I thank you, Sir, for this opportunity to brief the Security Council today. The protection of civilians in armed conflict has been high on the international agenda for the past decade. On one level, progress has been impressive. Never before have there been so many policy statements and resolutions, so much global information and advocacy, and such a proliferation of actors professing to carry out protection work.

At the same time, the ICRC works to address victims' needs — food, water, shelter, other essential items or medical care — tracing missing family members and re-establishing links between them, and ensuring that people in detention are treated well. Protection can facilitate assistance, and vice-versa.

Since the Security Council's adoption of resolution 1265 (1999) and other relevant resolutions, the protection of civilians has remained a major issue in the Council's work. While we note the progress made, it needs to be said that events on the ground show that more attention has to be paid, especially as regards the full implementation of the resolutions adopted to protect civilians caught in conflict situations.

In that regard, on 24 September 2010, Ghana co-sponsored a ministerial meeting on the responsibility to protect under the theme “Fulfilling the responsibility to protect: strengthening our capacities to prevent and halt mass atrocities”. What emerged was the clear commitment of participating Member States to prevent and halt atrocious crimes and the need for intervention by the international community.

In conclusion, Ghana wishes to encourage greater participation by the international community in the work of regional organizations in order to strengthen the capacity of such bodies to enhance their protection of civilians and ability to intervene in conflicts. We also stress the need to prosecute and punish perpetrators as a deterrent to crimes committed with impunity.

Ghana, which has remained among the top 10 contributing countries in peacekeeping and has also fulfilled its obligations with respect to the ratification of the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, is particularly concerned about the reported involvement in that regard of peacekeeping and humanitarian personnel deployed by the United Nations to prevent, recognize and respond to sexual violence and other forms of violence against civ

Ghana remains committed to regional initiatives to deal with the issue of protecting civilians in armed conflict. The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, adopted in October 2009 to promote and strengthen regional and national measures to prevent or mitigate, prohibit and eliminate root causes of internal displacement, is a good case in point.

Ghana continues to advocate the concept of the responsibility to protect recognized and adopted by world leaders in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document (resolution 60/1), which was a call to action that emphasized the need for preventive measures and for the delivery of international assistance to States in order to enhance their capacity to fulfil their primary responsibility to protect their own populations against genocide, war crimes, c

We welcome the most recent report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians (S/2010/579) and the conclusions and proposed practical steps contained therein. We agree on the need to develop quality benchmarks for the implementation of protection mandates by peacekeeping missions and on the need to assess and implement best practice.

We also recognize the important role the Council's informal Expert Group on the Protection of Civilians can play in incorporating protection issues in the Council's work, especially prior to the renewal of peacekeeping mandates. In that regard, we particularly welcome the updated aide-memoire endorsed today. Germany looks forward to participating actively in the work of the informal Expert Group during its tenure on the Security Council.