STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY H.E. MR. JAN ELIASSON ON THE ELECTION OF SEVEN MEMBERS OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE PEACEBUILDING COMMISSION

UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS NEW YORK 8 MAY 2006

Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, On 20 December you made history. By creating the Peacebuilding Commission the General Assembly decided to take an important step to strengthen the capacity of the United Nations in maintaining sustainable peace and security. The Peacebuilding Commission is an innovative body, which is to assist countries on the arduous road from violent conflict to recovery, reconstruction and development. The composition of the Organizational Committee of the Commission is clearly spelled out in resolution 60/180. In the Outcome Document our leaders already decided on the different categories of members of the Organizational Committee. Some of you voiced strong concern that the Committee lacked in legitimacy, since many of you would not have the possibility of being elected or selected. We all took that argument seriously and made a very difficult decision to open up the agreed text of the World Summit Outcome. A category was created to allow the General Assembly to elect seven additional Members from regions not sufficiently represented in the other categories of the Organizational Committee, giving particular consideration to those countries that have experienced post-conflict recovery. More than four months have passed since 20 December. We have discussed the regional representation in ECOSOC and in the General Assembly at length. The decision to allow the Peacebuilding Commission to become operational is long overdue. The World Summit Outcome requested that the Peacebuilding Commission should begin its work no later than 31 December
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2005. I acknowledge the difficulties you have been facing during your discussions, in particular since the composition of the Peacebuilding Commission is innovative. Let us not forget that one of the main purposes of the PBC, according to its mandate, is to bring together actors to marshal resources and to advise on and propose integrated strategies for post-conflict peacebuilding and recovery. I am gratified that you, in all categories of the Organizational Committee, have shown commitment and flexibility in spite of strongly held views. You have now in front of you draft resolution 60/L.52, Elections of seven members of the Organizational Committee of the Peacebuilding Commission. The resolution is based on paragraphs 4 (a) to (e) and 5 in General Assembly resolution 60/180 and Security Council resolution 1645 (2005). More specifically it implements paragraph 4 (e) giving the General Assembly a mandate to elect seven additional members giving due consideration to representation from all regional groups in the overall composition of the Organizational Committee and to representation from countries that have experienced post-conflict recovery. The distribution of seats among the five regional groups for this year is based on the elections/selections in the other four categories set out in resolution 60/180 paragraph 4 (a) to (d) and communicated to the Secretary General in accordance with the following: -Letter from the President of the Security Council, dated 17 January 2006

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-Resolution E/2006/L.2/Rev.2, entitled "Membership from the Economic and Social Council in the Organizational Committee of the Peacebuilding Commission pursuant to paragraph 4 (b) of the General Assembly resolution 60/180 and of Security Council resolution 1645 (2005)" adopted 8 May 2006. -Letter from the Facilitator for the Group of Top Ten Providers of Contributions to the United Nations, dated 8 May 2006 -Letter from the Facilitator for the Group of Top Ten Troop Contributing Countries, dated 5 May 2006 The letters from the facilitators of the donor and troop contributing categories will be distributed as official UN documents. I take note and welcome the fact that both the donor and the troop contributors categories foresee some rotation among its members. The General Assembly will elect seven members for this year distributed among the five regional groups as follows Two seats for African States One seat for Asian States One seat for Eastern European States, Three seats for Latin American and Caribbean States and No seat for Western Europe and other States
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I understand that the Economic and Social Council will conduct their elections on 12 May. I propose that the elections in the General Assembly take place on 16 May in the afternoon. Member States are invited to inform or confirm their candidatures to the Secretariat before 16 May. I understand that the Secretariat will prepare a list of candidates for information. The draft resolution sets out that the rules of procedure and established practices of the General Assembly for the election of members of its subsidiary bodies shall apply to the elections to the Organizational Committee. The elected members will serve for renewable terms of two years, beginning the day of the first meeting of the Organizational Committee. A new element introduced in the draft resolution is that the term of membership shall be staggered, and that two members from different regional groups, to be drawn by lot in the first election, shall serve for an initial period of one year. This will allow for continuity and not having all members from the General Assembly category change at the same time. Those members serving for one year only are eligible for subsequent periods of two years. It will also allow the General Assembly to have an annual review of its distribution of seats based on changes in the membership in other categories in the Organizational Committee. After all, the General Assembly category was created in order to have a balanced representation from all regional groups and thus ensure legitimacy. Finally, I would like to emphasize that representation from all regional groups in the overall composition of the Organizational Committee is not the
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only criterion for the General Assembly category. Countries among you that have gone through difficult periods of post-conflict recovery will be a special asset for the work of the Peacebuilding Commission. I am confident that you will keep this in mind when electing members of the Organizational Committee. In closing, let me thank you for your hard work, cooperation and support to me and my Office. We will soon leave the process of the creation of the Peacebuilding Commission behind us. Let us now concentrate on the important work to prepare the first meeting of the Organizational Committee and even more importantly, the first countryspecific meeting. As I have said many times, our work at the United Nations must always go through a "field test". I would strongly hope that the Peacebuilding Commission will go through that field test before the end of this 60th session. This we owe to all those who are in dire need of postconflict recovery.

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