A key addition to the capacity of the international community in the broad peace agenda, it was established in 2005 with the passage of both A/RES/60/180 and S/RES/1645[1] Mr. Sérgio França Danese (Brazil) is the incumbent chair of the PBC.

Member States have also used the platform of the commission for constructive discussions on Burkina Faso, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Somalia and Sri Lanka, at the initiative of the countries concerned.

The PBC was inaugurated in June 2006, with the inclusion of Burundi and Sierra Leona as the first cases of the commission, as previously requested by the Security Council, to develop a country-specific model aiming to contribute to the implementation of the post-conflict tasks in each of both countries.

The final report of the High-level Panel, named "A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility," set out several recommendations to address problems and issues in six main areas of concern on which the multilateral system should concentrate its action now and in the decades ahead: Considering the second point, the analysis of the panel identified "a key institutional gap: there is no place in the United Nations system explicitly designed to avoid State collapse and the slide to war or to assist countries in their transition from war to peace" (reference: report, paragraph 261).

Since the United Nations should be able to act coherently and effectively from preventive action through post-conflict peace-building, the panel recommended establishing a Peacebuilding Commission as a subsidiary body of the Security Council itself.

[6] For what concerns more practical and in-depth aspects of this new body, the panel just recommends that the commission should be reasonably small, meet in different configurations in order to consider both general policy issues and country-by-country situations and strategies, involving the main relevant actors in different fields (UN organs such as ECOSOC and representative from UN agencies, International Financial and Economic Institutions, representatives of regional and subregional organizations) and it should be assisted by Peacebuilding Support Office established in the Secretariat.

The main task of the new Peacebuilding Commission is that of taking care of post-conflict actions to be adopted and enforced in countries emerging from conflicts, whose Governments choose to ask for relief from the International Community.

It is up to the PBC to collect all available resources and funds directed to support recovery projects in those countries, and to draft long-term strategies in order to guarantee reconstruction, institution-building and sustainable development.

As said, this new body represents an innovation to the UN's traditional approach to conflict situations for the first time, there is a single organ charged with a mission that relies on a complex of capacities and expertise which used to be of many UN subjects' concern, without any substantial coordination set out.

For this reason, the commission can benefit from all the UN experience on such matters as conflict prevention, mediation, peacekeeping, respect for human rights, the rule of law, humanitarian assistance, reconstruction and long-term development.

In Sierra Leone, the PBC and national partners identified reform of the justice and security sectors, youth employment and empowerment, and capacity-building in governance institutions as key priorities.

Allegations of fraud in an earlier local poll marred the June 2010 presidential election, in which incumbent Pierre Nkurunziza was the only candidate after the country's opposition parties pulled out of the campaign.