YouSaid · the spoken record

Simpson

lines on the record: 22
first: 2011-07-20
most recent: 2018-04-23
sittings or episodes: 2
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Thirdly and finally, it offers recommendations for building national, regional and global partnerships and collaborations through youth, peace and security coalitions at the national level; developing dialogue and consultation platforms for young people inside and outside the United Nations; establishing advisory boards and youth advisory councils at the country and regional levels; and utilizing regular reporting mechanisms on progress to the Council. In conclusion, I must finally express my appreciation for the commitment of the young people around the globe who suspended their disbelief, trusted that we would listen and spoke candidly. I promised them that in what I wrote and presented here, they would be able to see themselves and hear their voices. That is "the missing peace" in our world.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“First, there is a set of proposals for investing in the capacities, agency and leadership of youth, including funding mechanisms, facilitating and protecting an enabling environment for youth peace work, and producing age- and gender-disaggregated data so that we can properly assess progress. Secondly, it includes concrete proposals for how to expand the meaningful inclusion in each of the political, economic and sociocultural spheres that I outlined earlier.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“It demands that Member States and the multilateral system move from remedial responses to genuine prevention approaches. That reorientation requires a significant shift from investing in hard security based on risk to investing in youth-led peace work based on resilience. It requires a commitment to new partnerships, particularly with civil society organizations and especially those that are youth-led and youth-focused. It also necessitates a new culture and societal norms that do not demonize, romanticize or, worse still, patronize youth, but rather demand accountability and provide the preventive incentive required for the implementation of resolution 2250 (2015). The study provides a series of recommendations that offer stepping stones towards those changes. It does so in three broad areas.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“It necessitates the leadership and facilitation of young people in the disengagement and reintegration of former fighters and those who have been drawn into violent underworlds. The interests of young people and the work they do naturally traverse the pillars of peace, development and human rights, and they make it clear that protection and prevention are inseparable. The comprehensive inclusion of young people, coupled with the necessary investment in their ownership and leadership, is indispensable to building and sustaining peace. That is what it takes to translate the demographic dividend of youthful populations into an effective peace dividend for the entire globe - for all societies, and not just those riven by violent conflict. Seizing that opportunity will require some major shifts and a bold reorientation.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“It is imperative that we fully protect young people from direct violence and its traumatic effects, but we also must protect the spaces, human rights and the enabling environment necessary for their peace work, including their peaceful dissent and protest. It is essential to recognize the unique experiences of young women, and also the importance of cultivating positive versions of masculine identity that do not depend on control and power over women or violence. It means not only investing in education for peace and prioritizing the protection of places of learning as safe spaces and hubs of social cohesion, but also responding to young people's demands for peace education as a crucial tool in building and sustaining peace and preventing violence.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“It is ultimately only through countering the violence of exclusion that we can prevent the violence of extremism in all its forms. For the inclusion of youth to be meaningful, it must be comprehensive. That requires that politics be genuinely inclusive of young women and men in representative political and policy forums that shape their lives and define their interactions with the State, as well as having youth at the table when peace is being negotiated or reconciliation and reconstruction are being planned. It demands the full economic inclusion of youth, beyond just jobs, in the development of their communities and societies, through all of the Sustainable Development Goals.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“Furthermore, they are forging new pathways and spaces through art, culture, sports and especially through the creative occupation of cyberspace, social media and the development of new technologies for peace. Finally, young people continue to contribute to meaningful change through their peaceful dissent and protest, seeking justice, challenging corruption, demanding freedom of movement and expression and protesting gun violence. Through that work on peace and security, there is an alternative opportunity for Member States and international actors to invest in the upside: young people's resilient commitment to peace. To do that effectively, it is necessary to move from exclusion to the meaningful inclusion of young people.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“They have a key role to play at the table in formal peace processes and also in consolidating peace and preventing the recurrence of conflict through dialogue, post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation. Young men and women contribute to social cohesion by building peace from the most local level, in their families and communities, to national, regional and international levels. They are working across different kinds of conflict and with different types of violence, including violent crime, gender-based violence, political violence and terrorism. They are expanding their reach through innovative partnerships with local Government, civil society and civic and women's organizations, and building regional and global networks.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“Most young people are just getting on with their lives, but many others are exercising great courage, creativity and resilience in working for peace and security - usually voluntarily, and often under hazardous conditions. Yet that resourcefulness remains largely unappreciated as a universal social asset, and is consequently severely undersupported. But the study paints a picture of how young people are undertaking peace work in virtually every society across the globe. They are working across all the phases of peace and conflict cycles, including early interventions to prevent the outbreak of violence in relatively peaceful societies, as well as working to prevent the continuation or the escalation of violence in situations of ongoing conflict.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“The first among them is that bulging youth populations necessarily produce an increased risk of violent conflict. The second assumes that young refugees or youth migration present new threats of terrorist infiltration and violent crime. The third assumption is that most young people are susceptible to recruitment into violent extremist groups. There is little to no evidence to support such policy panic, but the result has still been disproportionate investment in hard-fisted security measures that address the consequences and not the causes of violent conflict. The impact or the cost-effectiveness of those measures is seldom if ever properly evaluated. The reality is that the vast majority of young people are not involved in violence. We should not romanticize that.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“That is a challenge that must be embraced, not fended off. It reflects a trust deficit that we have to bridge. The young people whom we consulted also understood that they are not trusted by their Governments and leaders. Instead, they are treated as a problem to be solved, or worse still, as a threat. As one young man said to us, "Society gives you an eternal tattoo, a label of an offender, a failure, or a source of problems". The stereotypical youth is represented as a young man with a gun, while young women are inevitably consigned to the status of passive victims. Those gendered stereotypes associate all young people with the risks of violence. In so doing, they deprive them of their voice, agency and leadership as the drivers of change and innovators for peace. Those stereotypes have led to some misleading policy assumptions.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“We therefore designed an inclusive, participatory approach, which was indispensable to the legitimacy of the study and its findings. We conducted seven regional youth consultations and supplemented those with national and online consultations, country-specific research in 27 countries, numerous thematic studies and surveys of youth-led peacebuilding organizations, Member States and United Nations entities. To ensure that we heard from young people who would not normally have a voice in this type of global policy process, we also facilitated 281 focus groups in 44 countries around the world. We listened to over 4,200 young people around the globe. A core message they conveyed is that there is a growing trust gap between young people and their Governments, multilateral organizations and even international civil society organizations.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“I must also thank the 21 expert advisers appointed by the Secretary-General to support my study, and make the point that at least half of them are young themselves, as well as the institutional members of the Steering Committee that have overseen the process. From the very outset, it was evident that addressing the exclusion and marginalization of 1.8 billion young people globally was at the heart of the progress study on youth, peace and security. Nearly a quarter of those young people - at least 408 million - are living in situations where they are exposed to violence. In undertaking this study, it was clear that we could not afford to make the mistake of reproducing the very problem of exclusion that we were attempting to solve.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“Mr. Simpson: It is an extraordinary honour to be able to address the Security Council today. I am very grateful to the Ambassador of Peru for hosting this open debate. I am especially privileged to brief the Council alongside three remarkable young women from three continents. The Council has set an important precedent today: young women acting, leading and speaking truth to power to help shape a more peaceful and secure future. Being appointed by the Secretary-General has been a once-in-a-lifetime privilege, especially with a mandate to document the positive contributions that young people around the world are making to building and sustaining peace, resolving conflict and preventing violence.”
2018-04-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8241 (2018) · source
“Anything less will be a deep disappointment to the people of small, low-lying island States such as our friends and neighbours in the Pacific.”
2011-07-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6587Resumption1 (2011) · source
“Many countries hold serious concerns about the security implications of climate change for them and for their neighbours. But we know from past experience that such challenges can be addressed before they reach crisis point, and that conflict need not be inevitable. Many of the actions required for achieving this lie outside the competence and mandate of this Council, but understanding climate change as a driver of instability and potentially of conflict is nevertheless important to achieving a more secure future. I hope that today's discussions have taken us a step closer towards achieving that shared understanding, and I hope that today the Council will send a clear and unequivocal message that it, too, is willing to play its part in meeting this challenge.”
2011-07-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6587Resumption1 (2011) · source
“New Zealand's initiative, supported by many other countries, to establish the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases aims to ensure that efforts to reduce agricultural emissions do not compromise the food security of a growing global population. No country will put its population at risk by reducing its agricultural production, so we need to find other ways of reducing associated emissions. Issues of climate change and security must also be dealt with in an integrated manner across the breadth of United Nations agencies. We therefore support the call by Pacific small island developing States for consideration of mechanisms to support early identification of climate change-related security challenges and to promote comprehensive and cohesive research, analysis and action to address their causes.”
2011-07-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6587Resumption1 (2011) · source
“It is also important that adaptation and mitigation measures be effectively integrated into development activities, including peacekeeping and peacebuilding initiatives. New Zealand is currently working on adaptation and development projects through a number of bilateral, regional and multilateral initiatives. Our climate change adaptation assistance in the Pacific places a strong emphasis on climate-proofing new infrastructure, for example in the context of post- cyclone reconstruction. Sharing best practices and research can also make a significant contribution towards effective, practical measures to address the security impacts of climate change.”
2011-07-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6587Resumption1 (2011) · source
“It must also address existing and future resource use to reduce pressures on resources and build in necessary buffers for when things go wrong. Secondly, and of equal importance, we must manage the scale of these security impacts through reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Addressing the symptoms alone will be insufficient unless we also address the cause. New Zealand is committed, through negotiations in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to achieving comprehensive and effective global mitigation action and implementing effective adaptation measures. To make meaningful progress towards those goals, this year's Durban meeting must take the important step of implementing the Cancun agreements.”
2011-07-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6587Resumption1 (2011) · source
“For some low-lying island States, climate change poses a more fundamental threat, potentially undermining their very viability and continued existence, and raising the very real prospect that we will witness forced migrations of an unprecedented nature and scale. Put simply, whole populations could be on the move, and by any measure that is a security threat. Several steps must be taken to prevent and address the security impacts of climate change. First, we must build the adaptive capacities of developing countries so that they can better cope with future climate-related events before they become security challenges. Resilience to climate change requires more than building capacity to cope with physical impacts.”
2011-07-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6587Resumption1 (2011) · source
“They centre on the significant challenges faced by many communities in managing and maintaining access to basic resources - land, food, shelter, water - in the face of sustained climatic change. The Asia-Pacific region has also faced a devastating series of natural disasters in the past few years - events that are predicted to become even more frequent and severe in the decades ahead. Such forecasts are worrying for small island developing States, which tend to be particularly vulnerable to such events due to their size, geographic isolation and relatively weak economic base. If not addressed, these challenges could well contribute to increased instability and conflict.”
2011-07-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6587Resumption1 (2011) · source
“I thank your delegation, Mr. President, for acknowledging the singular importance of this issue by calling this timely debate. Allow me first to comment on some of the disagreements aired in the lead-up to today's debate. New Zealand understands the concerns expressed regarding this Council taking up issues beyond the role and mandate accorded to it by the Charter. However, for those low-lying small island States, including several in my own region, the Pacific, for which climate change poses the ultimate security risk - that of ceasing to exist as States and as communities - debates about whether this constitutes a legitimate topic for discussion cannot but seem rather abstract and deeply divorced from the severity and urgency of the challenges they face. The potential security implications of climate change have been well documented.”
2011-07-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6587Resumption1 (2011) · source