Going ‘Beyond Peacekeeping’, United Nations New Peace Operations Agenda Addresses All Field-Based Efforts, Deputy Secretary-General Tells Workshop

Following is UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson’s keynote address “What is Next for UN Peace Operations?”, as prepared for delivery, at a workshop hosted by the United States Institute for Peace with the Better World Foundation and Stimson Center, in Washington, D.C., today:

It is a great pleasure to be here with you today and to be back in Washington, where I served as Sweden’s Ambassador some time ago.  I would like to thank the United States Institute for Peace, the Better World Foundation and the Stimson Centre, as well as the co-sponsors — the State Department, the Embassy of the United Kingdom and the Embassy of Japan.  And I thank all of you here in the policy community — inside and outside of government — who are working to improve the United Nations and its peace operations.

When the Secretary-General appointed a High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations one year ago it was due to his concern about the growing complexity and scale of conflicts around the world and the growing demands on United Nations peace operations — political missions, as well as peacekeeping operations.

The facts speak for themselves.  Since 2008, the number of major violent conflicts has almost tripled.  Those forcibly displaced are the highest we have seen since the Second World War — 60 million people.  United Nations special political and peacekeeping missions today deploy more than 128,000 people in 39 missions, more than at any time in their history.  And they are operating in more dangerous environments than ever before.

Many of these issues were discussed during the Panel’s visit here to Washington and to this Institute.  Their deliberations led to a large number of cogent and thoughtful recommendations.  The report of the Secretary-General, issued two months ago, offers a road map for implementing the Panel’s recommendations.  These recommendations are broad and far-reaching.

We do see a growing understanding of the need for change.  The Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping, chaired by [United States] President [Barack] Obama in New York on 28 September, was the culmination of a year-long intensive diplomatic effort.  It has generated a remarkable number of additional pledges to United Nations peacekeeping.

Almost every participant at that Summit signaled that their contributions must be matched by reforms to increase the United Nation’s ability to plan, to deploy rapidly and to better manage and support operations.  Many of them also underlined the need for the United Nations and Member States to better prevent conflicts.  They know that without changes to the way we do business, these commitments will not materialize.

For the first time in 15 years — since the publication of the Brahimi report — we have an opportunity to set these changes in motion in a comprehensive manner.  The Secretary-General’s initiative is deliberately called peace operations.  This term goes beyond peacekeeping operations alone.  It addresses all field-based peace and security operations mandated or endorsed by the Security Council.

Addressing today’s conflicts means using the full range of UN tools.  It means moving away from templates.  It means breaking down silos.  There is no peace without development, no development without peace and no lasting development or people without respect for human rights and the rule of law.

This is challenging.  We need clear organizing principles.  That is why the Panel’s emphasis on the primacy of political strategies and solutions is so important.  They provide the basis for successful peace operations.  Political settlement of conflicts is the fundamental objective of United Nations peace operations.

The pursuit of a negotiated political settlement in today’s conflicts is intertwined with the protection of civilians.  People’s rights and welfare is the bedrock of the United Nations.  “We the Peoples” are the Charter’s three first opening words.  Protecting civilians threatened by conflict is, therefore, an integral part of United Nations peace operations.  There can be no excuse for a failure to act in the face of threats to civilians.

The Secretary-General’s implementation report sets out an action plan which focuses on the Panel’s core recommendations:  first, greater emphasis on prevention; second, changes to the way we plan and conduct operations; and third, reinforced partnerships with regional organizations.

Let me briefly elaborate on each.  First, the Panel urged that prevention be brought to the fore of the United Nations.  The Secretary-General calls for a significant strengthening of the Secretariat’s capacities for prevention and mediation.  He agrees with the Panel that UN development actors have a role to play in assisting national actors in prevention.  He pledges to strengthen their capacity to do so.  He commits, through his Human Rights Up Front initiative, to enhance the United Nation’s capacity to take early action to prevent abuses of human rights which can escalate into violence and mass atrocities.

But prevention is not the duty of the United Nations alone.  And it is not a technical exercise.  The Secretary-General calls on Member States to reinvigorate political support for prevention.  He asks the Security Council to bring early and resolute attention to prevention.  Let us agree:  crisis response alone will not stem the tide of death and suffering in our world today.  We must engage earlier.  And we must improve the capacity of the Organization to prevent and resolve conflicts.

A second priority is implementing the Panel’s recommendations to change how we plan, conduct and manage peace operations.  Here are the areas which link most clearly to our ability to ensure Member States follow through on their commitments made at the Peacekeeping Summit.

Let me highlight the objectives of these proposed changes.  The first is to make peace operations more effective.  If we do our job better, we can limit lives lost and we can exit sooner.  The proposals for more tailored peace operations, for better analysis and planning, and for sequenced mandates are intended to better adapt peace operations to the specific conditions in which they take place.

The second objective is to make peace operations more agile.  This can be done through more rapid deployment, fast and responsive logistics and more efficient administrative systems.  If we can deploy to the field quickly, and can adapt to changing conflict dynamics, we have a much greater chance of stemming violence.

We must also make peace operations more responsive to people’s needs.  The people who we are to assist must have confidence in our mission.  We must engage them much more in working out our strategies and approaches.  Our outreach, our protection work and our general conduct are all critical parts of a responsive and responsible approach.

The personnel entrusted to UN peace operations around the world also have legitimate needs and concerns.  We need to make their safety and security a key component of strengthened peace operations.  Their health and welfare are crucial to success.

The third objective is partnerships.  The Panel makes clear that today’s conflicts go beyond any one actor.  The United Nations must work with partners, in particular regional organizations.

The Panel and the Secretary-General call for specific attention to the African Union (AU).  The African Union is a key strategic partner.  We engage with the African Union across the conflict spectrum and across the continent of Africa, where 80 per cent of UN personnel are deployed.  We are calling for an institutionalized partnership across the conflict spectrum.

But we also believe that predictable and sustainable financing of AU operations is an international responsibility and a key area for UN-AU engagement.  Financial support will require the African Union to put in place capacity to plan and support peace operations.  It will require the African Union to meet the human rights standards and conduct and discipline.  The AU knows this.  And the UN is committed to working with the African Union to achieve its goals of self-reliance and capacity-building.

In closing, the new peace operations agenda is an ambitious agenda.  And it comes at a difficult and divisive time in global affairs.  We need to constantly remind ourselves what is at stake.  Too many people are dying in conflicts and crisis across the world.  And, in the face of failures, or apparent failures, to resolve today’s conflicts public confidence in international responses and multilateral solutions is also at stake.

The future of UN peace operations — and, in fact, the future role of our Organization — is what we today basically are addressing.  I hope we can count on Member States, and in particular, the permanent members of the Security Council to help us collectively meet this challenge.  But we also need the engagement of civil society, think tanks and the general public in this discourse if we are to make progress to make the world more peaceful and less conflicted.  That is why this meeting today is both timely and important.  Thank you.