2010 is a year of both challenge and opportunity for peacebuilding. The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit in September will review progress against the MDGs and remind us of the challenges we face. There is no doubt in my mind that peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction are the biggest and most important development challenges of our time. Around one third of the 1.4 billion people below the poverty line live in fragile states. Half of all children who die before their fifth birthday do so in countries affected by conflict. And people living under the cloud of conflict are more likely to die from preventable diseases, be out of work, suffer from educational disadvantage or face sexual violence.

Conflict destroys hope and prevents development, which is why it is incumbent on all us, particularly those of us who are privileged to be parliamentarians, to do all we can to tackle the challenges of conflict and fragility wherever they may be. So I hope that one of the conclusions in September at the MDG Summit will be to give greater priority to tackling conflict and fragility in our quest to rid the world of poverty and inequality. Of course, the world looks to the United Nations for a lead in peacekeeping and peacebuilding, but for too long the international response has lacked urgency and coordination. Our approach has rightly emphasized peacekeeping – the important work of reacting to conflicts and helping to end them. But it has not focused enough on peacebuilding – the equally important political, social and economic development necessary to help countries maintain stability and avoid a reemergence of violent conflict.

Progress is underway however and I believe there is now a common set of principles on peacebuilding:

• It must be linked to peacekeeping and must start much earlier in the peace process:
• It must be led by national ownership and national strategy, supported by a coordinated international effort, without unnecessary delay;
• It must build national and local capacity, involving neighbors and regional organizations to secure sustainable peace and progress.

Agreeing on a set of principles is not enough. There must be considered and concerted action to change the way the world approaches peacebuilding. The rate of change must speed up. During June's debate at the UN General Assembly on the future of peacekeeping, the General Assembly President Ali Treki said that the UN “must do better” in post conflict situations. He said: “One-size-fits-all approaches do not work...to build and sustain peace in such complex and fragile situations, we require a broader, holistic strategy that synergizes the peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts to address the interlinked issues of security and development in a comprehensive manner.”

There are three crucial opportunities ahead to synergize our efforts. The UN Secretary General is due to report shortly on progress made on the implementation of his 2009 report on peacebuilding support operations.  The report looks at four key areas: leadership, strategy, clarity of roles and responsibilities and improving civilian capacity. If we are to improve our approach to peacebuilding in the immediate aftermath of conflict, the UN must ensure that the international system can rapidly deploy expert assistance to help identify needs and then work with the national authorities to develop practical plans for security and justice, public administration and economic revitalization.

As a world community, we need to be able to work with national authorities to deliver a package of assistance that does two things: meets the basic needs of the population and delivers a peace dividend that starts to remove the causes of conflict. For this to happen, we must find a way to end the duplications, delay and buck-passing between departments that have caused problems in the past. And the UN and the World Bank must agree to work together, not just on paper, but in the field. Everyone agrees that there must be better coordination, but few like to be coordinated. This has to change.

The second opportunity ahead is the UN review on national capacity building – one of the acknowledged gaps in international support to countries emerging from conflict. We need an international system that is ready to quickly and effectively build- not duplicate or replace - national capacity in countries emerging from conflict. Again there must be more coordination among  donors and the UN, and other agencies must accept the need for leadership in this area. Civilian support is too fragmented, too slow, often too little and sometimes inappropriate. I find it inexcusable that ten years into the new millennium we have not yet found a working model.  The UN must start making better use of regional and Southern expertise, we must develop more effective arrangements for international coordination and the efficiency and effectiveness of UN civilian deployments must improve.

The third opportunity I want to highlight is the review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). The Commission is, in my view, a 21st century forum within a United Nations that was designed for the challenges of the 20th century. This has been recognized by the commission's chairman, Ambassador Wittig, who recently noted that there was a need to strengthen the relationship between the PBC and the Security Council.  The review must also be prepared to examine the PBC’s record on coordination and the marshalling of resources. Since the PBC was set up in 2005, it has had some important successes – in Burundi, Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic and Guinea-Bissau. And crucially it has kept a global focus on peacebuilding that otherwise might have got lost. But it still has not yet reached its full potential in helping post-conflict countries build sustainable peace.

The forthcoming review provides an important opportunity to assess the work of the PBC over the last five years and, using those lessons, focus on how the PBC can work better in the future. The review should help the PBC support more effective coordination on the ground. It could, and should, create more flexibility so that more countries can benefit – and at different levels of intervention.  Crucially, the PBC needs to provide a forum to help address political barriers to peacebuilding, to ensure that international efforts are coherent, comprehensive and harmonized.

If the PBC is to strengthen peacebuilding across the world, and so stop countries from relapsing into conflict, then it should insist on a unified, international effort supporting a single, nationally owned strategy, in every post-conflict country.

The next few months are crucial for the world’s efforts to build sustainable peace and support development. Key to that success will be the role of regional and continental organizations. The United Nations looks to European Union, the African Union, Asian nations and Latin America to work in partnership to deliver a coordinated international approach.

The prize is a great one. If we continue to spend billions on ending conflict, only to let a short lived peace collapse back into chaos, then we will condemn hundreds of millions of people to a terrible fate.  But if regional and continental organizations, member states and international institutions can agree on a unified approach to peacebuilding, and then deliver a coordinated strategy wherever recovery is required, then hundreds of millions of people will benefit.

We truly will be building a better world.

Jack McConnell is a Member of the Scottish Parliament and a member of EWI's Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security.