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Despite advancement in some areas, countries around the world are still not on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The transformation needed to achieve these goals depends on innovation and initiatives that build on existing capacities and fit the needs of local contexts, yet the 2030 Agenda remains largely unknown at the local level. Therefore, a key avenue for progress is to move the focus below the national level to the subnational level, including cities and communities.

Toward this end, together with partners including the UN Trust Fund for Human Security and the Government of The Gambia, the International Peace Institute hosted a forum in Banjul on “Localizing the 2030 Agenda: Building on What Works” in October 2019. This forum provided a platform for learning and sharing among a diverse group of stakeholders, including government officials from both the national and municipal levels, UN resident coordinators, and civil society representatives.

Drawing on the discussions at the forum, this report highlights the path some West African countries have taken toward developing locally-led strategies for implementing the 2030 Agenda. It focuses in particular on four key factors for these strategies: ownership across all levels of society; decentralization; coordination, integration, and alignment; and mobilization of resources to support implementation at the local level.

For more information related to IPI’s work during the 2020 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, see here.

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Participants from top left to right: IPI MENA Director Nejib Friji, IPI MENA Policy Analyst Dalya Al Alawi, Chairman of the Krishna Temple in Bahrain Sushil Muljimal, Representative of the Baha’i Religion Shahnaz Jaberi, Pastor of the National Evangelical Church Reverend Hani Aziz, Member of Bahrain’s Jewish Community Michael Yadgar, Pastor Job Nelson of the Bethel Church of Nations in Bahrain, Imam of the Grand Mosque in Bahrain Shaikh Salah Al Jowder, Representative of the Bohra Faith Mustafa Zakivi, IPI MENA Intern Amine Mohammed, and Dr. Shaikh Majeed Al Asfoor, Member of the Board of Trustees of the King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistence

Interfaith leaders joined IPI MENA in calling for greater unity, cooperation, and solidarity across the multilateral system in tackling the challenges from the coronavirus pandemic as part of a virtual conference titled “Interfaith Solidarity in Covid-19” hosted by IPI MENA on July 8th.

Addressing imams, reverends, priests, pastors, religious and faith representatives across Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Baha’I and Bohra faiths, IPI MENA Director Nejib Friji opened the conference by stressing the need to bolster multilateral tools to tackle the ramifications of this transnational pandemic that has affected all parts of society—and vulnerable groups in particular, including women, youth, and the elderly.

“Religion leaders are crucial civil society actors in the field of cultural diplomacy,” Mr. Friji stated, underlining the emphasis religions place on peace and security. “You are all invaluable sources of fostering understanding, reconciliation, tolerance, and reciprocal respect among religious communities which can provide a foundation for peacebuilding efforts.”

Highlighting IPI’s mandate of building resilient societies and managing risk, he noted that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations calls for a ceasefire and permanent end to hostilities and conflict are crucial, and should be included in interfaith alliance’s support.

Mr. Friji concluded with a call for further solidarity and cooperation between all parties, at the local, regional, and international levels towards a proactive global response.

Shahnaz Jaberi, Trustee Member of the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence and representative of the Baha’i Religion, noted the importance the Baha’i community places on exploring the role of religion in enhancing unity, coexistence, and brotherhood among fellow citizens to overcome the social and economic consequences of the pandemic.

She called on all people, irrespective of religious affiliation, background, or gender, to serve humanity and unite in action, from the international stage to the grassroots, to combat the pandemic.

Her message was reinforced by Shaikh Salah Al Jowder, Imam of the Grand Mosque in Muharraq, who reminded participants that key stakeholders not only come from state-related institutions and governments, but from international organizations, private sector, and individuals as the pandemic impacts all indiscriminately.

Pastor Job Nelson of the Bethel Church of Nations in Bahrain focused on the silver lining of the pandemic—uniting people across religious faiths, ethnicity, race, and social status, and countering the divisions the pandemic has created through border closures and xenophobia.

Michael Yadgar, a member of Bahrain’s Jewish community, noted that the pandemic has presented an opportunity to scrutinize the availability of effective healthcare unilaterally. He also highlighted the importance of learning from the lessons the pandemic, notably that the environment has been spared pollution due to reduced transport, and that greater attention is being given to reconnect with humanity at a personal level.

Representative to His Holiness Dr. Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, Religious leader of the World Wide Dawoodi Bohra Community, Mustafa Zakavi referenced religious scripture in reinforcing the common duty of protecting each other by following healthcare guidelines. He pointed to the important role women are playing in his community through their sewing skills to create face masks for medical staff and frontline heroes fighting the pandemic.

Reverend Hani Aziz, Pastor of the National Evangelical Church of Bahrain highlighted the importance of the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and organizations such as IPI in providing a platform for unity during these trying times. He stressed the importance of governments in treating nationals and expatriates with the same care, and the need for solidarity across faiths following the closure of religious facilities to curb the spread of the virus.

Dr. Shaikh Majeed Al Asfoor, member of the Board of Trustees of the King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistence, stressed that peace is the essential driver in uniting faiths. In highlighting the need for solidarity in following health-care guidelines to protect fellow citizens, he referenced a Quranic verse: “Whoever killed a person, it shall be as if he killed all mankind. Whoever healed a person, it shall be as if he healed all mankind.”

Chairman of the Krishna Temple in Bahrain Sushil Muljimal pointed to the important role governments can place in alleviating the burden on citizens. He applauded Bahrain’s treatment of citizens and non-citizens in this respect and called for greater gratitude towards hospitals, medics, and staffing units on the frontlines of the pandemic.

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On January 1, 2019, a far-reaching reform of the UN development system went into effect. This was referred to by the deputy secretary-general as “the most ambitious reform of the United Nations development system in decades.” While this reform has only briefly been in place, questions have already arisen about its implementation and implications.

This issue brief aims to contribute to the understanding of this ongoing reform and its significance. It provides a detailed overview of the UN development system reform at the headquarters, regional, and country levels, highlighting why it was undertaken and identifying some of the political and bureaucratic complexities it entails.

The report concludes that more than a year into the reform of the UN development system, significant progress has been made, but it is too early to assess the reform’s long-term impact. What is clear, however, is that bringing about change of this scope will require the UN to adapt not only its structure but also its way of working.

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The extent to which consideration of human rights is integrated into the generation, operational configuration, and evaluation of uniformed personnel of United Nations peacekeeping missions was the subject of a June 25th virtual event co-sponsored by IPI and the Permanent Mission of Finland to the UN. The event served to launch the policy paper Integrating Human Rights into the Operational Readiness of UN Peacekeepers co-authored by Namie Di Razza, Senior Fellow and Head of Protection of Civilians at the IPI, and Jake Sherman, Senior Director of Programs and Director of IPI’s Brian Urquhart Center for Peace Operations.

The paper offers a definition of “human rights readiness” for peacekeepers, which is intended to complement the UN’s “operational readiness” policy framework. It analyzes the extent to which human rights are integrated into training and force generation for uniformed peacekeepers, and concludes with concrete recommendations for how the UN and troop- and police-contributing countries can strengthen human rights readiness.

Jukka Salovaara, Permanent Representative of Finland to the UN, said that human rights training was compulsory for all Finnish police recruits in keeping with Finnish foreign policy’s overall emphasis on human rights. “Finland’s goals in international human rights policy are the eradication of discrimination and increased openness and inclusion, and we are really mainstreaming this in all our foreign policy. And it is crucial to us that the men and women we deploy in the field respect the principles of human rights. This is critical for upholding the credibility of UN peacekeeping and the shared value of UN operations.”

Ilze Brands Kehris, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said, “We have in the last few years worked with various internal and external partners to mainstream UN peacekeeping under a broad framework of human rights readiness.” She said the goal was to “reinforce the centrality of human rights” and to ensure that personnel from the UN and countries that contribute police and troops to UN operations had human rights training. “Political willingness and respect for human rights is a key condition and prerequisite for peace and security at the national, regional, and international levels, including in the work at the UN.”

Luis Carrilho, Police Adviser, UN Department of Peace Operations, declared, “Every United Nations police officer, like every police officer around the world, is a human rights officer. And the police is one of the most visible faces of the state, so the action of the police is key for the balance between freedom and security for all.” He said that all mandated tasks should incorporate “democratic policing,” which he described as policing in which the human rights of everyone are “protected, promoted and respected.” The best way to guarantee that, he said, was through comprehensive and early training. “It goes without saying that effective training, with human rights aspects, mainstreaming human rights throughout, lies at the core of these efforts.” He also said it was critical that this training should be conducted prior to deployment.

Also arguing for thorough-going pre-deployment training was Mark Pedersen, Director, Integrated Training Service, UN Department of Peace Operations. “Human rights is not a peacekeeping-only skill, it should be the foundational knowledge for all soldiers and police personnel,” he said. “The first time a soldier… meets a human rights issue should not be on a peacekeeping operation. As long as we continue to deal with a situation where that first encounter is in a peacekeeping situation, we’ll be struggling uphill to inculcate human rights among peacekeeping personnel.”

Francesca Marotta, Chief, Methodology, Education and Training Section, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that in force generation, knowledge of human rights was a key determinant in both selecting and deploying UN personnel. “An effort has been made to flesh out modalities leading to uniformed personnel best equipped to advance human rights aspects of mandates.” She said the UN screening policy had two main goals—“to preempt the deployment of personnel involved in violations” and “to enable selection of personnel and units that are best equipped to effectively implement their mandates.” She said there were still “gaps in training where specialized human rights resources may be limited. We know from our work with troop/police-contributing countries that national trainers who are typically police officers may not have the effective background to deliver human rights training” and that “resorting to external partners may also have its limits.” Instead, she said, OHCHR had developed a pre-deployment training approach jointly teaching both policing and human rights expertise. “We have partnered with standard police capacity to develop training of human rights that provides a different understanding of human rights.” The first such course was conducted in Jordan for African peace trainers, she said, but a second had to be postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maj. Gen. Hugh Van Roosen, Deputy Military Adviser, UN Department of Peace Operations, said that a major focus of his office’s work was educating peacekeepers about human rights. “For the military, if we are going to require individuals to be stewards of human rights, as part of the protection of civilians strategy and our other tasks and mandates, we have to have a clear understanding of what those human rights are,” he explained. He said that explicit language about concepts of human rights tasks, principles, and standards was now included in infantry manuals and training materials. “Within the UN structure, there is a long-overdue integration of these concepts and practices in a way that’s meaningful to basic soldiers. If a basic soldier said simply ‘human rights,’ without any definition of what we are talking about, that would not be clearly understood. We have to focus on clear tasks and standards, and I’m delighted to report that the integrated effort we’ve been making is beginning to pay off.”

Sari Rautio, Director, Security Policy, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, stressed the importance of exchanging lessons learned. “An important finding of our training is that international cooperation offers the opportunity to share best practices, develop and compare modules, share trainers and students, create and harmonize standards.” She added, “We take to heart the recommendation that we should make greater use of human rights officers and human rights NGOs and human rights commissions in the training. We already do this, but there is always space to improve.” Finland put particular emphasis on the need for women in peacekeeping and has achieved gender parity in two of its annual UN missions over three years, she said. “Finland thinks the inclusion of women in peace operations is a prerequisite for sustainable peace, democracy, and human rights. By the same token, the participation of women in peacekeeping widens the skills available, access to communities, and ways UN missions can be enhanced.”

Mohammad Koba, Deputy Permanent Representative of Indonesia to the UN, said that in selecting persons for peacekeeping missions, “we check their human rights records to make sure we have the most qualified and well-prepared personnel. We develop human rights-specific training, incorporating lessons learned.” He stressed that meeting human rights objectives was a mission-wide responsibility. “The civilian human rights component has the main responsibility. However, all personnel in the mission—both civilian and uniformed—have an important role to play. The delivery of human rights mandates on the ground is not easy, and now the challenge has become even greater with the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Christoph Heusgen, Permanent Representative of Germany to the UN, said that how peacekeeping and special political missions can contribute more effectively to the promotion and protection of human rights would be a focus of the current German presidency of the UN Security Council. “It’s important that peacekeepers have a clear understanding of what human rights is,” he said.

Dr. Di Razza, co-author of the policy paper, observed that although human rights was a part of the core pre-deployment training prepared by the UN and administered by member states to their personnel, “the delivery of these trainings can vary in quality.” And while the human rights screening had improved from the days when it relied on self-certification, she said, there still was a need for a greater role by the Secretariat to do its own assessment of the human rights readiness of personnel. Commenting on another of the paper’s findings, she said, “quite interestingly, as the UN focused on the human rights records and compliance of non-UN partners, it seems that more processes were developed for external actors than for UN personnel themselves.”

The other co-author of the paper and moderator of the discussion, Jake Sherman, remarked, “Human rights activities are not just for the human rights component of a mission, and the speakers today have emphasized that this is really an obligation for all peacekeepers and that the intent of this initiative is to try to proactively integrate human rights into police and military operations. There is a solid policy basis that already exists within the organization to do that. This is ultimately a partnership between the UN and member states, and if the UN is going to be able to hold up its end of the partnership, it needs capacities to be able to do so across the whole range of offices and departments.”

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Over the past twenty years, UN peace operations have made progress toward gender equality. Most of their mandates refer to women or gender, and the UN and member states have agreed to numerical targets to increase the percentage of women peacekeepers. Meeting, and exceeding, these targets, however, will require the UN to better understand the barriers and often-unrealistic expectations facing uniformed women.

This paper provides an overview of how the UN and troop- and police-contributing countries are trying to integrate uniformed women into missions and how mission mandates interact with the women, peace, and security agenda. It also expounds upon expectations of uniformed women in peacekeeping operations, specifically regarding the protection of civilians, as well as structural barriers, taboos, and stigmas that affect uniformed women’s deployment experiences. It is the first paper published under the International Peace Institute’s Women in Peace Operations project and provides an overview of research that will be conducted through May 2022.

The paper concludes with initial findings and guidance for researchers and practitioners. It calls for the UN and member states to consider transformative possibilities for increasing women’s participation that push back against existing assumptions and norms. This requires grounding integration strategies in evidence, transforming missions to improve the experiences of women peacekeepers, and implementing a gendered approach to community engagement and protection.

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The UN Security Council is expected to renew the mandate of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) in June 2020. While Malian stakeholders have recently taken steps to implement provisions of the 2015 Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali, the country’s fragile social contract and deteriorating security conditions place pressure on national and international actors alike. Following significant changes to MINUSMA’s 2019 mandate, including the addition of a second strategic priority, the upcoming mandate renewal negotiations offer council members the opportunity to take stock of progress on the UN’s stabilization efforts in Mali and refine its strategic engagement with the country.

In this context, the International Peace Institute (IPI), the Stimson Center, and Security Council Report organized a workshop on May 20, 2020, to discuss the mandate and political strategy of MINUSMA. This workshop provided a forum for member states, UN stakeholders, and outside experts to share their assessment of the situation in the country. The discussion was intended to help the Security Council make more informed decisions with respect to the strategic orientation, prioritization, and sequencing of the mission’s mandate and actions on the ground. Participants reflected on opportunities and challenges for consolidating political reforms and implementing key provisions of the peace agreement. The discussions underscored the centrality of MINUSMA’s support to the protection of civilians, promotion of human rights and accountability, and strengthening of state institutions.

Workshop participants largely agreed that MINUSMA’s current mandate remains relevant but pointed to two pressing issues that should be resolved. First, the mandate could better define and operationalize MINUSMA’s role in supporting the G5 Joint Sahel Force. Second, MINUSMA requires the budget and resources necessary to become more agile.

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While most United Nations peace operations are expected to protect civilians from any source of physical violence, they also need to maintain the consent of the host-state to function. How the missions work with, despite, or even against the host state to implement their protection mandates while supporting the host state is the subject of a new IPI policy paper With or Against the State? Reconciling the Protection of Civilians and Host-State Support for UN Peacekeeping. The paper was launched at a June 10th virtual event, cosponsored by IPI and the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the UN.

“The UN is an organization of states, and support to host states represents a cornerstone of UN peacekeeping approaches,” explained Dr. Namie Di Razza, IPI Senior Fellow and Head of Protection of Civilians, who moderated the conversation. “Supporting host states is critical to ensure national ownership of protection strategies, and the sustainability of protection activities undertaken by UN peacekeepers,” but “at the same time,” she said, “where state actors, such as national security forces, are themselves responsible for violence against civilians, peacekeepers are expected to confront government actors.”

The author of the report, Dr. Patryk I. Labuda, Non-resident Fellow at IPI and Hauser Post-Doctoral Global Fellow at New York University School of Law, outlined the potential conflict between people-oriented peacekeeping and state-centric support. “On the one hand,” he said, “the rise of POC is a priority, and on the other, there is the rise of host-state support, and by that, I mean more and more mandates that require peacekeeping to support host-states. This report is an attempt to see to what extent these two parallel phenomena are compatible, or in some cases incompatible.”

Dr. Labuda reported that in his research, when he would ask peacekeepers why they were operating in a country, “they reflexively, effortlessly invoke POC, it rolls off the tongue naturally, ‘We’re here to protect civilians.’ But when you ask whether POC is something that should be done together with the host-state, in support of the host-state, reactions vary significantly. Some think that the host-state is the end game—everything the mission does, including POC, is a means to an end, empowering the host-state because it will have to take over the mission. At the other end of the spectrum, they view the state with suspicion, caution, and even mistrust.”

Among the examples of events causing friction that he highlighted were the implementation of the human rights due diligence policy, instances when support of government actors is seen as a risk to civilians, and self-censorship in missions, as in “when do peacekeeping personnel tone down or suppress criticism of the host government’s human rights record to be able to maintain cooperation?” He singled out what he called the “most controversial question: When can peacekeepers use force against state actors? The problem is that peacekeepers are dependent on host-state support, and by using force against the state, they are imperiling, weakening that host-state consent.”

Ugo Solinas, member of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Integrated Operational Team, UN Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations (DPPA/DPO), said it was essential that missions be “pragmatic” about maintaining host-state consent, which is “dynamic and ebbing and flowing in response to political interests and actors on the ground.” He expressed concern over what he viewed as an overreliance on the use of force. “These dilemmas and these problems cannot be resolved through the use of force alone… but increasingly the success, effectiveness or failure of peacekeeping operations is seen through the lens of willingness to use force. Recent years show that while force may be part of the equation, it is certainly not the solution, and certainly not when force is applied in the absence of the broader political understanding of the objective that the mission is trying to achieve in partnership with a broader set of actors who have a stake in the success of the mission.”

He said he was encouraged by evidence that an alternative approach—engagement—was “becoming the default setting instead of go/no go.” He cited engagement on human rights, justice, and child protection, where important progress has been made. “Through engagement with leadership at all levels, from the highest levels to provincial levels to communities, engagement has proven more effective, including at the height of tension in the 2016-18 period when MONUSCO (UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) was facing pushback from the authorities. Engagement helped to de-escalate tension and ensure an open line of communication that enabled the mission to create a protective environment.” He declared, “Going forward, we should be looking to strengthen those aspects.”

Aditi Gorur, Senior Fellow and Director of the Protecting Civilians in Conflict Program, Stimson Center, said a mission’s effectiveness often depended upon the kind of host-state consent it had, which she categorized in three ways— “strong,” “weak” and “compromised.” She said that “often consent may be strong at the start of the mission and can deteriorate over time,” due to developments that governments can see as threatening their sovereignty like elections. In light of this, she advised to “Take advantage of a window of strong consent at the beginning” of peacekeeping missions’ deployment.

As a general rule, she said, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure… Once we reach a crisis point of consent, options become much more limited.” She said that problems in navigating consent arose often through “simple misunderstandings.” One way to head off those misunderstandings, she suggested, was for the Security Council before deployment to “sign a compact with the government for a shared political vision, with a detailed role for the government and for the mission so that expectations can be aligned.” She said governments had the “ultimate trump card of expelling missions,” and it was consequently important for missions to be developing relationships with many stakeholders beyond the head of state “so that it’s not just one individual who will be deciding whether a mission stays or leaves.” Describing the “worst-case scenario,” she said, “We want to prevent situations where missions are unintentionally bolstering autocratic states.”

Ammar Mohammed Mahmoud, Counselor, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Sudan to the UN, commented that “analyzing the element of consent on paper, the UN Security Council authorized peacekeeping missions to always give the primary responsibility of POC to national governments. But once the peacekeeping mission starts to operate, it is recommended that it engage in dialogue with the authorities, government and local communities. Whatever is the strength of the peacekeeping mission remains secondary to that of the government. That dialogue should have two objectives: implementation of the strategy of POC and building the capacity of law enforcement bodies to be equipped with international standards and best practices.”

Lizbeth Cullity, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), raised the range of challenges the mission was facing, including farmer-herder tensions, ethnic divides, class disputes, and a situation where many of the armed groups are Muslim and the central government is Christian. She said MINUSCA had focused on “investing in people who can develop watchdog groups, who can understand how local governance is operating, what local budgets look like and how they can contribute to their society.” She described how MINUSCA had developed a “complex monitoring mechanism” to track closely communities, security concerns, and political perspectives at a local level. “My favorite recommendation of the report is capacity building for a people-centered and holistic approach. I could not agree more, and that comes after 20 years of peacekeeping in Haiti and Sierra Leone and Mali, that if we focus only on the states, we will never ever reach our goal.”

In brief remarks, Karel J.G. Van Oosterom, the Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the UN, praised the IPI report. “I think the report is spot-on that stabilization missions are really something completely different with a new environment, new threats, new challenges, but also with a new role for the host governments. And indeed, is it with or against the government? I think for all of us, it would be our preference to work very closely with government—it’s very difficult to work against—but sometimes there is a friction between the two, and on that, I think your report was very enlightening.”

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The twin resolutions on peacebuilding and sustaining peace adopted by the General Assembly and Security Council in 2016 made a breakthrough in the UN’s conception of peacebuilding. Significant work has since been undertaken to reconfigure the UN system to work toward the implementation of these resolutions, and the UN Peacebuilding Commission has launched a comprehensive review of the peacebuilding architecture to be completed in 2020.

To inform this review, this issue brief synthesizes findings related to the operationalization of the peacebuilding and sustaining peace resolutions at the country level. These findings emerged from three case studies published by IPI on Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Burkina Faso. The operationalization of sustaining peace is assessed across four areas: (1) operational and policy coherence; (2) leadership, accountability, and capacity; (3) financing; and (4) partnerships.

The paper concludes that much of the focus to date has been on improving the effectiveness of how the UN delivers its mandates on peacebuilding and sustaining peace. To fully realize the vision of the sustaining peace agenda, its operationalization must increasingly focus on the impact of these efforts. This requires questioning and testing the theory of change underpinning these operational reforms to ensure the UN is effectively helping societies build the foundation for sustaining peace.

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IPI Senior Adviser for External Relations Warren Hoge and President of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass

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Climate change is “the defining issue of this century” and relations with China the likely top foreign policy item in the inbox of the next American president in January, Richard Haass told an IPI Distinguished Author Series event in a wide-ranging discussion of geopolitics on June 3rd.

Dr. Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, former high ranking Washington policy maker, and frequent media commentator, was talking about his new book The World: A Brief Introduction, a primer on what experts and non-experts alike should know about international relations and how they affect our lives in an interconnected world.

He recounted how the book had its origins in a chance encounter he had with a brainy Stanford computer science graduate on a fishing trip. “I told him, I can’t have much of a conversation on computer science, but I’m curious, ‘How many history courses have you taken?’ He said, ‘None’. ‘What about econ?’ He said,  ‘Nah.’ ‘What about poli sci?’ Same answer. This bright young man was going to graduate fully prepared for computer science but unprepared for the world he would be entering.”

Dr. Haass said he asked around and found this outcome of modern American undergraduate education to be disturbingly common. “So I decided to write a book for people of any age to narrow the gap: what I thought people needed to know about the world, to vote, judge policy debates, make an investment, business, travel decisions, to give people a foundation, make sense of information and decisions coming at them that deal with this world. That is not something we can shut out of our lives even if we want to.”

In his remarks on China, Dr. Haass said that the Sino- American relationship “will go a long way towards determining the character of the 21st century.” He said the two countries had entered a Cold War-like atmosphere but that containment, the American response to the Cold War with the Soviet Union, was no longer an option. “China is way too integrated in the world economy, it’s already there, you can’t contain it. The real question will be, ‘Can we compete with it?’”

The goal of American diplomacy, he said, should be to reach a strategic understanding with China, one that was achieved multilaterally, engaging United States allies. ”The way to get there won’t take you just to Beijing. The most important thing to do might be stops in Europe, Tokyo, Seoul, and in Australia—to approach China not unilaterally but with our allies and partners with us.”

The objective should be a relationship “that at least allows selective cooperation, even in the context of widespread competition. And that seems to me to be a challenge for diplomacy: can we structure it so that we have inevitable competition, but so that it doesn’t spill over and preclude cooperation on a regional and global challenge where we have some overlapping interests?”

He said that US policy makers also had to be alert to China’s own preoccupation with its vast population of 1.3 billion people and its existential concerns with maintaining control. “They are worried about the centrifugal forces in their country, and they are worried about the slowing economy because they’ve lost the lubricant to help keep things calm,” he said. “ I think China faces real challenges—we’re not going to have much impact on whether China succeeds or not—but the goal of our foreign policy is not in any way to hurt China, it’s not to stop the ties, it’s to help direct the ties. I don’t want to see China fail, but I want it to use its powers in a responsible way. That to me is the challenge of American foreign policy.”

Meeting that challenge will require “some serious statecraft, diplomatic deftness on the part of both sides that has been conspicuously missing from both,” he said. But falling into a Cold War standoff would leave the US “much worse off in dealing with problems ranging from North Korea to climate change to future pandemics. So if we do end up in a Cold War with China, I think it’s a major loss for both countries, and for the world, but it’s a possibility. But the good news is that it’s not an inevitability.”

On climate change, Dr. Haass said, “I don’t think the sort of approach we’ve had is likely to work. I don’t think it’s going to be solved in international conferences with 190 countries to come up with a single scheme to limit it. And over the years, you’ve had things like capping trade, global carbon taxes, now you have Paris, which doesn’t impose anything on anybody. It lets each country decide what its national contribution/trajectory is going to be.” He said the other problem with the Paris agreement is that “when you add it all up, even if everybody did what they said they were going to do, it wouldn’t be close to what the world needs, and on top of that, everybody’s not going to do what they committed to doing. “

He said that the US and its allies ought to focus instead on “climate adaptation”, building up resilience and leveraging change by tying assistance and subsidies to countries’ willingness to curb action harming the environment. He described it as a “climate tax, essentially telling the Chinas and Indias of the world, ‘You want to export to us, great, but if we see that you are fueling/producing your exports using, say, coal, we’re going to slap a tax on it, basically a climate tariff.’ That’s something the US can or should do alone, but if we joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership and got other countries to affiliate, we’d have 60 percent of the world’s economy, and that’s an awful lot of leverage.”

He said that climate adaptation and building resilience is “a big issue. We have to assume that no matter what we do, climate change has happened, is happening, and will happen. So we’ve got to structure some of our societies on where people live, where insurance is provided.”

Offering an example of the aggressive kind of international action the US should take, he said, “I’d go to Jair Bolsonaro, the President of Brazil, and I would basically say, ‘It turns out that most of the Amazon rainforest is on your territory, but the Amazon rainforest is not yours to destroy. It is an important resource for all of mankind. As a result, we will help you if you want to preserve it, but if you persist in destroying it, we will penalize you badly, and I would hope there would be trade consequences or consumer boycotts of Brazilian goods. Brazil may have the sovereign right to do it, but it’s irresponsible in terms of its impact on the world.”

Asked about coping with the threat of cyber attacks, he said, “I’m worried that the technology is changing so fast and is already in so many hands, and there is no consensus. What I would begin with is the reason I think alliances and partnerships are so important. We may not be able to get a global arrangement, but at a minimum, we want a consensus among the like-minded, and what we can do is come up with a common set of regulations, some rules of the road.” Ultimately, he said, it will come down to resilience. “The idea of invulnerability is nonsense, invulnerability is unachievable. You’re always going to have degrees of it, you obviously want to reduce your vulnerability. But you have to assume that you can’t prevent all attacks, and you have to presume you can’t stop all attacks when they are underway. Every once in a while, attacks are going to succeed, and that’s where resilience becomes such an important feature of a modern society.”

On Europe, he commended the new $750 billion German and French proposal for post-Covid-19 recovery. “It suggests the richest, most powerful countries in Europe are prepared to do things for the others, and that’s a welcome first sign of the revival of collectivism.”

Addressing the subject of multilateralism, he recommended broadening participation to go beyond nation states, regional groupings, and the United Nations. “If you were having a meeting on the pandemic, you’d be crazy not to include foundations, pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, all sorts of NGOs and regional groups and groups like Doctors Without Borders, or the International Rescue Committee. We have to be flexible, and you’ve just got to be practical, and the first question you’ve always got to ask yourself is ‘who’s relevant and who might be willing to make changes here?’ You could call it ‘designer multilateralism,’ and we ought not to get hung up on G-this or General Assembly-that because for different issues, we want different parties in the room.”

On COVID-19. Dr. Haass said it showed that nothing stays local for long in a globalized world. And contrary to some who believe the virus has stilled globalization, he said that instead it “accelerates” it. “A lot of trends we were already seeing in the world are now accentuated, more intense, picking up pace. Globalism is a reality; how we respond to it is the choice. That’s where policy comes in. This is what it’s like to live in a world with globalization. We can talk about sovereignty, but no amount of American sovereignty keeps out greenhouse gases, and sovereignty didn’t save us from 9/11. We’ve got to reject isolationism and have a serious conversation about how we deal with the various ramifications of a 21st century world.”

He was asked what his response was to people who didn’t share his view of the value of American leadership in the world. “I can’t say we always get it right,” he said, “but when I look at the last 70 to 75 years, our alliance structure, the international institutions, this has been the most extraordinary era in history. There have been no great power conflicts, living standards have gone up dramatically, the duration of life is up, there’s much more democracy in the world than there was. There is no other era in history that compares. What worries me now is that it may be coming to an end, and I don’t see anything better in its place. I don’t see any consensus on the means to bring it about. I don’t see an alternative to a successful world that the US does not play a role in.”

In answer to a question about how to turn the current protests on racism and police violence into progress, Dr. Haass said, “Channel the frustration. Protest gets you up, but then you have to translate that action into politically meaningful change, and I can’t think of any better way than a lot of opportunities this fall, and not just at the presidential level, by the way, but at the local level. And the oversight of police forces, that’s a local issue.”

Asked what advice he would give to young people thinking of a US diplomatic career, he said “I couldn’t say right now in this country that this is a good choice of a career. I’d want to see new leadership at the State Department, I’d want to see diplomats/diplomacy respected and applauded and not denigrated. I’d want to see more resources, more creative openings for lateral entry. Make it better, and the best and the brightest will gravitate towards it.“ He concluded, “Government at its best is a great, great calling. What’s so sad is to see what’s become of it.”

Warren Hoge, IPI Senior Adviser for External Relations, moderated the discussion.

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Contemporary UN peace operations are expected to implement ambitious protection of civilians (POC) mandates while supporting host states through conflict prevention, peacemaking, and peacebuilding strategies. Reconciling these people-oriented POC mandates and the state-centric logic of UN-mandated interventions ranks among the greatest challenges facing peace operations today.

This report explores how peace operations implement POC mandates when working with, despite, or against the host state. It analyzes the opportunities, challenges, and risks that arise when peacekeepers work with host states and identifies best practices for leveraging UN support to national authorities. The paper concludes that peacekeeping personnel in each mission need to decide how to make the most of the UN’s strengths, mitigate risks to civilians, and maintain the support of government partners for mutually desirable POC goals.

The paper offers seven recommendations for managing POC and host-state support going forward:

• Persuade through dialogue: Peace operations should work to keep open channels of communication and better prepare personnel for interacting with state officials.
• Leverage leadership: The UN should better prepare prospective mission leaders for the complex POC challenges they will face.
• Make capacity building people-centered and holistic: The UN should partner with a wider group of actors to establish a protective environment while reconceptualizing mandates to restore and extend state authority around people-centered development initiatives.
• Induce best practices: Missions should leverage capacity building and other forms of support to promote national ownership and foster best practices for POC.
• Coordinate pressure tactics: Peace operations should make use of the full spectrum of bargaining tools at their disposal, including pressure tactics and compulsion.
• Deliver coherent, mission-specific messaging on the use of force: The UN should improve training, political guidance, and legal advice on the use of force, including against state agents.
• Reconceptualizing engagement with states on POC as a “whole-of-mission” task: The UN Secretariat should articulate a vision and mission-specific guidelines for partnerships with host governments on POC.

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“When a mission fails to protect civilians, that calls into question the credibility of the entire peacekeeping undertaking and the credibility of the United Nations,” said Valentine Rugwabiza, Permanent Representative of Rwanda to the UN. “We’ve seen that. This is what is at stake.”

Geraldine Byrne Nason, the Permanent Representative of Ireland to the UN, agreed, saying “those of us with experience with conflict or who are peacekeepers know that when protection fails, consequences are absolutely devastating.”

The two ambassadors were speaking about the centrality of Protection of Civilians to effective peacekeeping at a May 29th IPI virtual policy forum on Pledging to Protect Civilians in Peacekeeping Operations: Lessons from the Implementation of the Kigali Principles. The forum took place on the International Day of Peacekeepers, during the UN’s annual Protection of Civilians (POC) Week.

Adopted five years ago at the High-Level International Conference on POC in Kigali, Rwanda, the Kigali Principles are a non-binding set of 18 pledges for more effective and thorough implementation of POC in UN peacekeeping. The principles focus on the training of troops, their performance, and their readiness to identify and address threats, including through the use of force to protect civilians, the provision of adequate resources and capabilities, and the establishment of accountability and oversight mechanisms.

“The Kigali Principles are crystal clear that peacekeepers must be prepared for the tasks set for them,” said Ambassador Byrne Nason. “There are extraordinary challenges with far too many instances where we have seen that the deliberate targeting of vulnerable people and communities is still happening. And let’s be frank, without the proper resources, peacekeeping missions will never be able to fulfill the roles that we set.” She lauded the Kigali Principles for providing a good framework but added, “that framework is of little use if it’s not fully implemented.”

Ms. Rugwabiza said one of the key purposes of implementing the principles was “instilling in our peacekeepers the confidence to act in appropriate and effective ways to protect civilians. We found that most of the time when action towards POC has not been taken, it’s really by lack of will or hesitation, with peacekeepers wondering if they actually have the authority to use force, and the Kigali Principles will help clarify that. We all have an intricate complementary role to play in peacekeeping. When any of us fall short of responsibility, the consequences are tragic.” She reported that the Kigali Principles had become part of Rwanda’s routine “training regimen.”

She sounded the same existential warning as Ambassador Byrne Nason did about the need to provide support for the principles. “The principles demand for mandates to be accurately matched with resources on the ground,” she said. “The principles necessitated impartiality because impartiality means deference to objectives of the mandate rooted in the principles of the UN Charter: place POC at the heart and center of our efforts.”

Bintou Keita, Assistant-Secretary-General, UN Department of Peace Operations and Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, commented, “POC is at the heart of what we do now in the context of peacekeeping. The trust and confidence of the population lies within the fact that no matter what happens, there will be no breakdown in the communication, authority, and the ability to act.” She said the Kigali Principles stress active collaboration and the need for accountability. “When we look at the principles, it’s about partnership, not just about talking and saying the nice thing, it’s also about walking the talk and making sure we have a strong partnership because it’s only with that that we’ll have success. It’s a combination of the policy and the handbook which articulate elements of a strong accountability framework. When I look at key elements to highlight, everyone agrees it makes a difference to have strong political will and partnership. It’s not just about the uniformed people, it’s about the whole of mission encompassing endeavor for peacekeepers and POC.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Raoul Bazatoha, Defense and Military Adviser, Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the UN, focused on the principles’ emphasis on training. “In Rwanda, we only had pre-deployment training, but later we had to develop post-deployment training to collect valuable information to inform our training cycle.” Now, he said, Rwanda has established a peace academy training officers in International Humanitarian Law, armed conflict, and other training related to peace operations. He said that Rwandan contingents had carried out activities like outreach programs, quick impact projects, and built a relationship based on trusting the host population and including constructing school classrooms and markets safe for women, and supply of potable water to internally displaced people and local residents.

“Accountability is a central aspect of good governance in Rwanda,” he added, “and it applies to the armed forces as well as peacekeeping personnel, holding our highest standard of conduct, with a national investigative officer in each unit deployed. The Rwanda defense service also deploys lawyers that provide training on crime prevention and conduct investigations when crimes are committed.”

Eshete Tilahun, Minister Counselor and Political Coordinator, Permanent Mission of Ethiopia to the UN, said, “We all know that the POC mandates are getting more complex as peacekeepers are becoming subject to violent attacks.” Aware that “civilians continue to bear the brunt of consequences of conflict… we have made a lot of progress in training because we found ways of building the capacity of uniformed personnel, all under POC framing.” He noted, though, that as more and more is expected from peacekeepers, “less and less resources” are being provided. Mr. Tilahun shared some of Ethiopia’s practices in implementing the Kigali Principles, such as mandatory POC training for peacekeepers and building the capacity and capabilities of uniformed personnel.

Carlos Amorin, Permanent Representative of Uruguay to the UN, noted that the current moment is a particularly difficult one for peacekeepers. “The challenges that peacekeepers face are greater than ever. They are not only having to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic but also support and protect people in the countries they are based in.” Mr. Amorin noted that Uruguay’s endorsement of the Kigali Principles is just one example of their country’s commitment to POC. As one of the earliest signatories to the principles, Mr. Amorin said that their peacekeepers “must complete many training courses prior to deployment” and that Uruguay “deploy[s] without caveats, with the appropriate means to protect civilians and prepare to perform the tasks at hand.” He also said that Uruguay “places a great deal of importance to accountability in POC, both at our national and multilateral level.”

Alison Giffen, Director, Peacekeeping, Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) emphasized the importance of supporting POC so that the mandate is “matched with the resources” needed to do the job. “For more than two decades, civilians have looked to UN peacekeepers for protection, and, I want to remind folks, whether or not the peacekeeper is in uniform or whether or not the words protection of civilians were in a mandate.”

Pointing out that promoting and protecting human rights was “a key purpose and guiding principle of the UN,” she concluded, “There’s no reason to doubt that implementing the Kigali Principles and investing in more protection is worthwhile.”

Sofiane Mimouni, Permanent Representative of Algeria to the UN, listed the various challenges that civilians face on the ground and voiced the urgent need to strengthen POC. In particular, he stressed the need for the UN to be “strengthening cooperation and coordination with regional organizations such as the African Union” asking panelists about the “potential synergies to strengthen the culture of protection amongst peacekeepers and peacekeeping stakeholders.”

Dr. Namie Di Razza, IPI Senior Fellow and Head of IPI’s Protection of Civilians Program, moderated the discussion.

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How COVID-19 and measures to curb its spread have amplified the vulnerabilities of civilians caught in conflict and raised new challenges for protection actors like humanitarian workers, peacekeepers, and human rights defenders was the subject of a May 28th IPI virtual policy forum. Co-hosting the event with IPI were the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Permanent Missions of the United Kingdom, Estonia, Niger, and Canada to the UN.

“The health crisis is quickly becoming a protection crisis,” declared Natacha Emerson of OCHA. “Collective and urgent action is needed to strengthen the protection of civilians so that we can tackle the pandemic and safeguard humanity. For people already struggling to cope with conflict, displacement, and hunger, COVID-19 adds another layer of insecurity, and in conflict settings the virus can easily grab hold and overwhelm crippled health care systems with deadly consequences.”

IPI Senior Fellow Dr. Namie Di Razza, who heads IPI’s Protection of Civilians (POC) program, introduced the discussion with the observation that COVID-19 “has had major disruptive effects, but it has not stopped atrocities, violence and abuse. On the contrary, the pandemic has raised new protection concerns for humanitarian workers, peacekeepers, and human rights defenders.”

Ilze Brands Kehris, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that human rights violations were rapidly rising in conflict situations in the world, with parties to the conflicts exploiting the circumstances of the pandemic to their advantage, further endangering the most vulnerable people. “So it is in this time of global crisis that universal values and norms, as guaranteed in international law, need more urgent attention than ever, and it also directly engages the responsibilities of states and other duty bearers to uphold their obligations under the law.”

She said that people infected with COVID-19 or suspected of being infected were being stigmatized, attacked and denied medical assistance, and even media representatives who report on the virus were being targeted. “Efforts to fight impunity are significantly impacted [and] governments are focused on the health response, so investigations and trials are de facto put on hold,’’ she said. As a consequence, there could be a premature release of grave human rights violators under the pretext of decongesting prisons for public health reasons. “The UN system must do better in better protecting people in pulling together different mandates and operational activities into one coherent whole under one and the same understanding of protection, putting human rights at the center.”

Laetitia Courtois, Head of Delegation to the UN, International Committee of the Red Cross, said that her organization was used to dealing with epidemics, but never with a pandemic of this “scope and impact.“ She broke down ICRC’s major protection concerns, and outlined four “asks” that would serve to mitigate and alleviate the repercussions of COVID-19:

• Insist that member states and parties to the conflict respect International Humanitarian Law (IHL);
• Prevent COVID-19 restrictions from hampering the movement of humanitarian staff and essential services;
• Protect medical equipment and medical personnel at all times; and
• Ensure that ICRC and other impartial organizations are allowed to continue working with non-state armed groups, and keep counterterrorism measures from impeding them from engaging with the groups, even those designated as “terrorist.”

Heather Barr, Acting Co-Director, Women’s Rights Division, Human Rights Watch, said the COVID-19 crisis had become “a global crisis for women.” She said there had been “huge spikes” in gender-based violence; waves of restrictions, staff shortages and shutdowns at clinics that provide sexual reproductive services; loss of income and jobs for health care workers, 70 percent of whom are women; and widespread closures of schools for girls, which adversely affects rates of child marriage, pregnancy, and sexual violence.

She pointed to water and sanitation as an example of how COVID-19, gender, and preexisting crises “come together in a really harmful way. We all know that washing your hands is important, but often they can’t safely access toilets, latrines, and water points because of concerns about sexual violence, poorly designed camps, lack of freedom of movement for women and girls, and that’s really a crisis in this situation.” She added that long term recovery planning must be gender responsive and “has to think about what impact there’s been on women and how we repair that.”

Caitlin Brady, Director of Programme Development and Quality for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Save the Children, gave a stark account of the effects of epidemics on children, based on past experience. “Border closures and impacts on trade will increase economic hardship everywhere, of course, creating a range of risks, one of them hunger, malnutrition, and associated diseases, and vulnerability to sexual exploitation and abuse, as we saw in the West African Ebola response. We’ll see very weak health facilities, which are already directly targeted by armed groups or are collateral damage when explosive weapons are used in populated areas. Having to respond not just to existing illness and childbirth, but also to COVID-19 will increase excessive maternal and infant mortality.” She forecast that children would be subject to recruitment by armed groups and harsh labor like working in mines.

It was imperative, she said, that school feeding programs be maintained even if the schools themselves were closed. “Yes, the pandemic is a public health emergency, but it’s exacerbating existing protection crises and patterns of marginalization. It’s important that while countries try to respond to the epidemic, they continue with commitments to address child protection and other humanitarian needs.”

Koffi Wogomebu, Senior Protection Adviser, UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), said that steps to curb the virus like limitations on the ability to travel into the field were inadvertently impeding the peacekeeping mission’s POC work. “I just want to say that COVID-19 itself did not constitute a physical violence against civilians falling under our POC mandate, but it is seriously having direct and indirect consequences on the protection of civilians. Measures taken to protect public health such as scaling back activity to prevent the spread of the disease are certainly posing a serious risk to the protection of civilians.”

He said too that the 14 armed groups in the Central African Republic, despite the UN Secretary-General’s call for a global ceasefire, were exploiting the lockdown situation to advance their own aims. “We believe that they take advantage of the fact that we are no longer moving a lot to within their territory, and in doing so, they are committing some serious human rights violations.” In addition, he said, there was an “anti-MINUSCA sentiment” arising out of the misperception that it was the responsibility of the UN mission to slow the spread of the virus and produce a remedy. “This has a put another pressure on the mission,” he said.

James Roscoe, Acting Deputy Representative of the United Kingdom to the UN, said that the UK, working with other countries, had made four pledges in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. He listed them as supporting an effective health response led by the World Health Organization (WHO); reinforcing resilience in the most vulnerable countries; pursuing treatments and vaccines; and helping to “shore up” the global economy. As for POC and the COVID-19 crisis, he said, the United Kingdom would work to expedite access and needed equipment and to guarantee “unfettered humanitarian access.”

In concluding remarks, Gert Auväärt, Deputy Permanent Representative of Estonia to the UN, lamented that some conflict parties have “sought to take advantage of the situation, and regrettably it has provided a pretext to adopt repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the pandemic.” The main message, he said, was that “we need more protection, not less.”

Mohammad Koba, Deputy Permanent Representative of Indonesia to the UN, observed that “what is more important now with the spread of coronavirus already and international cooperation is to support those who are most vulnerable to the virus, particularly in armed conflict.” Furthermore, he reiterated that Indonesia “fully support[s] the call for the immediate global ceasefire. It is an extremely important call for all parties to the conflict, to focus on the handling the impact of COVID-19, provide respite for civilians, facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and offer space for continued diplomacy.”

Abdou Abarry, Permanent Representative of Niger, remarked that “one of the unfortunate unintended consequences of COVID-19 is the worldwide alarming increase of gender-based violence and violence against our children,” which exacerbated existing inequalities “particularly in African countries where women constitute the majority of the work force.” He said that direct and indiscriminate attacks on schools had deprived over one half million African children of education. “An attack on education is an attack on the future,” he declared. Looking ahead, he said that when a safe and effective vaccine would be developed, “let it be the people’s vaccine, available to all. This would be a cornerstone of the POC agenda.”

Richard Arbeiter, Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the UN, commended participants for ensuring that the just concluded POC week “was not a casualty of COVID-19 as well.” He praised the POC community’s work, saying that “the POC community is very sophisticated and it has evolved over twenty years. I am amazed by how quickly all parts of this community has been able to identify and analyze the situations locally and what that means globally for all of us. [Panelists] had ground-truth reality recommendations, both to acknowledge what is working, where the gaps and inequalities have been exacerbated as well. It’s really quite something to stand back from it and see how quickly and ably we are able to figure out what needs to change in order for those that are most vulnerable to receive the support that they need.”

Dr. Di Razza moderated the discussion.

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On May 27th, the government of Sweden and IPI co-organized their first annual ministerial level discussion on women, peace and leadership. Ministers of the governments of France, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, and Tunisia, as well as a former minister from Yemen met to discuss opportunities for supporting women’s participation in peacebuilding during this time of a global pandemic. Together with the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and representatives from civil society, participants committed to continue in their efforts to support women’s rights and women’s full and effective participation in all peace efforts.

In the virtual roundtable, conducted under the Chatham House rule of non-attribution, discussants pointed out that crisis responses often pushed gender considerations to the side, but that maintaining focus on the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda and supporting women’s participation in peacebuilding was critical. Central to the discussion was the concern that restrictions imposed as part of the pandemic response placed a particular burden on women. Speakers identified the need for responses to the COVID-19 crisis that addressed women’s protection and security, as the majority of healthcare workers are women, and because women faced a heightened risk of gender-based violence and limited access to sexual and reproductive health services.

Participants agreed that the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) should be marked by a clear commitment to include women in peace and security efforts at all levels. Speakers encouraged the international community to sustain the ambition of this anniversary year into 2021 and beyond.

The discussion concluded with recommendations for state and multilateral leadership on WPS, including to support the UN secretary-general’s recent call for global ceasefire, along with the African Union’s Silencing the Guns initiative. Participants underscored the need to lead by example and include women in national peace processes, as well as to ensure international actors consult with and implement ideas from women in decision-making processes.

IPI Non-resident Senior Adviser Sarah Taylor was the moderator. IPI Vice President Adam Lupel provided opening remarks. This event is part of a larger project on women, peace, and leadership under IPI’s Women, Peace and Security program.

This ministerial-level discussion will inform the planning of this year’s High-Level Women, Peace, and Leadership Symposium, organized by IPI and the government of Sweden, that will take place around the time of the opening of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly in September 2020.

Global funding flows are critical to the success of community-centered peace and development. Local leaders often perceive complex international funding mechanisms as barriers to their work, and as ignoring or undervaluing their leadership. As a result, a great deal of potential for communities to create peace and development initiatives remains untapped.

IPI and Catalyst for Peace (CFP) co-hosted a May 21st virtual discussion on the ways global funding systems can support community-led action. The online panel and discussion, “Funding and Design for Local Ownership: What Helps? What Hurts?” was an open, inclusive, and transparent discussion among different stakeholders in the global funding system. Participants engaged in an imaginative conversation about how national and international funding mechanisms can better support the emergence of strong, inclusive communities that are able to resolve conflicts and come together around clear priorities.

Participants also addressed how funders can support community leadership in response to the global pandemic. Speakers shared specific examples from their work that demonstrated inclusive funding design. They also spoke on specific challenges that inhibited local leadership and community engagement.

Some of the key lessons mentioned:

The value of local ownership and innate community resources

• It is critical to ensure communities are the drivers of change. International partners must help create systems that support community ownership and leadership in sustainable development.
• Funding the community is sometimes treated as “overhead,” something to minimize, when really it is the investment that needs to be made.
• A school in a community built by outside contractors collapsed: the lesson the contractors learned was to involve the community in any new projects.
• In one country, an impeccable financial audit of funding revealed very few traces of misuse of funds from a locally-owned sustainable development project. When mechanisms are created for community ownership and dialogue with local officials, they feel ownership and accountability. The community members were watching and monitoring how the money was spent.
• In another country, villages were capable of doing themselves at a fraction of the cost what big contractors could do.
• What is needed: a process of consultation—go and ask communities what to do, what they need, then they will be able to say this project is theirs. Outside funders or organizations should not do anything without involvement and leadership from the community.

Making funding systems effective

• Funding is usually based on needs assessment, calculating what is not there, so the funder can bring it in. It is imperative, though, to understand the strengths, resources, and assets that the community can bring to the task.
• Despite the pressures of COVID-19, there is an abundance of funding. Funders everywhere are looking for good projects to invest in. What is missing is the design work that connects that funding to the right local processes and systems. Investment needs to be made into building financial and accounting piping that connects funding activities to work that needs to be done.
• The top-down funding approach is less aware of the community needs. The solutions need to be locally owned. When the whole system is visible as nested, connected layers, there is no top down or bottom up funding flows. Peace is built from the inside out.
• Aid from the international community is often given to solve problems, and more is given when those problems are not solved. Financial aid alone will not be effective if it is poured endlessly into a broken system. Work to repair and strengthen local systems that are under stress can help.

Funding challenges and what comes next

• What does not work is fragmentation and questioning whether the community should be at the center.
• There is a tension between effective practice the constraints of For many practitioners, supporting local organizations is the most sustainable and responsible practice. For big bureaucracy, their responsibility is pushing money by the end of the fiscal year, so lots of shortcuts and mistakes happen.
• The peacebuilding community can get caught up in its own language and it sounds incomprehensible to others that are looking at the same things and using different language to solve those same problems.
• The UN’s attitude can be top-down. Every year they hold a women and youth open call, with standards so high that local peacebuilders can never reach the requirements, and until these procedures are reviewed, the piping of the funds will never work. Member states and those who contribute to the peacebuilding fund must lead this. If they say they want to shift powers to change agency, to listen to locals, it will happen.

IPI and CFP aim to build on these conversations, especially best practices for funders and how different parts of the system (organizations, government, and funders) can work together to center local, community leadership.

The UN Security Council is expected to renew the mandate of MINUSMA in June 2020. The upcoming mandate renewal negotiations offer Council members the opportunity to take stock of progress in the UN’s stabilization efforts in Mali and refine its strategic engagements with the country. Ahead of the negotiations, IPI, the Stimson Center, and Security Council Report organized a virtual workshop on May 20th, 2020, to discuss MINUSMA’s mandate and political strategy.

This workshop provided a forum for member states, UN stakeholders, and outside experts to share their assessments of the situation in Mali. The discussion was intended to help the Security Council make more informed decisions with respect to the strategic orientation, prioritization, and sequencing of the mission’s mandate and actions on the ground. This event was convened with support from the Government of Canada.

The workshop’s discussions focused on recent developments in Mali and on the mission’s current mandate. Participants highlighted recent opportunities and challenges for consolidating political reforms and implementing key provisions of the peace agreement.

Some key points made by participants included:

• MINUSMA’s current strategic priorities (supporting the implementation of the peace agreement and support to stabilization of Mali’s center region) are relevant and position the mission well to engage on its comparative advantages in support of Mali;
• Mali is defined by a complex and ever-changing political and security landscape, and MINSUMA is an important actor but not the only one required to address the structural drivers of violence;
• This is a clear political moment for Malian actors to consolidate gains in the peace process and continue through with envisioned political reforms;
• While focus is on short term needs, it is important that the entire UN (including the mission) begin to mobilize support for Mali’s peacebuilding, governance and development needs in order to help the country move towards a more sustainable peace.

The discussions underscored the centrality of MINUSMA’s support to the protection of civilians and the pursuit of a stronger, Malian-led approach to human rights, accountability, and effective state institutions. Discussants reflected on MINUSMA’s stabilization role in the context of a landscape filled with many national and international actors, and that it may take additional time for the UN to see gains from the shifts embedded within the mission’s 2019 mandate.

The mission is continuing to implement its mandated priorities despite the exceptional circumstances stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. The UN (through MINUSMA) has signed three memorandums of understanding with the Malian Ministry of Health and Social Affairs to support national responses to the crisis. Nonetheless, the medium-term implications of the pandemic and mitigation responses remain uncertain for the country and the mission. How the situation evolves will likely impact MINUSMA’s trajectory and operations in the coming months.

In 2017, the UN launched a system-wide effort to support the implementation of the sustaining peace agenda in Burkina Faso. Since then, a rapidly deteriorating security situation and an imminent humanitarian crisis have forced the UN, the Burkinabe government, and their partners to recalibrate their efforts. This ongoing recalibration, together with the changes resulting from the UN development system reforms, makes this an opportune moment to assess the state of efforts to sustain peace in Burkina Faso.

This paper examines the implementation of the UN’s peacebuilding and sustaining peace framework in Burkina Faso, looking at what has been done and what is still needed. It focuses on the four issue areas highlighted in the secretary-general’s 2018 report on peacebuilding and sustaining peace: operational and policy coherence; leadership at the UN country level; partnerships with local and regional actors; and international support.

Burkina Faso provides lessons for how the UN’s sustaining peace efforts can respond to growing needs without a change in mandate. Continued support for the UN resident coordinator in Burkina Faso is necessary to ensure that these efforts are part of a holistic approach to the crisis, together with local, national, and regional partners. Such support could underpin Burkina Faso’s status as a buffer against spreading insecurity in the Sahel and make the country a model for the implementation of the sustaining peace agenda in conflict-prone settings without UN missions.

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“The coronavirus pandemic has taught everyone a valuable lesson in globalization: what happens anywhere affects everywhere, and no country is safe until all countries are safe,” said Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey and Co-Chair of the Friends of Mediation Groups in the United Nations, Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). “We must keep multilateralism alive,” he declared.

Mr. Çavuşoğlu was addressing a May 19th virtual event, cosponsored by IPI and the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, titled “How the Coronavirus Pandemic Affects Conflict Dynamics and Mediation: New Challenges to Peace and Security.” Underlining the impact of the pandemic on efforts towards peaceful resolution of conflicts and the importance of collective global action, he said that countries must make international organizations “relevant and credible” in the fight against the virus and its effects. “We must address the plight of vulnerable groups, and we must ensure the uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid.”

He warned that terrorist and extremist groups would seek to exploit the current disorder for their own malign purposes. “The enemies of a rules-based order will look for an opportunity to take unilateral steps,” he said. “This is not the time to further weaken the existing mechanisms. Multilateralism should not be another casualty of COVID-19. And it is not strong rhetoric but rather effective cooperative action that will save the day.”

IPI President Terje Rød-Larsen, the event’s moderator, observed that the coronavirus crisis presented obstacles to traditional tools for the maintenance of peace and security including UN peacekeeping, mediation, and peacebuilding.

He signaled “the potential for increased instability as the pandemic disrupts humanitarian aid or exacerbates inequality and political division.”

Pekka Haavisto, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland and Co-Chair of the Friends of Mediation Groups in the UN and OSCE, said that the current crisis underlined the need for supporting multilateralism and in particular the UN and the World Health Organization (WHO). He argued that while the pandemic posed serious threats to peace processes and transitions to peace now underway, it alternatively could provide “a positive opening for peace processes” and pointed to the example of the conflicted Indonesian province of Aceh, which achieved peace in the aftermath of being devastated by a tsunami in 2004.

The international community ought to be alert to “swiftly supporting” such positive openings, he said, but he also cautioned that some countries were exploiting the situation by locking down their societies with “too harsh conditions on the restrictions” that ended up jeopardizing human rights and challenging democratic values.

Marginalized groups were particularly vulnerable and subject to added stress, and he singled out girls and women as potential targets of such abusive actions. “We know from many peace processes how crucial women and girls are to such processes,” he added. He said that though digital technology was being manipulated by purveyors of disinformation, it also represented a key “peacebuilding tool” and served the purpose of contacting and organizing young people in the service of peacemaking.

Ignazio Cassis, Federal Councillor, Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland, and Co-Chair of the Friends of Mediation Group in the OSCE, said Switzerland had adopted border control and security measures to combat the virus that, while innovative, were “exceptional to a democracy like ours” and were already being regularized by the parliament which was restoring the necessary checks and balances. “But for Switzerland, one essential element that has not changed with the crisis is that more than ever, we stand ready to support dialogue efforts and peace negotiations and to mediate where we are invited to do so.”

Describing the depth of Switzerland’s involvement, he said that while digital technology was valuable in enabling remote contact with parties in conflict, “peace will always require the physical presence and trust of very real women and men.” He characterized the country’s commitment as “all hands on deck, and that is the call for us all.” To Switzerland, he said, “mediation is about trust, patience, and preparing the grounds for future negotiations.”

Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General, UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, said that the pandemic had “hit conflict settings particularly hard.” Alluding to some of the negative consequences that Secretary-General António Guterres had alerted the Security Council to, she listed an erosion of trust in public institutions over their failure to deal promptly with the crisis, economic fallout that could lead to civil unrest, the postponement of elections, and violent actors exploiting the situation. “And all this at a time when mediation efforts are needed now more than ever.”

She reported that while there had been widespread positive initial responses to the Secretary-General’s March 23rd call for a global ceasefire, “unfortunately they have not translated to concrete change on the ground. Regrettably, the guns are yet to be silenced.” She noted that fighting had continued in places like Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. In addition, “extremists have urged followers to take advantage of COVID-19 including by spreading disinformation.” She said that the UN “must continue to apply pressure on conflict parties and those outside supporting them politically or with weapons to stop.”

She acknowledged that the crisis had stilled the conventional practice of diplomacy but asserted that UN envoys and missions around the world were exerting themselves to “reignite the political processes to engage in contact with conflict parties and other stakeholders,” often through the use of digital technology. “Now, the path ahead is not easy, but nobody said it would be. To succeed, the international community will have to come together decisively to make sure the early gains, now fading, lead to lasting peace.”

In a question and answer session, the speakers fielded questions on establishing a set of best practices for handling future pandemics, ensuring that the needs of refugees and internally displaced persons were met in pandemic responses, shifting mediation to an online platform, encouraging greater women’s participation in mediation efforts, and trying to prevent the COVID-19 crisis from derailing intra-Afghan talks among warring parties in the current peace negotiations in Afghanistan. The questioners were Priyal Singh, Researcher, Institute for Security Studies (ISS), South Africa; Waleed Al-Hariri, Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, Yemen; Prisca Manyala, President, National Student Association, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Pravina Makan-Lakha, Femwise-Africa, and Aisha Khurram, student, Kabul University and former Afghan Youth Representative to the UN.

Burak Akçapar, Director-General for Foreign Policy, Analysis, and Coordination, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, made welcoming remarks on behalf of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, and IPI President Terje Rød-Larsen moderated the discussion.

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The effectiveness of UN peace operations depends on the “operational readiness” of their personnel, which refers to the knowledge, expertise, training, equipment, and mindset needed to carry out mandated tasks. While the need to improve the operational readiness of peacekeepers has been increasingly recognized over the past few years, the concept of “human rights readiness”—the extent to which consideration of human rights is integrated into the generation, operational configuration, and evaluation of unfirmed personnel—has received less attention.

This policy paper analyzes opportunities and gaps in human rights readiness and explores ways to improve the human rights readiness of peacekeepers. A comprehensive human rights readiness framework would include mechanisms to integrate human rights considerations into the operational configuration and modus operandi of uniformed personnel before, during, and after their deployment. This paper starts the process of developing this framework by focusing on the steps required to prepare and deploy uniformed personnel.

The paper concludes with concrete recommendations for how troop- and police-contributing countries can prioritize human rights in the force generation process and strengthen human rights training for uniformed peacekeepers. These actions would prepare units to uphold human rights standards and better integrate human rights considerations into their work while ensuring that they deliver on this commitment. Ultimately, improved human rights readiness is a key determinant of the performance of UN peacekeepers, as well as of the UN’s credibility and reputation.

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The Honorable Kevin Rudd AC, 26th Prime Minister of Australia, President of the Asia Society Policy Institute, and Chair of IPI’s Board of Directors and H.E. Mr. Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, President of the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly

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In an IPI virtual event on April 24th, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, the President of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, said that while the COVID-19 pandemic was the most “urgent” challenge the 193-nation body had ever faced, it could be best addressed through the global “interconnectedness” represented by the UN.

“What is playing out, as I see it, is really the pooling of resources and ideas, the recognition that multilateralism is the way out,” he said. “We do not have a national solution for COVID-19. What is playing out now is really proof that we get the point of interconnectedness.” Despite the enormity of the challenge, he asserted, “I think that multilateralism is strengthening, not fraying during the pandemic.”

Mr. Muhammad-Bande made his remarks in an address during a virtual event co-sponsored by IPI, the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly, and the Asia Society Policy Institute, and in conversation with Kevin Rudd, Chair of IPI’s Board of Directors and President of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Mr. Rudd introduced the discussion noting that “pandemics are the very essence of the reason why we have a multilateral system of global governments, and we know the reason for that is because epidemics and pandemics have no respect for international borders.” A former Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. Rudd added, “This has tested not just our institutions of national government around the world, but it has truly tested our system of global governance.” He observed that the creation of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948 and the International Health Regulations in 2005 had been “anchored” in the UN Charter.

Mr. Muhammad-Bande said that “combating COVID-19 is a collective responsibility,” and he urged everyone to follow the guidelines laid down by the WHO. “We must adhere to social distancing, wash our hands and look out for one another. That is how we show solidarity and uphold multilateralism.” He also implored all parties to observe the global ceasefire called for by Secretary-General António Guterres.

Africa has had valuable experience combatting epidemics and pandemics but presents a particular problem because of its fragile health systems and many countries’ dependence upon commodities at a time when world prices are collapsing, said Mr. Muhammad-Bande, who also serves as Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN. Nevertheless, he argued, the continent had demonstrated great resilience through multilateral institutions like the African Union and various subregional bodies. “The real hope is that Africa understands, like the rest of the world, that this is not an African problem, this is truly a global problem which means we’re able to learn from others as we’re able to teach others.”

He hailed the urgent global effort underway to find a vaccine for the novel coronavirus but warned that the international community would have to be vigilant in assuring universal access to it. “We must remind others that vaccines when developed are not for some countries alone, but they are for all of us. They must be affordable and available to all. This is important.” Mr. Rudd agreed, stating, “Vaccines should be seen as a global public good rather than a piece of singular national property. What we do not want to see is this becoming an issue of national rivalry.”

On taking office as President of the General Assembly last September, Mr. Muhammad-Bande dedicated his term to UN reform, and he said that the onset of the COVID-19 crisis had changed but not diminished the emphasis he would place on that ambition now. “Our immediate focus should be to get over the situation as it is, and we have to reserve our energy to focus on the immediate danger. Now, reform in relation to the UN relates to our ability to continue to be legitimate. Without legitimacy, nothing else will work, and all organs of the UN system enhance that legitimacy but not just to be legitimate, they must also deliver because there must be delivery for the legitimacy to continue.”

He cited as an example the World Health Organization. “We have to have a body that is nimble enough, legitimate enough, and resourced enough to do not just the work of now but to continue to scan the horizon to have protocols that work in all regions of the world and are connected,” he said. “It is important that we resource whatever body that looks after our health, and this is central to multilateralism.”

The UN should build on its recent accomplishments, he said, and suggested the two major ones were the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) five years ago. “The achievements of 2015 in terms of the Paris accords and the SDGs are really monumental achievements in multilateralism. I think we should focus on these two, give it 20 years, and I bet we’ll have a much different world. There would be less conflict, less hate, and there would be more respect for the rule of law. There would be more certainty of healthier lives for coming generations.”

Among the listeners who submitted questions were Kenyan and South African students from the King’s College African Leadership Centre in London, an Indian student from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, and a director of the Technology Center for Youth at Risk in Guatemala.

Addressing the audience in general, Mr. Muhammad-Bande acknowledged that the UN needed to communicate its mission better so that people better understand how it is relevant to their lives. “I want you as a listener to have more faith in the system, just to give it the oxygen it needs to move on. And this oxygen also includes, of course, constructive criticism, without which we simply cannot make progress.”

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The growing number of UN personnel deployed to missions in violent, volatile, and complex settings has pushed the UN to take all means necessary to improve the safety and security of its staff and of civilians under its protection. The UN’s Peacekeeping-Intelligence Policy, which was first developed in 2017 and later revised in 2019, has been a central part of these efforts.

This paper outlines the difficulties of creating and implementing this policy. It addresses the origin and evolution of UN peacekeeping-intelligence as a concept and explains the need for this policy. It then discusses how peacekeeping-intelligence was and is being developed, including the challenge of creating guidelines and trainings that are both general enough to apply across the UN and flexible enough to adapt to different missions. Finally, it analyzes challenges the UN has faced in implementing this policy, from difficulties with coordination and data management to the lack of a sufficient gender lens. The paper recommends a number of actions for UN headquarters, peace operations, and member states in order to address these challenges:

1. Optimize tasking and information sharing within missions by focusing on senior leaders’ information needs;
2. Harmonize the content of peacekeeping-intelligence handbooks with standard operating procedures while ensuring they are flexible enough to account for differences among and between missions;
3. Refine criteria for recruiting civilian and uniformed personnel with intelligence expertise and better assign personnel once they are deployed;
4. Improve retention of peacekeeping-intelligence personnel and encourage member states to agree to longer-term deployments;
5. Tailor peacekeeping-intelligence training to the needs of missions while clarifying a standard set of UN norms;
6. Apply a gender lens to UN peacekeeping-intelligence;
7. Improve coordination between headquarters and field sites within missions by adapting the tempo and timing of tasking and creating integrated information-sharing cells; and
8. Establish common sharing platforms within missions.

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