A top United Nations official said during a press briefing at UNIOSIL headquarters (in Freetown) on the new United Nations peacebuilding architecture that Sierra Leone has set an example in maintaining peace. And that is after over a decade long conflict that left an estimated 50,000 people dead and thousands maimed.
The Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support, Ms. Carolyn McAskie, told a room-full of local journalists and international correspondents that “the war has been over for five years, the peace has held, I think that’s a gold standard. Five years is a long time after the kind of deep and violent conflict which took place here in Sierra Leone. There is still a lot to do though”, she added. Ms. McAskie visited the country from 6 to 8 March 2007 and had meetings with government officials, civil society representatives, the donor community and the United Nations Country Team.
According to the Head of the UN Peacebuilding Office progress is expected to continue in consolidating the country’s peace with a “$35 million envelope out of the Peace Building Fund” which the UN Secretary-General recently approved for Sierra Leone. That money would be spent on urgent peacebuilding projects to be decided by a Steering Committee. The Committee comprises various stakeholders and will be co-chaired by the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone at the country level. The Executive Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General in Sierra Leone, Mr. Victor Angelo, noted during the press conference, that the Steering Committee will soon begin its work. .
In response to a question on the overall resource requirements for peacebuilding efforts in Sierra Leone, Ms. McAskie expressed the hope that the US$35 million allocated from the Peace Building Fund (PBF) can play an important catalytic role in attracting additional donor support to further consolidate the peace process. The ASG further observed that Sierra Leone has done a great deal of work in advancing a peace consolidation agenda, and commended civil society groups who she said “are organizing in a very strategic and impressive way”, adding that the role of the press as well is very important in the peace process.
“Sustaining attention on a crisis or a post crisis period is very, very critical and I see this as the most important part of the work of the Peace Building Commission”, Ms. McAskie said.
Ms. McAskie announced that a delegation from members of the Peace Building Commission would soon be coming to Sierra Leone “to get a sense of developments on the ground and to better inform the Commission on the next steps of engagement with the country”. She explained that the visit would help in developing “an integrated peacebuilding strategy”. Carolyn McAskie referred in this regard to the country’s Peace Consolidation Strategy as an example of the “great deal of work” that has been done and that the PBC would be building on.
The Peacebuilding Commission is a recommendation from the 2005 World Summit and has a mandate, among other things, to assist post-conflict countries in consolidating peace and prevent from relapsing to war. It currently has Sierra Leone and Burundi under consideration.
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