PEACE BUILDING COMMISSION: P-3 ADVANCE PREPARATION

1. (u) This is an action request. See para 6.



2. (c) Summary: In a March 22 meeting of the P-3 convened by
French DPR Duclos, France and the UK emphasized to Ambassador
Wolff the importance of advance preparation for the first
meeting of the Organizational Committee (OC) of the
Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and shared a notional agenda
for that first meeting (faxed to IO/PDAS Philo Dibble).
Regarding potential chairs for the OC, the P-3 agreed on the
need to identify a strong Chairman favorably disposed to P-3
priorities; and preferably to look at the overlap between OC
members and incoming and outgoing Security Council members as
potential Chairs. The UK stressed the importance of light,
flexible innovative rules of procedure so that the PBC
doesn,t turn into another rigid UN talk-shop. Amb. Wolff
reemphasized the importance of establishing the PBSO from
within existing resources. France and the UK agreed with
that position, but said the broader EU membership is more
flexible on resources. End Summary.

Draft Agenda for first meeting of Organizational Committee




3. (c) French Ambassador Duclos and British Political Counselor
Paul Johnston gave Amb. Wolff a notional agenda that they had
coauthored for the first meeting of the Organizational
Committee of the PBC. The agenda envisions a meeting where
the following actions take place:
a) Issuance of invitations to Bretton Woods Institutions
(BWI) to participate in that and all subsequent meetings
b) Before formal discussion of rules of procedure, agreement
on the status of Member States and others, i.e. clarification
that institutional donors (e.g. BWI) are observers, but that
consensus will de facto, if not de jure, require their
agreement.
c) Agreement that the OC will consider applications from
others wishing to be considered as institutional donors (e.g.
EC/EU).
d) Ideally, agreement on pre-selected Chair.
e) Invitation by Chair to PBSO to circulate pre-selected
draft provisional rules of procedure, with a view to revising
them if necessary, after 12 months experience, at the latest.
f) Ideally, agreement on 1 or 2 countries to review,
pre-decided.
g) If necessary, Chair would propose vice-chairs to run
country-specific meetings.



4. (c) The French/UK paper also provided brief points on four key
issues: the nature of the PBC, PBC output, the relationship
of the PBC to the UN Security Council and the format of PBC
meetings. Amb. Wolff agreed with the French and UK view that
the PBC should be very practical, that the discussions at the
meetings themselves should be the central achievement rather
than production of long papers, and that non-standard UN
rules and procedures were critical to keep the PBC from
turning into a talk-shop where members just read statements.
Duclos and Johnston said that advance bilateral and
multilateral diplomacy with other members of the OC and the
UN Secretariat will be critical to building consensus in
favor of light, flexible rules and procedures.



5. (c) Johnston reiterated that there will be plenty of
anti-Security Council sentiment on the PBC, so we need to be
careful that the Organizational Committee doesn,t start off
as a fight. We need to be careful how we play the choice of a
Chair, rules and procedures, and the choice of countries for
the PBC to address, so these issues don,t act as fuel to
re-ignite latent disagreements. The proposed Danish seminar
bringing participants back to the basic purpose for
establishing the PBC will be helpful, he opined.

6.(c) ACTION REQUEST: The issues contained in the French/UK
paper will be discussed at a P-5 plus Tanzania and Denmark
meeting on Monday at 4PM. Please provide guidance prior to
the meeting. Paper was faxed to IO/PDAS Dibble.

Potential Chairs for the Organizational Committee



7. (c) Due to plans for staff changes at the UN, the pool of
obvious, well qualified, potential candidates to chair the
PBC is not large. Candidates that fall in the category of
"good but unavailable" were: Denmark (Amb. Loj departs post
before March ,07) and Germany (expecting a new Permanent
Representative). All agreed Japan would be excellent and
were not too concerned that Japan will get a new PermRep in
the spring. (We understand, however, that Japan doesn't want
to chair the PBC.) The UK opined that Tanzania would be good
from a country standpoint, but their Ambassador was not a
strong Chair when he presided over the Security Council.


8. (c) Amb. Wolff opined that it would be useful to have a Chair
that was an incoming Security Council member in order to
reinforce the PBC,s link to the Security Council. He said
we need to decide also who we absolutely don't want in the
Chair. The P-3 agreed to continue discussions.

Candidate Countries




9. (c) Amb. Wolff stressed that choosing a country with a
peacekeeping operation as one of the first countries for the
PBC to review would be useful, since the P-5 argued for their
own permanent membership on the PBC based on the peacekeeping
link. France said the PBC should avoid difficult countries
like the Congo, Sudan and Haiti for its pilot studies. Amb
Duclos suggested the PBC consider less complicated
post-conflict countries, such as Burundi, Liberia, Guinea
Bissau or Sierra Leone. It would not be useful to consider
Haiti, since Haiti already has a core group that includes the
international financial institutions, and the Latins are
pleased with the core group.

Resources




10. (c) Amb. Wolff reemphasized that the Peacebuilding Support
Office must be established from within existing resources.
France and the UK agreed to reiterate that view to their
Fifth Committee colleagues.
BOLTON