Security Council to Promote Closer, More Operational Cooperation Between United

Nations, Regional Organizations in Early Warning, Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding

Presidential Statement Follows Debate, Which Includes 11 Organizations;

Council Also Observes Minute of Silence on Behalf of Haiti Earthquake Victims

Following a two-day retreat of officials from 11 regional organizations with the Secretary-General and a Security Council meeting that heard from them this morning, the Council expressed its intention to consider further steps to promote closer and more operational cooperation between the United Nations and such organizations in the fields of conflict early warning, prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding and to ensure the coherence, synergy and collective effectiveness of their efforts.

Through a Presidential Statement read out by Zhang Yesui of China, which holds the Council Presidency for January, the body welcomed the already existing strong cooperation initiatives between the United Nations and regional organizations and commended the ongoing efforts made by the Secretariat to consolidate partnerships with such organizations, including through the Secretary-General’s 11-12 January retreat with the heads of those organizations.  Reaffirming its commitment to the peaceful settlement of disputes, the Council also acknowledged the important contribution of regional organizations to such settlement, as, it states, ”they are well positioned to understand the root causes of many conflicts and other security challenges”. 

The Council also invited the Secretariat and all regional organizations that have a capacity for peacekeeping to enhance their working relations and to further explore how their collaboration could better contribute to the fulfilment of United Nations mandates and goals, so as to ensure a coherent framework for peacekeeping.  It underlined the importance of regional organizations enhancing such capacities and the value of international support to their efforts, in particular to the African Union, in terms of the 2006 United Nations-African Union Ten-Year Capacity Building Programme.  Acknowledging also the importance of regional and subregional organizations in post-conflict recovery, reconstruction and development, the Council affirmed the importance of their interaction with the Peacebuilding Commission.

Opening the discussion in the Council this morning, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that the current crises faced by the United Nations could only be met through strong partnership at all levels.  He said that over the past two days, he and the heads of regional and subregional organizations had had a very fruitful retreat, but were only beginning to realize what cooperation between all of them could accomplish. 

“We can and must go farther still”, he said, in relation to pursuing more effective peacekeeping and peacebuilding