This paper provides a background study of the implications of peacebuilding and statebuilding in United Nations mandates. Multidimensional missions, especially those that extend state authority or have explicit protection of civilian tasks, have raised fundamental questions about the purpose of peacekeeping, its limits, and the appropriate use of international resources.
Key Findings:
- Over the past decade, the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping has been predicated on broad political support among key groups of Member States: the Security Council, major troop and police contributing countries (T/PCCs), and leading financial contributors.
- However, the broad coalition of support is deteriorating, threatening both individual peace operations and the effectiveness of peacekeeping as a tool for maintaining international peace and security.
- The practice of the Security Council of increasingly mandating peacekeeping operations where there is no accepted peace agreement, or where “robust” tasks like protection of civilians and supporting government forces are central to the mission, is a principal cause of this breakdown.
- In A New Partnership Agenda, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Department of Field Support call for revitalising the reforms, and reemphasising the principles, identified by the “Brahimi” Report, as well as for a long-term effort to build a new coalition of support among Member States and the Secretariat to ensure the success of future missions. Considerable attention has been placed on achieving greater clarity and consensus on robust peacekeeping, conceptually and operationally.
- Further political consensus and institutional alignment is also needed for peacebuilding and statebuilding activities. For many Member States, peace-building and state-building activities – particularly security and justice sector reform – are controversial ones. The expansion of peacekeeping into these areas has de facto extended the authority of the Security Council, with political, financial, institutional, and bureaucratic implications that have yet to be fully addressed.
Recommendations:
- A collaborative mandating process appears to be the most promising way to ensure that the political consensus that supports UN peacekeeping operations is maintained.
- Overcoming the current dysfunctional mandate-making process will require a distinct change in attitude on all sides and an overall commitment to making peacekeeping function up to its stated aims.
