مرحباً بكم في الأمم المتحدة 
The establishment of a viable public administration is a key part of State-building in the aftermath of conflict and of supporting long-term peacebuilding. In previous sessions CEPA has discussed issues facing many governments and groups who exist within a precarious state of post-conflict where threats of insecurity and violence and legacies of injustice and mistrust make government extremely difficult. To these issues we can now add Covid-19 and the potentially devastating effects on already vulnerable populations and groups.
I have argued previously that discussion of government and governance in such situations is not, in principle, any different to discussing government in general, it is just that post-conflict environments represent an extreme case and the various strands of SDG 16 can be united by the principles of effective governance, and indeed the application of our principles may be more important in situations where they seem to be so far from being achieved.
The paper associated with this discussion links statebuilding as an activity to peacebuilding as a long-term underlying aspect of good governance. It emphasises the role of multiple layers of government, pointing out that local government is frequently ignored in most statebuilding programmes and yet, Covid-19 as a crisis has again emphasised the important role of local government in crisis management.
This links to the need for a balanced approach to governance in post-conflict and post-pandemic environments in the sense of balancing short-term security or health measures with long-term consequences of taking specific decisions. There is much speculation about immediate policies but equally critical are longer-term considerations of conflict prevention, community inclusion, multitrack diplomacy and local capacity development.
Public institutions are critical in promoting integrated approaches to achieve long-term development goals in the face of immediate challenges. The principles of effective governance for sustainable development need to act as an important guide in balancing short-term needs with long-term sustainable development.
Covid-19 presents us with a set of challenges and opportunities related to governance in general and these are very acute within post-conflict and fragile environments. The pandemic has exposed a series of political and institutional weaknesses as well as structural biases – for example, where populations may be vulnerable, alienated or isolated – and these are particularly acute in contexts where governance is already hard and where poor or weak governance could lead to violence. The virtual CEPA meeting on 21 May 2020 will examine the relationship between conflict and Covid around three questions:
1. What is the future for statebuilding and peacebuilding in a post-pandemic world and how might Governments cope with disrupted aid flows?
2. How could fragile and conflict-affected countries manage post-pandemic public sector recovery effectively in situations where there may be contested sovereignty or weak oversight of responses to the pandemic?
3. Post-conflict countries contain some of the most vulnerable populations in the world. How might countries adapt their approaches to institutional effectiveness and leaving no one behind given the effects of the pandemic and evolving prospects for the next decade of action?
Paul Jackson, member of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration