Designing Mandates and Capabilities for Future Peace Operations
The present study Designing Mandates and Capabilities for Future Peace Operations contains the findings of a two-year global effort aimed at increasing the effectiveness, efficiency and long-term impact of contemporary and future peace operations. The Challenges Forum Partnership focused their attention on a selection of critical areas of inquiry, offering a range of recommendations and possible solutions to the challenges identified. The themes addressed are: Peace Operations Under New Conditions; Comparative Policies, Principles and Guidelines; Authority, Command and Control; and Impact Assessment and Evaluation.
In order to meet the challenges of today’s political and security environment, and to adapt to their new operating environment, peace operations are undergoing a number of important changes. The past few years has seen a number of significant developments for UN peacekeeping, such as the addition of a ‘Force Intervention Brigade’ (FIB) to the UN Stabilisation Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO). This and other recent developments in peacekeeping practice have raised serious political and doctrinal questions—such as the implications of the increasing robustness of peace operations in certain settings—and have challenged widely held principles of peacekeeping. Within the UN context it could be argued that doctrine is trailing operational practice. By identifying the new conditions for peace operations and possible challenges, this report aims to provide perspectives on how the international community can best prepare, respond and create resilience in order to decisively and effectively meet the challenges of current and future peace operations.
The report also represents a contribution to ongoing United Nations review efforts, in particular the UN Secretary-General’s review on UN Peace Operations. The Challenges Forum Partnership will continue to provide suggestions and input to this process as it unfolds, on how to enhance the policies and practice, as well as effective implementation, of UN peace operations.