OSCE Asian Partners for Co-operation Group Meeting
Approaches to Peacebuilding – Efforts in Asia towards sustaining peace
27 September 2023
Statement by Mr Emil Stojanovski, Deputy Head of Mission
Excellencies, colleagues
I thank Japan and Poland for proposing this important topic and our expert speakers for their valuable contributions.
The collective interests of all in this room today lie in a world where rules and norms provide the foundation for peace, stability and prosperity.
A world where no country dominates, and no country is dominated.
But peace and stability are fragile. We need only look at Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and its brutal aggression against the Ukrainian people to be starkly reminded of this fragility, and the immense human cost of unchecked aggression.
Peacebuilding is a long journey, one that must be sustained by partners to fragile and post-conflict states and by those states themselves.
There is no neat, linear course. We know that many states which have been affected by conflict often relapse into conflict. So peacebuilding responses in any one country may be different to those in another.
But there are common factors. Development is one of them, and it’s key. It is both a driver of progress and a precondition for sustainable peace.
The link is well know by everyone in this room and was referred to by Ambassador Imafuku as the humanitarian-development-peace nexus.
It is reflected in all 17 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Training, professional development, alumni engagement, fostering change agents and community resilience – as highlighted by Ms Kumamoto and Mr Livingstone – are also essential.
So too is the participation of women in post-conflict peace building frameworks.
At the centre of Australia’s new international development policy is our commitment to gender equality.
The full and equal participation and leadership of women is key to our efforts to build peace and prevent conflict, as is implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.
Australia is working in partnership with our region on this, including in support of the ASEAN Regional Plan of Action on Women, Peace and Security.
And I echo the words of Ambassador Bahktari – peace cannot be built by trampling on women’s rights.
Peacebuilding requires a comprehensive and holistic approach.
This includes ensuring a region’s broader environment is one that is conducive to peacebuilding.
A post conflict state cannot sustain peace if the environment around them is one of strategic tension.
To support peacebuilding, we need a strategic balance that deters aggression and coercion and supports inclusion and collaboration.
This includes ensuring major powers maintain open channels of communication to prevent competition veering into conflict, whether directly or by proxy, often in poorer, more fragile countries.
Australia’s national defence capabilities enable us to participate in peacekeeping efforts and contribute to a strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific that deters aggression, upholds maritime security, and delivers regional humanitarian responses.
We have a proud history of supporting multilateral peacekeeping operations, providing defence, police, and civilian personnel to many international and regional peacekeeping operations around the world.
One of the largest peacekeeping and peace building responses in the Indo-Pacific, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, was widely considered to have been a success. Peace building in Solomon islands is far from finished.
But there are important lessons to be learned in devising peacebuilding support missions by a region, for a region.
In Solomon Islands, in Cambodia, in Timor-Leste, our peacekeepers have assisted with organising democratic elections, protecting civilians, strengthening human rights, building strategic communications and providing vital humanitarian assistance.
Regions and regional organisations have a key role to play. But so too do international organisations.
We must never lose focus of the importance of strengthening the norms and institutions that serve as the foundations of peace – institutions like the OSCE – and that are essential to protecting and promoting universal human rights.
Australia is a proud top 10 contributor to the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund which provides critical support for peacebuilding activities that aim to prevent relapses into conflict.
Finally, we must also build our collective resilience to actions that threaten peace such as disinformation, political interference and economic coercion. These are the tools of states that seek to undermine the international rules that underpin peace, stability and prosperity.
It is through inclusive and collective actions such as these that peace can be built and sustained—both in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.
We know that this cannot be done in isolation.
We must be aligned, coordinated, sequenced and complementary.
And this means learning from each other’s experiences, which once again highlights the importance of this collaboration between OSCE members and the Asian partners for cooperation.
Thank you.