How do principles from the literature on UN peacekeeping compare with lessons emerging from UN peace-building operations? This Journal of International Peacekeeping article identifies from the literature eleven clusters of factors for success and failure and tests these against four case studies – Cambodia, Mozambique, Rwanda and El Salvador. Although results largely confirm the factors for success and failure found in the peacekeeping literature, theory on UN peacebuilding operations still needs adjustment.
The non-use of force by the operation and the need for a clear and detailed mandate are of less importance than the literature suggests. Eight of the eleven factors identified in the literature are confirmed as very important factors for the success and failure of UN peacebuilding operations. These are:
- Consent, willingness and sincerity of parties to come to peace.
- Co-operation from important outside actors (neighbouring countries and the permanent members of the Security Council)
- Sense of security of the parties: An operation requires sufficient strength to guarantee the security of the parties to facilitate successful disarmament and demobilisation.
- Rapid deployment at the right time: The interval between the signing of the peace agreement and deployment should be minimal. The parties must be ready for the conflict to be resolved.
- Competent leadership and personnel, and clear command structures
- Internal and external co-ordination: Policy tools are interconnected and so implementation is not a singular process.
- Ownership: The impression that solutions are imposed undermines positive outcomes. Involving civil society can enhance the sustainability of governance and human rights improvements.
- Causes of the conflict: The more causes addressed and the more attention given to each cause, the more successful the operation.
The factors ‘sense of security of the parties’ and ‘causes of the conflict’ appear to be more important in operations than in the literature, while ‘impartiality and the non-use of force’ and ‘clear, appropriate and achievable mandate’ are rejected.
- The use of force or at least the threat of it may sometimes be necessary to help the parties to feel secure.
- A vague mandate may sometimes be very useful to expand the influence of the operation, while a detailed mandate may provide too many hurdles.
- Half-hearted mandates are however inherently dangerous: if the permanent members of the Security Council disagree or only reluctantly agree on a mandate, there may be inadequate resources for implementation.
- The factor ‘sufficiently long duration’ is confirmed in principle, but might be better rephrased; embedding the UN peacebuilding operation into a long-term approach might make long duration unnecessary.
- Some of these adjustments are lessons which have been learned in the practice of the UN peacekeeping operations deployed since the time of the four case studies. Present-day UN peace-building operations are, for example, generally robustly mandated.
- The research of the last ten to fifteen years has so far not produced a full blueprint for successful UN peace-building operations.
