As the President of the Security Council for the month of March 2022, the United Arab Emirates is mindful of the importance of the working methods of the Council in enhancing its effectiveness, efficiency, and transparency. The UAE is committed to and will encourage the implementation of Presidential Note S/2017/507 and relevant subsequent Presidential Notes. In this regard, and in consideration of Presidential Note S/2021/647, we wish to highlight in particular the following priorities:
Promoting the effective and efficient functioning of the Council
- The Presidency will aim for a balance between open and closed meeting formats to promote transparency while ensuring the use of formats best suited to facilitate specific discussions. Where appropriate and when it may be of value, the Presidency will seek to pair open meetings with consultations to allow for accessibility and transparency, while also providing space for informal interaction between Council members in a closed setting.
- To make more effective use of open meetings, both members and non-members of the Council will be encouraged to limit statements to five minutes. The Presidency encourages joint statements, where appropriate, as a means of improving focus and interactivity, particularly in the open debate.
- To promote efficiency and interactivity, when the Council convenes for informal consultations of the whole, the Presidency will encourage Council members to avoid, where possible, the use of lengthy prepared statements and to direct questions to the briefers, or other Council members, to spur discussion.
- [For the purpose of Informal Consultations of the Whole, the Presidency may pose questions or suggest issues for Council members and briefers to consider addressing during their interventions, without prejudice to other issues members or briefers wish to raise.]
- The Presidency will aim to ensure that informal consultations are action-oriented including, where appropriate, by proposing that the President brief the press on the basis of elements agreed during consultations by consensus.
Consultative Approach
- The Presidency is committed to a consultative approach and will engage with all Council members with a view to promoting conflict resolution and resolving differences that might arise to allow the smooth functioning of the Council’s work.
- The Presidency will seek the views of Member States that are parties to conflicts on the programme of work of the Security Council for March and/or other interested, affected and concerned parties throughout the presidency.
- The Presidency will also provide opportunities to hear the views of the wider membership of the United Nations, including through the briefing to the wider membership on the first day of the presidency and during the wrap up session.
- Recognizing the importance of dialogue with regional and subregional organizations, the Presidency will consult with regional and subregional organizations, where appropriate.
- We will facilitate exchanges of views between the Council and relevant TCCs and PCCs, including by holding meetings with concerned TCCs and PCCs sufficiently in advance of Council consideration of mandate renewals or modifications.
- We will maintain communication with the Peacebuilding Commission and will include the PBC Chair in meetings or discussions where appropriate. We will also consult with the Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission on our respective programmes of work for the month of March 2022.
Women Peace and Security, Vaccine Equity and Climate and Security
- In line with the UAE’s shared commitments with other Council members on Women, Peace and Security, the Presidency will ensure the strong representation of diverse women civil society briefers and will promote gender balance in briefers overall. We will further encourage all briefers to include gender-related aspects in their statements to the Council.
- March 2022 marks the two-year anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic. Briefers for Council meetings on country- and region-specific situations will be asked to provide, where appropriate, statistical information on COVID-19 vaccination status as well as proposed solutions for accelerating the roll-out and administration of COVID-19 vaccinations for the Council’s consideration.
- Briefers will also be encouraged to highlight the risks associated with climate change where they are significant factors in peace and security and to propose institutional responses.
Transparency
- The Presidency will prepare an unofficial addendum to highlight additional Council activities not reflected on the Council’s monthly provisional programme of work. To make information about the Council’s work more visible and accessible, the UAE Mission website will maintain an updated unofficial interactive calendar for the month of March containing information on all formal and informal activities of the Council, at https://uaeun.org/unsc/programme-of-work/ .
- The Presidency commits to prioritizing multilingualism at all times. The Presidency will ensure that an unofficial Arabic translation of the programme of work as well as an unofficial Arabic translation of press statements of the Security Council during the month of March are posted on our website.
- The Presidency will hold a briefing session after the adoption of the provisional programme of work as well as an informal interactive wrap-up at the end of March 2022 for the wider UN membership. The Presidency will also hold separate briefings for the media and civil society.