 Thank you all very much. It's been a busy day and the coffee breaks are obviously moments of great interaction. We're very honored to be welcoming today the State Secretary to the Foreign Minister, Johanna Sumovori. She's a busy woman these days. Finland's a busy country these days, and we're delighted that she was able to join us. It's a historic moment for Finland, obviously. When I was about 20, my parents came to live in Finland, and in those years there was a bifurcation in many ways in its identity. It was moving towards the West very fast economically, but diplomatically it was equidistant or seemed equidistant at the time. But a succession of visionary Finns guided the country towards its European Union membership in 1995, am I right? And that was, I think, a decisive moment for Finland. It was very warmly welcomed in the European Union, and ever since it's played a significant role and always a positive role in the European Union. Now, I should remind you all that not just does Finland host wider, but it also, with two other actors playing a less important role, provided the significant financial endowment of wider. And so we're extremely grateful for that since it's what allows wider to do in-depth research, the income from that endowment. And of the State Secretary, she's been very active in politics in this country, but she took a three-year break, I believe, to go and live in London as press councillor in the Embassy there. She's been a city councillor and she's obviously also a parliamentary figure. We're very grateful that you've joined us, State Secretary, today at such a busy time for the country, with a historic vote. And you're most welcome now on the podium. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. I hope you can hear me. Greetings, warm greetings from my minister, Pekka Harvester, who is for obvious reasons now very busy in the Parliament House. So we had today quite historic vote in the Parliament. Finland voted in favour of submitting a membership application to NATO by a rate of 188 to 8, if I remember the figures right. So this has been a very historical day for Finland, but I think it's very good to be here today with you, because this is something that resonates with the values and interests of the Cabinet as well, what you do, and also the topics you've been discussing throughout your programme here. So I'm very pleased to be here, and as I said, the Minister sends you all his best regards. The theme of the UNIVider conference, the puzzle of peace, is very topical as we all know. The events that have unfolded in Ukraine, Russia's aggression to Ukraine, and its impact on the global order has made the topic of peace ever more urgent and current. And we are living in an era where the respect for human rights or democratic values and the very fundamental notion of freedom from fear are being challenged to an unprecedented degree. Protracting violent conflicts, climate change, natural disasters and global pandemics have led to an increasing number of people living in fragile and conflict-affected countries. The number of people living in extreme poverty is rising, as well as the number of refugees and internally displaced people. It's been estimated that 20% of the world's population live in fragile states, and by year 2030, over 80% of global poverty will be in countries suffering from violence and fragility. Tackling state fragility and placing emphasis on conflict prevention are ever more urgent. And even though, like here in Finland, we have talked a lot about war, for obvious reasons. There's a war in Europe, a war that has been started by our neighbouring country. And we are talking about joining the military alliance, but we haven't forgotten peace. This is why we do everything we do today, trying to enhance security, but also talking about peace-building and peace and conflict prevention. And it's at the very core of Finland's government programme, as well. One of the main objectives in strategic goal of globally active Finland is peace-building. It states in the heading, Finland is building peace. And it means peace-building throughout the conflict cycle, from preventive measures to reconstruction, and of course, in the midst of the conflict, all those measures needed. On top of this, the long-term effects of COVID-19 pandemic are not yet fully known. There's actually been a kind of a cluster of crises now happening. People were just, and still haven't recovered fully. On the global scale, we still haven't recovered fully from the COVID. There's still a problem in many countries. And on the top of that, we got this new crisis in Ukraine. And I have to say, always when we talk about the Ukraine situation, it's something that we want to remember that we have to keep our eyes on other conflicts going on in different parts of the world, as well. So even though it's, of course, understandable that we living here in Europe are, of course, interested in what happens in Europe, but it doesn't mean that we are kind of slipping off from our other commitments to advance global peace and stability. So Finland wants to do its share in addressing these challenges. And in recent years, there has been a steady shift in our focus toward addressing fragility. Today, we approach fragility through the triple nexus, which we're talking a lot about nowadays, also in the parliament. And it's a shared vision that puts into effect the synergies between members of the humanitarian development and peace community. And I'm sure that you all know all about it. Furthermore, in 2020, this government established the Center for Peace Mediation at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in order to enhance our efforts, our national efforts, even more on this field. So, dear friends, dear participants, Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently remarked that war is becoming increasingly complex and so is mediating peace. And I know that you have addressed in this conference a number of issues aiming at unpacking the increasing complexity of finding solutions to sustainable peace. Topics such as ethnicity, inequality and inclusion, or praetist and social movements, or conflict legacies and post-configure recovery are all parts of the puzzle of the peace. These panels and papers debated sound very interesting, and I wish I had the time to attend some of these sessions. But let me now add a note on Finland's efforts to address peace. Finland places a high priority on conflict prevention, mediation and peacebuilding in our foreign policy, as stated. Finland aims to enhance the significance of conflict prevention and mediation in international organizations as well, including the UN, the OSCE and the African Union. We also promote a comprehensive role for the European Union in mediation and conflict prevention. Cooperation with civil society actors and the research community supports Finland's actions on this. Dialogue and mutual respect are essential elements in peacebuilding and without dialogue, there is little chance of resolving conflicts. Local ownership and understanding the context are key when the aim is peace. We can share our values and experiences, but we cannot force them on others as a condition for dialogue. Finland ranks the number one in many international indexes. For instance, we have been the least fragile country in the world for many years according to the Fund for Peace Fractual States Index. This has provided an opportunity to share our path from a poor conflict-ridden agriculture-based economy at the turn of the 20th century to a post-modern industrial information society. Actually, one of those recent rankings is the UN Happiness Research Index, or Happiness Research, where Finland has now been declared as a happiest country in the world for the fifth time in a row. I have to tell you, I was doing my public diplomacy work in London when we were first time the officially happiest in the world, and I remember that. We tried to do some social media posting on that, and some Finns were, interestingly, joining the conversation and saying, what? This can't be true. Are other nations unhappier? How is this possible? Are we happier? But actually, what they did when they did this research, or what kind of measures they did, or what kind of issues they took into account when defining what constitutes the state of happiness. It wasn't the happiness we feel, it was happiness with something that comes from the society, that you feel secure, you trust in your institutions, your governmental or local institutions, there's a good education system and social welfare model networks, and that is, I think, the reason for the happiness. It's not that we are all the time showing a happy face, it's just that we feel content in what kind of society we live in. Rule of law is something which is also very important to us as a basis for peace, and this is actually something that is now challenged also, and also the international or rule-based order now, for example, with this Russians invasion of Ukraine. Last year, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs established a rule of law centre together with the University of Helsinki, and the purpose of the centre is to connect expertise, produce information and promote the development of the rule of law with different projects, especially in developing countries. Finland plays a high value on gender equality as well and inclusion in peace processes, giving voice to marginalised and oppressed groups and fostering, they're having a say in decision-making processes that affect their lives, are building blocks to a more sustainable future, and by saying that I mean meaningful inclusivity, meaningful participation in decision-making processes. Respect and dignity are also key components of inclusion. We encourage the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions 1325 on women, peace and security and 202050 on youth, peace and security, and I have to always say this in this context that we are the first country that outlined our first national action plan on youth, peace and security, and we have been doing lots of, a lot of outreads for different, with different countries, with our like-minded partners and different other partners who are looking at this fair, so it's something that we would be in the future also interested in cooperating on or about. They are integral parts of the peace puzzle which has been mentioned here and they need to be placed high on the peace-building agenda. We're also, of the view, the peace-building humanitarian aid and development cooperation, also known as the triple nexus, which have been mentioned here before, need to be coordinated in a more comprehensive way that has been the case until now. I was actually personally leading the parliamentary committee on crisis management last year and that was a cross-party committee, so there was members of the parliament represented across the political spectrum, including the opposition parties, and everyone agreed on triple nexus and we wanted to also go deeper into what does it actually mean and we were discussing a lot that it have to include the planning stage of different operations or missions, kind of having the common understanding of what the security picture is or the security environment and what kind of measures are needed and also throughout the conflict cycle there should be kind of a good cooperation between different stakeholders, be them humanitarian or development or military or civilian crisis management actors and also that also goes to the assessment of any mission or operation, how did it go, what other lessons learned and that's something that should be, I think, looked in deeper, not only in Finland but also together with our international partners. I was just visiting New York a few weeks ago in the UN peace-building financing high-level meeting and I actually was talking a lot about triple nexus there and one reason was that I believe that triple nexus is something that actually helps to also to kind of contribute or allocate the financing more effectively if all the different stakeholders are kind of contributing to the planning and having this common view as who is doing what, where, when, simple things sound simple, it's not simple in real life but actually the financing part is very important part of it. An example of a long-term perspective is our peace mediation capacity building program with the African Union. We have actually quite new Africa, national Africa strategy in Finland. It was conducted last year and it's a government-wide strategy and it's looking at our political and trade and economic relations with African countries and African partners so it's not development strategy and one of the major themes there is actually security and peace and security and cooperation with African countries in that realm. Since 2009 the program has supported African Union peace mediation missions, trained peace mediators and produced manuals, established annual high-level peace mediators, retreats and supported FEMWISE Africa, the network of African women in mediation. And I have to make a statement on this as well, on gender equality in peace mediation. I think it needs deliberate choices and decisions also from any country and we need more women on high-level peace mediating roles as well. And I think this is something that we have to do also by leading by example and it does mean meaningful participation. It's not just that you have a seat at the table if there's not tangible real possibility to actually have a voice or have an impact on the political processes. I wish to underline that all this has been done in close collaboration and in the spirit of partnership with our African Union colleagues. And to conclude our difference, I gather that the Union wider conference has deepened our understanding on the puzzle of peace I hope and believe and served as an excellent platform for knowledge exchange. Your deliberations are highly valued and welcome and we need evidence-based research and facts to feed the policymaking processes. That's also something that this government has been very active on. There's kind of a commitment part in our government program and one commitment is to be in continuous dialogue and interaction with the scientific community and fact page that kind of enhances our fact-based policymaking as well. And I'm sure that this conference has inspired participants to identify policy decisions to a common effort to achieve SDG 16, peace, justice and strong institutions. So I look forward to seeing the results of your important work, finding its way to peacebuilding policy and practice and I'm sure that we all have a clearer understanding of how puzzle of peace is constructed and works in practice. And my final words say that we do have men at the foreign ministry as well. I just heard that all the visitors from from Minister for Foreign Affairs or guests or participants have been mainly women but we do have men there as well including my minister who as I said since he won't regard so now I have a couple of time for maybe one of the questions and then then I probably have to leave but thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to address you this event. Please any of you who would like to engage the minister be thinking I have a question I'm going to ask her one first but you've touched on a lot of what I was going to ask you about and that is I think the anxiety not just in Africa but in much of the developing world that the industrialized north is now going to turn away from the global south and it's it's quite intense you probably sensed it in new york when you were there and so if there's anything you'd like to add to your comments on that point we they'd be most welcome. That's actually a really good question and I did sense that in New York I had a chance to meet with three U.N. Ambassador, African U.N. Ambassadors, Ambassadors from Ghana and Djibouti and also Ambassador of Ethiopia and they all wanted to bring out this concern of global justice also because some countries for example in the Horn of Africa are now simultaneously suffering from heavy fraud but also they have now they are running out of weed supplies because most of the weed for example is coming from either Russia or Ukraine so there's a food crisis in the making and maybe it could be also said that it already is there it's already there and if we now don't look at that the narrative that for example the Russia is spreading also on an African continent and elsewhere might get more foothold so I think we have to be very active in tackling this food crisis and take our development commitments as serious as before and then also to think look at the strategic messaging what we are now from so-called West you know trying to to put forward and my message was to the to the those ambassadors I had a chance to discuss with that this is not the war in Ukraine it's not about only about Ukraine it's not only about Europe it's a global global crisis because it already has an economic impact on so many countries and the those ambassadors I had a chance to discuss they said that they agreed they already see it in the in their countries the impacts of of this so I think we are all together in this this is not only a European issue and that's why it's ever more important that we as I said we take our commitments seriously which we have done before one question from the floor perhaps uh who would like to ah there's a gentleman there down the aisle and if you wouldn't mind when the microphone comes to you to identify yourself that will be helpful the microphone's coming to you right now yeah my name is Darryl I'm an environmental ecologist um I just have a very quick question and one is that you've informed us that Finland um respects the rule of law and equality what I want to ask you is does Finland achieve justice for all I believe that we are a very rule a rule of law based society and also uh we have a very effective media as well which is always in the the freedom of press rankings at the very top or high and I I think this kind of a watchdog kind of a role that also the media is having uh is very healthy so I think there's the Finnish society is it's based on a kind of a transparency I would say and if there would be a problem uh then it it usually it's it's getting tracked quite quickly and of course in any society they might emerge some problems or or cases that you have to look more into details that it has but have we really been you know on the path of rule of law and that's why this kind of we need this kind of feedbacks feedback loops from from different institutions so uh I I believe that we are we are in a good place in that great well thank you very much the minister has an onward engagement we have to get her off to that um I'd like to thank her very warmly for having joined us here one of your colleagues and the foreign ministry is going to join us on the next panel so the ministry has been very well represented throughout our conference we're really grateful to you for coming today speaking openly about sensitive issues and addressing straight on the questions everybody has on their minds that's typically Finnish so thank you very much no any other way thank you