Honorable Oishi Kengo, Governor of Nagasaki Prefecture,

Honorable Yuzaki Hidehiko, Governor of Hiroshima Prefecture,

Excellencies, esteemed panelists, and distinguished delegates, 

I thank the organizers for inviting the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for this important side event highlighting the interconnectedness between peace and sustainable development. 

Also, a note of appreciation for the excellent and important work of Hiroshima Organization for Global Peace. Hope’s work is making important inroads to incorporate the concept of “elimination of nuclear weapons” into the post-Agenda 2030.

As the United Nations lead agency on international development, UNDP works in 170 countries and territories to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. We help countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. 

UNDP's work is grounded in the understanding that security, peace and sustainability are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. 

We support conflict prevention, help address the root causes of tensions and violence, empower marginalized groups, promote social inclusion, improve community security, enhance governance and rule of law, and ensure political security and human rights protection.

Let me offer a few observations on the topic of today’s discussion. 

First, this discussion could not come at a more appropriate time– as is the need to act. 

We are living through a troubled time: unprecedented geopolitical fracture, deep divisions amongst major powers, worrying trends towards militarization, and a set of emerging risks and polycrisis such as health and climate crisis, irregular transitions, interstate conflict, declines in human development and human security.

Here we are, three decades since the end of the Cold War, speculating on the renewed threat of nuclear conflict.  

And cultural polarization threatens to distract political and policy discourse away from the sort of just, fair, and inclusive societies where no one is left behind. The Sustainable Development Goals are well off-track with only seven years remaining.

In short, faltering, or failed multilateralism is rendering our world rudderless.

It is urgent, therefore, that multilateralism be strengthened to foster dialogue and collaboration over Global Goals and that new approaches and solutions be pursued to tackle conflict to ensure sustainable peace.

Second, the United Nations is prioritizing comprehensive approaches over securitized responses with a political strategy at its core in the New Agenda for Peace, launched last week. 

The New Agenda for Peace is one of the UN Secretary-General’s Policy Briefs arising from his ‘Our Common Agenda’ report. It is framed around the core principles of trust, solidarity, and universality that are foundations of the UN Charter and of a stable world. It presents twelve concrete sets of proposals for action, in five priority areas. 

Areas 1 and 2 are particularly relevant for today’s discussion.

First one focuses on addressing strategic risks and geopolitical divisions at the global level, including the elimination of nuclear weapons; and

Second on preventing conflict and violence and sustaining peace within countries by accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to address the underlying drivers of violence and insecurity and the interlinkages between climate, peace and security. 

And my third observations is that traditional policy interventions and solutions to advance human security must factor in the shifting context of new planetary reality.  

In recent years, rapid planetary change and social changes have exacerbated existing threats and created new threats across areas, as diverse as, digital technologies, climate change and biodiversity loss, inequalities, violent conflict, and the ability of healthcare systems to confront new challenges.

The pursuit of economic growth has neglected our embeddedness in nature, leading to new health threats, increased food insecurity and more frequent disasters, among many others.

UNDP’s Special Report in 2022 entitled, “New threats to human security in the Anthropocene: Demanding greater solidarity” finds, despite people on average living longer, healthier, and wealthier lives, these advances have not succeeded in increasing people’s sense of security. Human security is about living free from want, free from fear and free from indignity. And the report found that 6 in 7 people worldwide feel insecure. From rich countries to poor countries, people’s sense of safety and security is at a lowest level in most countries. 

A new approach to understanding human security and to development, an approach centered around the restoration of our planet and global solidarity, is therefore required. This will require multilateral action from Governments, UN entities, non-governmental actors and policymakers to overhaul our institutions and policies to consider the interdependence not just between people, but between people and planet.

There are five fundamental principles that encompass the human security approach and differentiate its impact from simply working together. These are: people-centred, comprehensive, context-specific and prevention-oriented responses that strengthen the protection, empowerment and solidarity of all people and all communities. And agency of people at its core, people’s ability to make one’s own choices and to participate in a collective decision making.

I would now like to propose three directions of change underpinning the need for a new approach to promote sustainable peace and prosperity for all. 

First, and foremost, the international community must invest in human development as means to pre-empt crisis and conflict. 

Prevention saves lives and safeguards development gains, and it is cost effective. 

However, international community is not investing enough in prevention. One reason being many conflict-affected countries are under politically estranged situations where ‘standard’ development approaches and instruments are either difficult to apply or prohibited.  Look at Afghanistan and Myanmar where the de facto authorities clearly exercise a limiting control on the potential to apply traditional development approaches.

But the reality is that almost half of the people living in fragile and conflict-affected situations are in such a situation.

We do not have the luxury to wait until conditions on the ground improve, political bottlenecks are resolved, or even legitimacy is restored before we engage on development and peace. This wait and see attitude made most conflicts protracted.

Regardless of the political context, we must continue to engage as feasible to prevent conflict expansion and to promote the longer-term vision of sustainable development. 

And that’s exactly what UNDP is doing be it in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Yemen.

Second, we need to double down on our efforts on climate action, in particular to address the interlinkages between climate, peace, and security.

The effects of climate create uneven consequences.  Climate change is one of the world’s greatest injustices, therefore, potentially exacerbating the risks of instability, especially where conflict already dominates. The most vulnerable communities bear the brunt of a crisis that they did not create.  We need to recognise that climate, peace and security as political priority and ensure that climate action and peacebuilding reinforce each other.

For example, currently climate financing is not reaching and reflecting the needs of conflict affected and fragile contexts. At the same time peacebuilding efforts do not calibrate enough climate vulnerability and risks. Conflict-affected and fragile contexts need investments in climate action, adaptation and access to energy. 

Failure to tackle head-on the challenges posed by climate change, will have devastating effects, for the planet as well as development, human rights and our shared peacebuilding objectives.

And third, our stock of solutions must be expanded beyond considering the security of individuals and communities, to also consider the interdependence among people, and between people and planet, and to enhance trust and solidarity. 

Building on the Special Report on Human Security, in 2022 UNDP’s flagship Human Development Report featured “Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives” arguing that a new “uncertainty complex” is emerging, impeding human development and unsettling lives the world over.  Uncertainty complex consists of i) dangerous planetary change of the Anthropocene, ii) intensifying polarization, and iii) societal transformation, like artificial intelligence.

There are no policy panaceas, no one-size-fits-all approaches. But some policies do form the building blocks for countries and communities as they navigate today’s uncertainty complex towards more hopeful futures. We believe that we need to: invest, insure and innovate—the Three I’s.

This year’s Human Development Report will deep-dive into why people don’t trust one another, to explore ways to enhance global solidarity. 

Despite all the reversal in indicators for peace and human development, there is promise, too—an opportunity to reimagine our futures, to renew and adapt our institutions and to craft new stories. The choice is ours.

In my view, pathways for peace and prosperity are clear. But the humanity is not doing what we should be doing. But together, we possess the power to transform our world. United in purpose, and through investing in multilateralism, we can advance peace and security, restore faith in our institutions, and pave the way for a just, equitable, and prosperous future that leaves no one behind. 

Let us rise to the challenge and shape the world we envision.