National Statement at the Third Thematic Consultation of Our Common Agenda

Mr President,

Sweden aligns itself with the statements made by the EU delegation and Finland.

We welcome the development of a New Agenda for Peace, which takes a comprehensive and holistic view of global security. With this agenda, we should strive to expand our diplomatic toolbox with a special focus on preventive diplomacy and mediation. It should have an inclusive approach, in particular when it comes to a gender perspective and the voices of the youth.

One of the main priorities in the New Agenda for Peace should be to strengthen our investment in prevention and peacebuilding. Investing in prevention works. It saves lives and is cost effective.

The Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund is our financial instrument of first resort to sustain peace in countries or situations at risk or affected by violent conflict. As top donors to the PBF, Sweden underlines the need to broaden and diversify the donor base in recognition of the important role that the Fund plays.

We look forward to the General Assembly High-level Meeting on Peacebuilding Financing in April. We need an ambitious meeting, with a concrete and action-oriented outcome which takes into consideration all relevant options for peacebuilding financing. Sweden will continue to work on enhancing Good Peacebuilding Financing and is currently exploring the possibility of gathering key donors around a set of commitments and asks to be presented to the UN GS as well as the heads of the World Bank and the IMF ahead of the High-level Meeting.

We give our full support to the Secretary-General’s proposal to expand the role of the Peacebuilding Commission to more geographical and substantive settings. The PBC needs to address more cross-cutting issues of security, such as climate change, health, gender equality, development, and human rights from a prevention perspective.

Mr President,

Sweden welcomes OCA’s call for ensuring that women and gender equality are at the heart of peace and security. Making this a reality requires a systematic focus at all levels. Women’s full, equal and meaningful participation and gender-responsive analyses need to be promoted throughout the whole peace and security continuum. To strengthen women’s economic empowerment is a prerequisite.

We also support OCA’s call for addressing violence more holistically. We need to prevent and address all forms of violence everywhere – from the battlefields to domestic settings, not least gender-based and sexual violence.

The extensive work and expertise that goes into transforming unequal power structures must receive the resources it deserves. This includes gender-responsiveness in budgetary decisions, ensuring flexible, sustainable and core funding to civil society, particularly women human rights defenders and peacebuilders.

We fully support OCA’s five transformative measures for promoting gender equality.

Mr President,

The New Agenda for Peace is an opportunity to take the SG’s proposal on strategic risk reduction further and to update the UN’s vision for disarmament. Through the Stockholm Initiative for Nuclear Disarmament, we are resolved to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons in an irreversible, verifiable, and transparent manner, and to reduce the risks they pose in the interim. Nuclear-Weapon States should reduce their nuclear arsenals, discuss and take practical measures to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their policies and doctrines, engage in a structured dialogue to assess, minimize and address nuclear risks, and improve or establish crisis communication and protocol among each other. All states must ensure the full and effective participation of women and to further integrate gender perspectives in all aspects of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation decision-making processes.

Sweden supports the proposal by the Secretary-General of a global road map for the development and effective implementation of international law. Codifying and developing international law remains key as we face many and new challenges. In this regard, we would like to stress the importance of the conclusion of the negotiations on BBNJ and a convention on crimes against humanity as well as the peaceful settlements of disputes.

It is timely and highly appreciated that both Our Common Agenda and the Call to Action for Human Rights provide a strong framework to mainstream human rights, making them a reference point across all of the UN. 

We need to prevent all forms of discrimination on grounds such as race or ethnicity, age, gender, religion, disability, and sexual orientation or gender identity. And we must step up all efforts against incitement to violence or hatred, hate speech, online and offline, while preserving the full articulation of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

Mr President,

Many of the issues touched upon today play out in a digital context. Sweden welcomes the Secretary-General’s proposal of a multi-stakeholder digital technology track in preparation for a Summit of the Future to agree on a Global Digital Compact. The UN’s convening power is key to bridge the digital divide, reassert human rights online and protect the global, multi-stakeholder character of the Internet.

Finally, Mr President,

Let me again reiterate our commitment to the important work outlined in the report. For the continued work we would favour processes in multiple tracks, in line with the different parts of the OCA, leading up to the Summit of the Future.

Thank you.