Make fresh pledge for global peace: PM

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New York, Sep 26 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has urged the United Nations member states to reaffirm their political and financial commitments to the process for sustainable international peace and security.

She made the call while addressing a high-level meeting titled "Peace Building – A Way Forward towards Sustainable Peace and Security" at the North Lawn Building of the UN headquarters in New York as the chair on Tuesday.

The Prime Minister called for strengthening financial and political commitments to resource mobilisation, national capacity and institution building, and efforts in a coordinated manner for delivering most efficient and cost-effective support to post-conflict societies.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, East Timorese Prime Minister Xanana Gussmao and Zambian President Michael Chilufya, among others, also addressed the meeting.

Hasina said in the post-Cold War era of the '90s, half of the emerging countries fell into violence within a few years. "The Peace-building Commission was established to help them build solid foundations for sustainable peace and development."

She also said Bangladesh always stands by the United Nations in all its peace ventures as a nation committed to sustainable peace and development. "Since 1988 till now, we participated in 37 UN peacekeeping missions with 113,181 peacekeepers. Of them, 118 died and 125 injured while on duty," she noted.

The Prime Minister emphasised appropriate follow-up efforts by the international community on peace-building process and said otherwise, the countries would get into conflicts as was the case in Angola in 1993 and Rwanda in 1994.

Hasina said strengthening coordination and coherence of bilateral, regional and multilateral engagements of the Peace-building Commission and enhancing South-South and Triangular Cooperation was needed for sustainable peace.

She thanked all for electing Bangladesh Chair of the Peace-building Commission. "It's recognition to our commitment to the PBC. Despite our constraints as an LDC, we have continued to comply with our commitments to the Peace Building Fund with annual contributions."

The Prime Minister also noted that Bangladeshi peacekeepers were working with other UN agencies in areas of development, human rights and humanitarian activities with the International Financial Institutions.