Peacebuilding and sustaining peace in peace operations

Peace operations need to more comprehensively deliver on efforts to build and sustain peace. For peace operations to become more people-centred, they do not require new mandates or resources, but rather, a shift in mindset at the leadership level, and organisational change. There is also a need for greater system leadership on peacebuilding coordination. Key recommendations included:

11. Identify options to improve engagement with host communities. The Security Council, Secretariat and think tanks should analyse and identify options for how peace operations can better respond and engage with people and communities, in addition to state institutions. This could include informal advisory boards comprised of local community leaders to truly orient missions towards people-centred peacebuilding either at the mission headquarters level or the heads of regional offices level.
12. Deliver context-specific approaches in support of women, peace and security. Senior mission leadership and field missions should ensure that efforts to implement and strengthen women, peace and security in missions are context-specific, drawing on the reflections and needs of diverse women in the community.
13. Build the capacity of youth to influence peacebuilding processes. Senior mission leadership and field missions should identify and focus efforts on building the capacity of youth through community engagement and peacebuilding activities and encourage the UN Security Council to engage with representatives from civil society, including through informal and formal briefings.
14. Foster a national dialogue and good governance initiatives. Peace operations need to harmonise people-centered and state-centered approaches to address growing inequalities. This could take the form of a new social contract or national dialogue between state actors and the local population. The policing component has a particularly important role in fostering engagement between state actors and the local population in their area of operations.
15. Leverage the role of the Peacebuilding Commission. This should include continued briefings by the Chair of the PBC and PBC country-specific configurations to the Security Council where the country is the host of a peace operation. The Security Council should also leverage the advisory role of the Peacebuilding Commission as part of its consultations, including its work in advocating more strongly for gender-responsive peacebuilding. Furthermore, member states sitting on both the PBC and Security Council need to demonstrate greater political coherence in their approach to peacebuilding, and particularly efforts to coordinate the work of both bodies.
16. Develop more innovative funding mechanisms. The UN, regional organisations, International Financial Institutions and think tanks should explore options for innovative funding mechanisms to support peacebuilding activities, including programmatic funding, scaling up support to UNCTs during transitions, as well as south-south and triangular cooperation.