UN News Centre - The - The United Nations Peacebuilding Fund, set up to help countries emerging from conflict avoid relapsing into violence, has agreed to provide Guinea-Bissau with $6 million to support the Government's efforts relating to the upcoming legislative elections, security sector reform, the judiciary, the police and youth employment.

Senior UN peacebuilding officials have provisionally approved Guinea-Bissau's Interim Priority Plan on priority issues for funding. This follows Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's decision last month to declare Guinea-Bissau eligible for support from the Fund following the request of the Peacebuilding Commission.

A National Steering Committee co-chaired by the Secretary-General's Representative in Guinea-Bissau, Shola Omoregie, was sworn in earlier this month, coinciding with the visit to the country of a delegation from the Peacebuilding Commission. Bringing together representatives of the UN, the Government, bilateral and multilateral donors and civil society, the Committee is tasked with overseeing the selection of projects and the allocation of funding.

Set up last year by the Secretary-General, the Peacebuilding Fund is designed to serve as a bridge between the phases of conflict and recovery, a period when other forms of financing are often not available to struggling nations. So far more than $248 million have been committed.