[Title] Chair's Statement G8 Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Experts Group

1. At the G8 Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Experts Group meeting held April 17-19, 2012, in Washington, D.C., the Experts Group acknowledged the progress that has been made in recent years in enhancing the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities, especially in areas of interest advanced by each of the previous Chairs of the Experts Group, and identified activities which would benefit from continued attention.

2. Under the current chairmanship of the United States, the Experts Group is focusing its support to efforts by governments, troop and police contributing countries, the UN Secretariat and other parties to strengthen peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions in the Protection of Civilians (POC), including Child Protection and prevention of Sexual and Gender-based Violence (SGBV).

3. The Experts Group discussed ways to assist UN-authorized peacekeeping operations in implementing their POC mandates, identifying areas of interest that they would support, either jointly or individually, with concrete outcome-oriented actions. These included POC doctrine, training, education, mission planning, coordination and execution of tasks.

4. The Group also recognized and supported the on-going efforts of the United Nations to positively and actively engage on POC with all Member States, including support for the principle that POC is primarily the responsibility of host governments.

5. It was agreed that the Experts Group would review progress on the POC agenda at its next meeting in November 2012.