State Minister for Foreign Affairs M ShahriarAlam has said more than a million of Rohingyas are sheltered by Bangladesh that entails tremendous socio-economic and environmental cost.
The human and economic cost of managing conflict is overwhelmingly high with the global humanitarian appeal reaching a record high in 2017 to $ 23.5 billion.
“This year it continues to rise as we witness the largest humanitarian crisis of our time evolving at our bordering area with Myanmar,” Shahriar said while addressing the general debate of the UN high level forum on the ‘Culture of Peace’ at the UN headquarters on Wednesday.
In spite of their efforts, he said, still now many countries are experiencing violent conflict and an unprecedented number of civilians, in particular women and children, are directly affected by them.
He laid emphasis on keeping a people-centric approach in all efforts and uphold human rights as all need to move ahead with developmental efforts.
“As we move ahead, we need to see how best we can embrace the culture of peace. We still see war and conflict ravaging our societies and countries, displacing people and communities with reports of gross violation of human rights and atrocities crimes,” said Shahriar.
The State Minister said they need to review and gather our efforts to strengthen the member states driven UN led initiatives.
As a leading contributor of UN peace building efforts, he said, Bangladesh delegation will continue to support UN peace initiatives in promoting peace.
“While our sustained actions will be required to maintaining international peace and security, we need to move ahead with developmental efforts,” he added.
The State Minister said, it would be critical for all to vigorously pursue various initiatives such as the ones covered by the programme of action under the culture of peace, promote tolerance and non-violence, engage in dialogue, mediation and moderation in the face of signs of conflict in order for peace to last and sustain.
In the upcoming 73rd session, when the UN General Assembly will consider the draft resolution “Follow-up to the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace” member states will celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the original declaration adopted in September 1999.
“We need to see how best we can utilize this opportunity,” said the State Minister for Foreign Affairs.
He mentioned that – ‘Friendship to all and malice towards none – this foreign policy motto of Bangladesh entails why Bangladesh has been a proponent of the Culture of Peace since long.
