Sri Lanka has told a UN forum held at the General Assembly (UNGA) that peace and development strategies must work in tandem.
Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, Kshenuka Senewiratne said that multiple efforts must be made to address the complex challenges of violent conflict.
She said that “negative peace” must not be accepted as it is merely the absence of war.
The Sri Lankan envoy was speaking at a high-level forum to mark the 20th anniversary of the General Assembly’s adoption of a Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace.
Senewiratne said that Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) must be implemented to address and reform unjust systems.
Earlier, UN General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa said that just as the greatest global challenges cannot be solved by a single country, peace cannot be pursued in isolation.
“Because peace is more than the absence of war, it needs constant nurturing through the pursuit of dignity and equality, of human rights and justice, of respect and understanding, and of cooperation and multilateralism”, she said.
(Colombo Gazette)