Ireland calls for United Nations to move from “culture of reaction” to “culture of prevention”

Ireland called in New York today for the UN to move from a culture of reaction to one of prevention. Speaking as a member of the UN Security Council, we urged Security Council members to take practical steps to advance recommendations to prevent armed conflict made in a groundbreaking report by the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.

Ireland called on the international community to increase aid to developing countries and stated that development cooperation focussed on poverty eradication is the most powerful instrument that the international community has to address the long term root causes of conflict and to promote peace.

Ireland welcomed the synergy between the efforts of the EU and UN in fostering a culture of prevention. We also called for greater coherence throughout the UN system in addressing the causes of conflict. In addition, Ireland stressed that promoting human rights and gender equality are essential elements in preventing conflict.

Ireland's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Richard Ryan, made these points today in an intervention at an Open Debate of the Security Council on the prevention of armed conflict.

The Government strongly believes that the value of investing in conflict prevention is clear. According to Kofi Annan's report, a preventive approach in the seven major international community interventions of the 1990s would have saved almost $ 130 billion and the deployment of 5,000 troops to Rwanda in April 1994 would have been sufficient to prevent the genocide there.Top