On 12 April 2010, the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform organised a consultation in the frame of the official Peacebuilding Commission review, with the participation of two co-facilitators. of the review. Throughout the consultation, a wide range of experienced practitioners from the peacebuilding, development, and humanitarian communities assessed the impact and potential of the PBC in relation to its role within the UN system and beyond, to the linkages this organ generates across communities, the strategies it helps shape in-country, and, last but not least, its effectiveness in leveraging capacity and commitment.
The first segment of the discussion framed the debate, giving the co-facilitators the opportunity to present the issues that have emerged so far throughout the undertaken consultations and to get feedback from the audience on both the review process and its substance. The second segment considered in more depth the fourth element of the PBC mandate, namely building knowledge for more effective peacebuilding policy and practice. Overall, the exercise gave a sense that, in broad terms, there is a common acknowledgment of what the limitations of the PBC are, as well as a significant degree of convergence around the roles and responsibilities that ought to be rethought.
