European Peace Institute / News

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On April 22, 2015, IPI’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) office hosted Ambassador Mokhtar Lamani, a  former UN representative in Syria, former Arab League official, and the former permanent observer of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation at the UN, who discussed the origins and evolution of extremist organizations across the Middle East.

At the event—attended by government officials, diplomats, religious leaders, and representatives from think tanks and civil society—Mr. Lamani delved into the complex origins of religious political organizations and their metamorphoses into groups like al-Qaeda and its offshoots, including ISIS.

“Although ISIS is the same organization in both countries, there are similarities and differences between Syria and Iraq,” he said. “In Iraq, ISIS Iraqi fighters amount to two thirds [of the group, while] in Syria, national fighters constitute less than one third. The rest comprises operatives from different parts of the world.“

During the debate moderated by IPI MENA Director Nejib Friji, Mr. Lamani underlined the troubled situation in the six provinces of Iraq that have turned into key incubators for ISIS operatives.  Mr. Lamani said sectarian policies are the main culprit behind the emergence of these incubators in the country.

Mr. Lamani said that when the group began its campaign in the summer of 2014 managing to gain control of a territory as large as Jordan, it took the entire international community by surprise. This pushed the international community to “a reactive attitude instead of a proactive approach,“ he said. In that regard, the group now seems to have the edge over the international community, he continued.

Mr. Lamani also discussed possible solutions to the group’s advance, highlighting the need for a multifaceted response. “A military approach will not lead to a solution unless a multidisciplinary strategy covering the political, social, cultural, and educational needs is implemented,” he said.

The discussion also noted that in order to preserve, reinforce, and protect human rights in the region, international legal standards need to be supported by constitutional guarantees at the national level.

The event was also attended by the ambassadors of Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon, who called for immediate action to tackle the acute humanitarian and refugee crises created by ISIS. The refugee crisis, they said, has had a strong impact on their countries‘ economic and social equilibrium.

The changing nature of conflict and the emergence of new, asymmetric threats have raised the need for stronger and more effective partnerships in peacekeeping operations, particularly between the African Union (AU) and the United Nations. This is what emerged at an April 21st policy forum co-organized by IPI and the Permanent Missions of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Italy to the UN.

“[These] threats and complex operational challenges require a comprehensive, multidimensional approach and credible response mechanisms to maintain and restore peace,” said Sebastiano Cardi, the permanent representative of Italy to the UN. And this, he said, needs to take the form not only of reaction to crises, but very much of action to prevent them.

Violence at the hands of the Islamic State and its recent killings of civilians across the Middle East and North Africa have further underscored the need for better cooperation in peace and security matters, the panelists said. Amr Abdellatif Aboulatta, Egypt’s permanent representative to the UN, said peacekeeping cooperation is essential in that regard. “Capacity building, reliable funding, support for peacekeeping operations, and development of logistical capacity are priority areas,” he said.

Currently, close to 70 percent of the Security Council’s time is devoted to African peace and security issues, said Ethiopia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Tekeda Alemu. In addition, 87 percent of UN peacekeepers are deployed in Africa through nine peacekeeping operations, a point made by Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Edmond Mulet, who delivered the keynote address. It is therefore essential, the panelists said, for the AU-UN cooperation to become stronger and more efficient.

“Cooperation between the two has been underway for some time,” Mr. Alemu said. “It has been very effective, but there is a need for doing more.” There are important assets the AU can offer, the Ethiopian ambassador said, which, coupled with the work of the Security Council, could provide an important contribution to peace on the continent.

In December 2008, a special AU-UN panel on the modalities for support to AU operations published a report—commonly known as the Prodi Report, after its author, former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi—that highlighted the need for joint cooperation between the AU and the UN. The report made recommendations on how the two organizations can cooperate strategically in matters related to peacekeeping.

“We are hopeful that the Prodi Report will be implemented,” Mr. Alemu said. “It contains a number of very interesting ideas in connection with enabling the AU and the AU Peace and Security Council to play a more effective role in peace operations.”

In his address, Mr. Mulet outlined the practical challenges that peacekeeping missions face on the ground and how these have raised the need for stronger cooperation.

“Peacekeepers are increasingly deployed in places where there is no obvious political track, and carrying out our core mandate, the protection of civilians, becomes ever more challenging,” he said. “This, and the related regionalization and globalization of crises, requires partnerships… where we conduct operations as a joint collective endeavor between the UN and regional organizations, as no organization on its own can offer the multifaceted responses we need.”

Nowhere is this more evident than in Africa, Mr. Mulet said, and particularly in Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR) where the respective UN missions MINUSMA and MINUSCA have benefited greatly from the political and military support provided by the AU and the European Union.

“Mali and CAR are indeed timely illustrations of the level of maturity and complementarity reached by the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, and their peacekeeping partnership,” the UN official said.

Looking at the broader context, Mr. Mulet welcomed the recent announcements of the Arab League and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to develop their own peacekeeping forces.

The forum was moderated by IPI Senior Adviser John Hirsch and constituted the first part of an all-day event that discussed the topic in light of the UN’s 70th anniversary and the ongoing peace operations review process.

Watch event:

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On Friday, April 17, IPI hosted the 2015 edition of the New York Seminar on the topic of “The Future Role of Peacekeeping Operations.” This year’s edition, co-sponsored by the Permanent Missions of Austria and Italy to the United Nations, gathered experts, diplomats, and representatives from international organizations and civil society for an in-depth and forward-looking discussion of the role that peacekeeping operations can play in maintaining international peace and security. The seminar was held under the Chatham House rule of non-attribution, with the exception of the keynote address delivered by Izumi Nakamitsu, assistant administrator and director of the Crisis Response Unit of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

In her opening remarks, Ms. Nakamitsu, who between 2008 and 2014 held various posts at the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, stressed the importance of devising new conflict analysis tools, especially given the changing nature of conflicts and the emergence of new threats. Achieving political solutions to crises has become more difficult, Ms. Nakamitsu said, which means that prevention should be at the forefront of international peacekeeping efforts.

The discussion also highlighted the challenges posed by the emergence and growth of extremist groups. These non-state actors are now seizing and controlling territory, purporting to provide public services, and using social media tools to spread their violent ideologies. Their actions often fuel sectarian divisions, which in turn complicate the settlement of crises.

According to the panelists, Yemen exemplifies this new trend. There, all the elements of this new conflict environment converge, including a weak state apparatus, widespread poverty, regional involvement, and competition over scarce natural resources.

The Department of Peacekeeping Operations’ efforts to keep up with the evolving situation were recognized in missions such as the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Intelligence and Fusion Cell in Mali, as well as the first-ever UN emergency health mission (UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response—UNMEER) and the Joint Mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the UN (OPCW-UN) in Syria.

New and enhanced partnerships stand out as the norm in peacekeeping today. The UN is actively building on the cooperative advantage of regional partners such as the African Union and the European Union. But there are inherent risks and challenges in these partnerships. For example, when the region is leading the mediation process alongside a UN peacekeeping mission or vice versa, how can the organizations work together and use one process to leverage progress in the other?

The discussion also addressed the topic of women’s involvement in peace processes. Women’s absence from such processes, one of the panelists emphasized, is directly linked to the recurrence of violent conflict. Fifteen years after the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, there is still a lot of work to be done—including by peacekeeping missions—when it comes to ensuring that women are included in peace negotiations and post-conflict reconstruction efforts. By actively including women, peace efforts can become broader and extend to all sectors of society, making relapse into violence less likely.

Finally, the seminar also discussed how UN mediation and conflict prevention capabilities can be strengthened in order to offer viable alternatives to military responses to crises.

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