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| 1 |
ID:
067815
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ID:
174046
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| Summary/Abstract |
The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres’s Action for Peacekeeping initiative represents the latest in a series of efforts to make the UN’s peace and security architecture “fit for the future.” The Action for Peacekeeping initiative, however, has exposed two seemingly contradictory tendencies at work in contemporary peacekeeping. On the one hand, peacekeeping operations are increasingly expected to be lean, efficient, and performance-focused. On the other, expansive protection of civilians (PoC) mandates, which entail everything from predicting and pre-empting attacks against civilians to reforming state-level security institutions, are becoming increasingly central to contemporary peacekeeping. In this paper, we will suggest that as currently framed, the UN’s peacekeeping reform agenda—driven at least in part by downward budgetary pressures—will inevitably increase the gap between promise and performance with regard to PoC, with serious implications for the credibility and legitimacy of UN missions among the populations they are mandated to protect.
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| 3 |
ID:
094588
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| 4 |
ID:
151498
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper draws on constructivist theory to assess the contemporary debate around inclusion within peace-building and state-building processes and on inclusivity as an emerging norm within international policy processes. Within the wider context of an ongoing but still incomplete normative shift in terms of how peace building is both understood and practised, it focuses on the case of the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States, and makes the case that the inclusivity agenda marks a significant shift towards fulfilling a longstanding commitment to respecting national ownership of peace-building processes.
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| 5 |
ID:
179551
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| Summary/Abstract |
Debates around performance and accountability are now front and centre in discussions around peacekeeping reform. Both concepts are prominent in the UN Secretary-General’s Action for Peacekeeping Initiative, while the Security Council recently stressed the need to improve ‘posture, behaviour, leadership, initiative and accountability’ within peace operations. This paper explores the politics of the accountability debate and the prospects for improved peacekeeper accountability in the context of protection of civilians (PoC) mandates, with an understanding that civilians in conflict often need protection not only from conflict parties but also – as the struggles with sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) demonstrate – from peacekeepers themselves. While strengthened accountability mechanisms can help bridge the gap between the promise and the practice of protection, declining peacekeeping budgets and the amorphous and all-encompassing nature of PoC mandates complicate developing specific performance metrics and accountability mechanisms. Thus, while the UN has struggled to ensure misconduct accountability with regard to SEA, performance accountability represents a challenge of considerably greater magnitude. Absent serious consideration of the structural impediments involved, and the imperative of managing ambiguity, the accountability/performance debate may do little more than exacerbate tensions between those countries who staff peacekeeping missions and those who pay for them.
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| 6 |
ID:
185511
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| Summary/Abstract |
Protecting civilians has been the primary raison d’être of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) since civil war erupted in late 2013. Since then, UN efforts to protect vulnerable civilians have focused on a handful of so-called protection of civilians (PoC) sites. While they have unquestionably saved lives, the PoC sites have also absorbed the lion’s share of mission resources, severely limiting UNMISS’ ability to protect civilians elsewhere. The signing of the still-fragile Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) has enabled a reconsideration of the UNMISS protection mandate in light of what remains an uncertain transition. Given the systemic constraints on the UN’s ability to project force in the name of PoC, we argue that UNMISS’ most constructive and lasting contribution to both protection and peace in South Sudan will be through sustained investments in inclusive local-level peacebuilding. Re-orienting the PoC mandate along these lines offers an opportunity to at least partially counteract the decidedly exclusive nature of the country’s current peace process, and to support bottom-up conflict resolution processes that could eventually interact in constructive ways with top-down dynamics.
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