in the best possible way and I’m convinced that we can.
-Thank you.