European Peace Institute / News

On September 25th, IPI, together with the Danish Institute for International Studies, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, cohosted a high-level panel discussion on the topic of Committed to Collective Action: Multilateral Engagement for Peace and Security by Small and Medium States.

Even as global and regional power balances are changing and longstanding anchors of the international rules-based order are turning away from multilateral engagement, support for international cooperation remains high among most member states. The rising tides of nationalism, protectionism, and xenophobia undermine collective action, yet the erosion of the rules-based order has also spurred renewed commitment to the multilateral system and a growing sense of shared responsibility among those states that are most at risk when only the powerful decide what is right.

Looking forward, how can small and medium states work together even more closely to address serious issues that defy national borders, to reinforce effective modes of cooperation, and to advance common goals of peace and security? What are the multilateral mechanisms best suited to address traditional and emerging international peace and security challenges? How can small and medium states cooperate to strengthen these mechanisms? How do these mechanisms promote shared interests and reaffirm sovereignty?

Opening remarks:
Mr. Terje Rød-Larsen, President, International Peace Institute
Dr. Louise Riis Andersen, Senior Researcher, Foreign Policy, Danish Institute for International Studies.

Speakers:
H.E. Mr. Jeppe Kofod, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Denmark
H.E. Mr. Urmas Reinsalu, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Estonia
H.E. Mr. Ayman Al Safadi, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jordan

Moderator:
The Honorable Kevin Rudd, 26th Prime Minister of Australia; President, Asia Society Policy Institute; and Chairman, IPI Board of Directors

On September 25th, IPI together with the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, cohosted the first annual Women, Peace, and Leadership Symposium, a High-Level Forum on Advancing Women’s Roles and Rights amid Global Challenges.

For decades, governments, civil society, and the United Nations have recognized that women’s leadership and women’s status are inextricably linked with conflict prevention and conflict resolution. Indeed, women’s roles and rights can be seen as a litmus test of a community’s resilience. The women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda has been institutionalized internationally, regionally, and nationally. More than 70 countries have national actions plans on WPS (NAPs), and numerous countries have WPS envoys and ambassadors at the national level. The African Union, NATO, and UN all have special representatives or special envoys on various aspects of the WPS agenda. New regional networks of women mediators are being established with the goal of increasing women’s meaningful engagement in peace processes. The UN Security Council has, to date, adopted nine dedicated resolutions on WPS and has established an Informal Expert Group to receive timely information on WPS and analysis of individual conflict situations.

Yet despite these commitments, by many indicators the status of women’s roles and rights globally are under threat. In conflict resolution processes, mediators and negotiators are rarely women, and women’s rights are insufficiently reflected in agreements. In the multilateral system itself, women’s rights are increasingly the focus of debate in venues from the Commission on the Status of Women to the UN Security Council.

The inaugural Women, Peace, and Leadership Symposium at IPI focused on these challenges, given the upcoming 20th anniversary of Resolution 1325 (2000), the UN Security Council’s original resolution on women, peace, and security. Speakers drew upon the experience of their countries and institutions to lay out an ambitious agenda for this anniversary, including how to build long-term institutional support for women’s rights and roles in all efforts to build peace.

Welcoming Remarks:
Mr. Terje Rød-Larsen, President, International Peace Institute

Speakers:
H.E. Ms. Ann Linde, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sweden
H.E. Dr. Grace Naledi Pandor, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, South Africa
H.E. Mrs. Asmaa Abdalla, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of the Sudan
H.E. Ms. Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, United Nations
Ms. Kaavya Asoka, Executive Director, NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security

Moderator:
Dr. Adam Lupel, Vice President, International Peace Institute

For two decades, the women, peace, and security agenda has been the subject of policy development internationally, regionally, and nationally. But by many indicators, the global status of these commitments to gender equality is under threat. In the multilateral system, a growing number of states are questioning established standards of women’s rights, while international policy and programming struggle to adapt to the gendered implications of the changing nature of conflict.

This issue brief takes stock of the state of the women, peace, and security agenda in the current geopolitical context, with a view to supporting strategic advances at the upcoming twentieth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000). It looks at characteristics of the current geopolitical context that are of concern to the defense of women’s rights, what these changes have meant for how the international community seeks to build peace and improve security, and how we can evaluate approaches to implementing WPS commitments in relation to these pressures on the multilateral system.

The paper concludes that in order for the women, peace, and security agenda to be an effective tool, it must move beyond rhetoric and be woven into actionable policy. It must become a driving force behind the development and implementation of peace and security policy and programming rather than being buffeted by political considerations that elide the status and rights of women. This depends on a sustainable increase in resources and improved accountability within the multilateral system.

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On September 23rd, IPI, together with the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, cohosted a policy forum entitled “Picking up the Pieces in a Fractured World: Rebuilding Trust in Multilateralism for Peace and Security.”

Multilateral legal instruments and institutions have long been the hallmark of the international community’s approach to global issues. This has been true for issues such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, climate change, and countless others. In the field of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty embodies the ideal of multilateral, science-based verification in the interest of global peace and security. Yet the treaty’s fate remains uncertain because it still needs to be ratified by a number of nuclear-capable countries. The nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament regime also continues to face significant challenges more broadly. How can the international community come together to rebuild trust and strengthen faith in multilateralism to confront these and other global challenges, thereby securing a more peaceful and prosperous world for the next generation?

Speakers:
H.E. Ms. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly
Dr. Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO)

Moderator:
The Honorable Kevin Rudd, 26th Prime Minister of Australia; President, Asia Society Policy Institute; and Chairman, IPI Board of Directors

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On Sunday, September 22, 2019, IPI held its fourteenth Ministerial Dinner on the Middle East in its Trygve Lie Center for Peace, Security, and Development. The working dinner drew the participation of foreign ministers, United Nations officials, special representatives of the Secretary-General to countries in the region, heads of humanitarian agencies, and other high-level representatives from the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and beyond.

The event was chaired by Terje Rød-Larsen, President of IPI, and co-hosted by the United Arab Emirates and Luxembourg, represented respectively by Anwar Mohammed Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and Olivier Maes, Political Director, Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.

In a roundtable conversation, conducted under the Chatham House rule of non-attribution, participants exchanged views on recent developments and long term trends in the Middle East and North Africa, with a particular focus on Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. Central to the discussion was concern about rising tensions in the Gulf region after the recent attack on Saudi oil fields and the possible paths to de-escalation through diplomacy.

Attendees included the foreign ministers of Algeria, Cyprus, Finland, Iraq, Ireland, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Poland, Slovak Republic, Sweden, Tunisia, and Yemen; as well as Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, and Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Abdul Latif bin Rashid Al Zayani.

Also present were Ferid Belhaj, Vice President of the World Bank; Børge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum; Rosemary A. DiCarlo, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs; Thomas Greminger, Secretary General of the OSCE; Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq and Head of UNAMI; Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner-General of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East; Ján Kubiš, Special Coordinator for Lebanon; Robert Malley, President and CEO of the International Crisis Group;  Peter Maurer, President of the ICRC; Nickolay Mladenov, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative of the Secretary-General to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority; Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy;  Amr Moussa, Former Secretary General of the League of Arab States; Ghassan Salamé, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of UNSMIL.

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There has been a 25% reduction in United Nations peacekeeping troops since 2014, and while that is “largely a story of success,” the future will be more complicated, said Jake Sherman, Director of the IPI Brian Urquhart Center for Peace Operations. Five years ago, the UN had 16 peacekeeping missions, 127,000 uniformed authorized personnel, more than 22,000 civilians, and budget of nearly eight billion dollars. Since then, he explained, peacekeeping has entered a period of consolidation.

Such peace operations transitions were the subject of a September 18th policy forum at IPI co-hosted with the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN. Panelists discussed lessons learned from recent transitions in Liberia, Haiti, and Côte d’Ivoire. They also addressed political and operational considerations for strengthening upcoming transitions in Darfur, Guinea-Bissau, and other missions.

The next wave of peacekeeping transitions “will likely grapple with unfinished political settlements, continued protection challenges, huge geographic territories with limited state presence, and weak host-state consent to the UN’s presence,” said Mr. Sherman. He pointed to IPI’s ongoing transition project, which “aims to provide forward-looking lessons for the UN about how to better manage these complex processes” that will be applicable to the remaining 13 active missions.

IPI Policy Analyst Daniel Forti, opened the discussion by explaining how, “At their core, UN peace operations transitions are about reconfiguring how the UN engages national actors on the country’s peacebuilding, development, and security priorities.” He emphasized that “transitions don’t just begin when the UN Security Council sets a final withdrawal deadline, nor do they conclude when the last peacekeeper leaves the country. Instead, transitions are multi-year processes that require sustained political, security, and programmatic engagements. “In this light,” he noted, “transitions are one of the few processes that bring together the entire UN system, with its peace and security, development, and human rights arms all playing important roles.”

Mr. Forti shared key takeaways from the reports, which included the need for shared and long-term political strategies for transitions, as well as strategic communications between the UN and host communities. He stressed the need for early UN engagement to secure adequate financing, as well as the importance of strengthening peacekeeping partnerships and capacities for transition-related support. He also highlighted the value of field-level planning strategies to guide transition processes.

Rania Dagash, Chief of the Policy and Best Practices Service in the UN Department of Peace Operations, focused on the challenges that transitions generally face and what her department has learned through those mission departures. “Transitions are fundamentally political processes,” she said, “but we often deal with them as technical processes.” She mentioned, as well, that “human aspects of the transitions,” referring to peacekeeping staff, as well as interaction with the host countries, must not be overlooked. Another objective, she noted, was sustaining political engagement after the transition of a UN operation and the withdrawal of a large mission.

Ms. Dagash pointed to the importance of safeguarding the space for peacebuilding as UN leverage decreases during this period of waning support for multilateralism. She focused as well on the lack of resources and funding for peacebuilding activities, and how this has posed a challenge in host countries after a transition. “When the UN leaves,” she pointed out, “the money leaves with it.” This compounds the risk of relapse into conflict, which is a real threat in some of the countries. She argued, “We can design and plan our transitions better.”

Taija Kontinen-Sharp, Chief of Staff in the Office of the Assistant Secretary-General for Development Coordination, cited the “universality” of the Sustainable Development Goals as an “anchor to the broader conversation about peace and development” in the context of transitions. She asked, “How do we sustain peace in places such as Haiti where many of the issues at the heart of it are sustainability and development issues?” Confronting these issues, she said, required joint planning and a “vision of a broader trajectory for peace and development in a country.”

Ms. Kontinen-Sharp cautioned against thinking of mission drawdowns and closure as the end of the UN presence in a country. Instead, she said, “We’re not talking about a new face, but a different kind of configuration and UN support for the country.” But, she said, “we need to do joint analysis better, and that needs to be our entry point.” She mentioned Haiti as a good example of joint planning where the UN country team and peacekeeping mission “were working together from day one to see where do we want to land” and “how does the mission look in the context of the development agenda?”

She explained that the UN Development Coordination Office was now “thinking through programmatic responses in a transition context,” and discussing drawdown processes and logistics. She emphasized the need to “make sure that we have a very clear programmatic transition.” Resident Coordinators once were responsible for UN Development Program management, which occupied fifty to sixty percent of their time, said Ms. Kontinen-Sharp. So the delinking of the Resident Coordinator system from the UN Development Programme (UNDP) provided UNDP with more time to invest in development coordination and system leadership, she explained, which is a “commodity that the system didn’t have previously.”

“In my own view,” said Ms. Kontinen-Sharp, “We’ve gone a long way in terms of coming together at the UN community, across technical pillars in working on transitions.” She said she would be interested to see whether there could be more conversations around transitions in the UN Economic and Social Council to complement those taking place in the Security Council (ECOSOC).

Lesley Connolly, Global Peacebuilding Policy Advisor at the Life and Peace Institute, spoke on the case of Liberia and what could be learned from the closure, in March 2018, of the UN mission in Liberia (UNMIL), which then transitioned to a UN country team. UNMIL, she explained, was one of the most successful peace operation transitions and implementations of the secretary-general’s Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace Framework.

UNMIL’s transition encompassed a military drawdown process that ended in June 2016, and was then followed by a civil drawdown and reconfiguration that lasted through March 2018 and marked the end of the mission. “The challenge, however, is that disproportionate amounts of attention were given to security and military transition versus the civilian transition,” Ms. Connolly said. This, she noted, “placed significant planning burdens on the mission and the UN country team to address rapidly what should be long-term processes.”

Ms. Connolly emphasized that transitions need to be aligned with external changes in a country. She determined that Liberia underwent a “Triple Transition,” in that the country was not only shifting from a UN Peacekeeping Operation to a UN country team, but that the Liberian government itself was undergoing a transition. Meanwhile, the UN development system reform was taking place, and Liberia was the first country implementing this new model. Its first post-conflict democratic transition took place following elections at the end of 2017. She said that the full implications of all this would not be felt “for a long time.”

The final recommendation she addressed was that after a transition, it is necessary to give sustained attention to the country’s new needs, in the context of the mission’s departure, adding that the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) is one example of a valuable tool for this support.

She concluded, “Transitions are multi-year processes that require sustained political, security, and programmatic engagements from the whole UN. Focusing on long-term planning for the transition process from an early stage is vital. The transition needs to be driven by analysis on the ground, and rooted in the realities of capacities and political dynamics.”

Gunnar Berkemeier, First Secretary at the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN, spoke on the role that Germany had played in peace operations transitions during the country’s time on the Security Council. The key lesson, he said, was that “transitions are inherently political.” He pointed out the juxtaposition that many topics and discussions in the Security Council have very long and systematic processes, but that the Council needs to be flexible, at times, to adapt to present realities. He gave the example that in the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), “the majority of the Council thought that we were in a clear drawdown situation and ready for transition, but election results were unexpected, and the UN needed to react and adapt.”

Mr. Berkemeier said that benchmarks for withdrawal, such as elections, will never give the answer of whether it is a good or bad time to withdraw. “In the end, it will be a political decision and a political discussion about whether and when” to transition. He concluded by explaining that the Peacebuilding Fund is an important tool in aiding peacekeeping transitions, but that it cannot be the only tool. Transition support requires, in addition, he said, action from the Fifth (budgetary) Committee of the UN, because, “transitions are never the time to be stingy.”

The event was moderated by Mr. Forti.

Papua New Guinea is facing two major challenges to peace: a November referendum on the future political status of Bougainville, the site of a brutal conflict from 1989 to 1998; and the recent increase in intercommunal violence in the Highlands region. This makes it an important test case for the UN’s approach to peacebuilding and sustaining peace and the recent reforms to the UN development system.

This paper, a publication of IPI and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), examines the implementation of the UN’s peacebuilding and sustaining peace framework in Papua New Guinea, 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.

Despite ongoing challenges in Papua New Guinea, implementation of the secretary-general’s recommendations on sustaining peace is already underway, offering examples of how to use the UN’s tools and resources to reduce and prevent violence and sustain peace. It reveals the importance of getting a resident coordinator with the right skill set; taking a long-term, preventive approach; building the capacity of government and civil society; ensuring continuous and flexible funding; and working with the Peacebuilding Commission to bring political attention in New York.

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On September 12, IPI and the Al-Babtain Cultural Foundation commemorated the 20th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace and contemplated the path forward with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“As we look back on those 20 years, in retrospect, the Declaration and Programme of Action can be seen in the context of a larger process that connects the Culture of Peace to the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” said IPI Vice President Adam Lupel.

“What both agendas recognize is that to achieve a sustainable peace, one needs to do more than end conflict or stop violence, one needs to build positive foundations for mutual respect, prosperity and broad-based inclusion,” he said.

Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, the outgoing President of the General Assembly, noted that the time of the declaration’s adoption 20 years ago was a “high water mark of optimism” but now seemed “very remote indeed.” She lamented that recent years have been marked by “backsliding”.

“We have seen backsliding on international laws and norms, and a backlash against the agenda adopted 25 years ago,” Ms. Espinosa remarked, recalling the last year of the General Assembly. She noted that the impacts of this phenomenon are evident in “rising unilateralism, nationalist populism, and extremist ideologies” as well as in pushback against “hard-won multilateral agreements and institutions and in the loss of trust between people, governments, and institutions.”

Ms. Espinosa cautioned that “a positive, dynamic, participatory process, where dialogue is encouraged and conflict resolved in a spirit of mutual understanding,” is, as she put it, “sorely needed.”

Despite Ms. Espinosa’s emphasis on “the headwinds facing multilateralism,” she noted with optimism that the international community had still been able to accept what she regards as “the most ambitious, wide-ranging set of Sustainable Development Goals.” But she added that efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda will require continued dedication to a culture of peace.

Anwarul K. Chowdhury, Founder of the Global Movement for The Culture of Peace, recalled the origins of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, as well as his involvement in the negotiations that led to the document. “In simple terms,” Mr. Chowdhury explained, “the culture of peace means that every one of us needs to consciously make peace and non-violence a part of our daily existence.”

Elaborating, Mr. Chowdhury said, “we should not isolate peace as something separate or distant,” especially from our own lives, because to do so would downplay the role of individuals in creating a culture of peace. “When we talk about peace, we expect others, such as diplomats and politicians, to take the initiative. But when we speak of a culture of peace, we know that action begins with each one of us.”

Mr. Chowdhury concluded his remarks with an outline of three key approaches to “bolstering the global movement for the culture of peace.” He first highlighted the importance of education and the role that educational institutions must play in creating “responsible and productive global citizens.” He then turned to the significance of youth and children to a culture of peace, urging that early childhood is the best time to “sow the seeds of a culture of peace.” Lastly, Mr. Chowdhury explained the significance of women, advising that “without peace, development cannot be realized. Without development, peace is not achievable. But without women, neither peace nor development is possible.”

Masud Bin Momen, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN, responded to Mr. Chowdhury’s emphasis on education and underscored the part that Bangladesh has played in promoting education for a culture of peace. He explained that “from the birth of our nation, we have invested a lot in education and literacy.” Mr. Bin Momen continued, “the challenge, not for Bangladesh alone but for all countries, is trying to inculcate the culture of peace in the mind of our children,” especially when the media environment is seen as promoting violence.

Jimena Leiva Roesch, Senior Fellow at IPI, voiced an optimistic view of the potential for a culture of peace, suggesting that “in this moment of troubled times, sometimes our innate mechanism is to shut down, but truly what we explore at IPI is that this time also offers a moment of greater self-awareness.” Ms. Leiva Roesch, reflecting on the passing of the 2030 Agenda, said, “things were transforming and changing, and it really did feel like the world as a whole was moving as one. Fast forwarding four years into the present,” she acknowledged, “we’re in a dark time, but this time also brings treasures of self-awareness and continued challenges to our cultural narratives,” which may open the door for the further cultivation of a culture of peace.

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In her new memoir, The Education of an Idealist, former American ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power says the question she heard most frequently during her three and a half years in the post was “what can one person do?”

In a September 11th Distinguished Author Series event at IPI featuring the book, Ms. Power posited a response to that question. “Shrink the change,” she said. “Even when you can’t come up with a big solution, there may well be something, however modest, you can do. Throughout history, the big solutions usually come through incremental change.”

She acknowledged that when confronting problems that seem too daunting to be solved, “small measures… can seem like a cop out.” But she asserted, “If you think about what is in the reach of our individual power to address, I think it’s actually a very useful frame. If you add up all those small steps that can be taken, that’s where you start to make real inroads.”

The observation was a sobering one coming from Ms. Power, a bold and vocal rights advocate in the years before she went into government as President Obama’s human rights adviser and then as UN ambassador.  The Education of an Idealist is a book about whether an activist outsider can become a pragmatic insider without compromising her motivating ideals.

It is an unusually personal narrative for a foreign policy book, with Ms. Power detailing the uprooting of her family life in the passage to America from Ireland when she was nine, her lifelong guilt over a cherished hard-drinking father who was left behind in Dublin and died young, her interactions for years with counsellors and therapists to overcome debilitating anxiety attacks, her reliance in the male-dominated National Security world upon a support group of fellow professional women called the Wednesday Group, and her efforts to balance the simultaneous responsibilities to nation and to two young children.

She said her aspiration in “telling a very personal story is to try to break through and tell a story that people can relate to irrespective of whether they’ve ever worked in the halls of power or ever negotiated at the UN.”

In answer to questions, she deplored the Trump Administration’s decision to exit the Iran nuclear agreement, pointing out that it was “international law” since it had been approved by the UN Security Council and was an accord “that all independent verifiers had judged to have been complied with.” She said the effect of the US walking away from the deal was “uniting the rest of the world against the Trump Administration’s policy.”

On the Obama Administration’s much criticized inaction on Syria’s chemical weapons attacks on its own people in 2013, she conceded that the US “utterly failed” both to produce a negotiated solution and to reach people in enclaves that were surrounded by Syrian regime troops. But she noted that the US, working with Jordan, Australia, Luxembourg, The United Kingdom, France and Russia, was able to bring assistance to people in the opposition-held northern part of the country. “A pittance compared to what was necessary,” she said, “but preferable to the lamentation that you were tempted to end up in, you know, where you weren’t able to just say,  ‘Is there anything against this bleak backdrop that can be hived off, where there is scope to forge an agreement, any place where there is scope to make inroads?’”

She said that she had made it a point in office to visit every country’s mission at the UN and was told in many of them that she was the first American permanent representative to ever appear there. On those calls, she said, “nothing was more unsettling than my conversations with ambassadors whose countries were threatened with extinction as a result of climate change.”

Asked if the US could recover its lapsed reputation for international leadership, she said, “I think the fastest route to recovery is not only a victory in 2020, but a margin of victory that allows us to make the claim that it isn’t just a changing of the guard, but it is a repudiation of the comprehensive approach which is one that traffics in falsehoods, one that doesn’t see the value of alliances, that doesn’t see the preciousness of our values as a source of strength in the world, whatever our limitations.”

She warned that this recovery could take time, given the conduct of the US in the international sphere over the past three years. “It’s going to sound tinny when we talk to other governments about the importance of respecting a free media, the importance of free assembly, the importance of civilian control of the military, of respecting  dissenting viewpoints, the importance of facts and truth and credibility. We will have to redeem these past years.”

In September 2018, more than 100 UN member states signed a Declaration of Shared Commitments as part of the secretary-general’s Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative. The declaration was intended to rally member states to address urgent challenges facing contemporary peacekeeping operations. But one year later, the declaration has not yet translated into concrete action by member states, limiting tangible results for missions on the ground.

This issue brief takes stock of progress by the UN and member states in implementing A4P over the past year and looks at where there is momentum and where additional political attention is needed. There is consensus that A4P has helped reaffirm the value of peacekeeping. It also provides a roadmap for incremental reform, a platform for sharing good practices, and a framework for identifying progress. Moving forward, however, it needs to be more than a package of preexisting UN priorities; it needs to become a platform through with the secretary-general sets a new approach to strengthening peacekeeping.

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High-risk challenges are undermining the international rule-based order on multiple fronts. This view has been growing in acceptance for several years, and recent developments have reinforced the sense that the UN-based system of multilateral cooperation is “under siege.”

Yet, international cooperation has never been more necessary. What is at stake in the weakening of the international rule-based order, and what are the paths forward? Are we pulling together to address the challenges of our age? Or are we falling apart and moving away from the very idea of a global common good?

This was the topic of discussion at the 2019 IPI Salzburg Forum, held at the Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria on September 1-3.The two-day gathering, conducted under the Chatham House rule of non-attribution, brought together diplomats, journalists, academics, think-tank experts, and representatives of civil society.

The forum was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic and began with dinner remarks by the ministry’s state secretary, Frantiŝek Ružička, on September 1st.

The following day included three panel sessions and an interactive discussion to identify take-aways and action points.

The first session provided the opportunity for participants to map the crisis of multilateralism and begin outlining responses, setting the stage for the day’s discussions. What defines the crisis of multilateralism today? Is the international system of security cooperation destined to fragment further toward an era of heightened great power competition and conflict, or are we moving toward a new system? Is the system under siege, or under transformation?

Participants agreed that a number of global challenges and regional crises currently characterize the international system—including international trade, climate change, international terrorism, migration, and poverty and inequality—and discussed how they may be better managed through international cooperation. Regional crises were discussed in relation to how they affect Europe, including the crises in Yemen, Syria, and Libya, conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the perpetual problem of the Israel/Palestine conflict. The shifting geopolitical relations among China, Russia, and the US was also a topic of discussion.

While the challenges are great, one speaker made a call for cautious optimism. The scale and scope of the difficulties we face today do not supercede those of the past. The difference is that today we lack clear global leadership, but member states are beginning to come together in response. In addition, the younger generation is beginning to show leadership in the pursuit of concrete problem solving, as with climate change. The best time to institute change is at times of crisis.

Session two continued the discussion of challenges with a dedicated focus on the re-rise of nationalism. Nationalism and international cooperation are not by definition incompatible. But recent years have witnessed the return of a strident nationalism set in opposition to global cooperation. From the United States and Brazil to Hungary, Turkey, and India, politics based upon the affirmation of national identity and the exclusion of immigrants and minorities is on the rise.

Nationalism was behind some of the great state crimes of the 20th century in Europe and beyond, but historically it was also a driving force behind decolonization and democratization. What is the relationship between nationalism and populism? What is the role of nationalism in a globalizing world? Must nationalism lead to more closed societies and less international cooperation? What are the consequences of the recent return of nationalist discourse in Europe and globally? These were some of the questions discussed in session two.

The discussion began with a recognition of distinctions. For example, it was noted that nationalism and xenophobic populism are not the same thing. Nationalism played an important role in the development of the modern nation-state and democracy, animating the very idea of rule by the people. But it risks planting the seed for an exclusionary ethnic nationalism, which can have a negative impact on democracy. One participant noted that in many respects what we are talking about is a crisis of liberal democracy, which includes a value for pluralism, and the sense that liberalism has not delivered in the context of globalization.

Session 3 turned toward issues related to peace and security.

The failure of the international system to respond successfully to the worst contemporary conflicts has fueled the perceptions of a crisis of multilateralism. Ineffectiveness on Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, South Sudan, and recently Venezuela have contributed to this sense. Currently, the UN Security Council in particular has proven to be too internally divided to make a significant impact on the most pressing peace and security issues.

Debates about current conflicts have raised new questions about the definition and conduct of just and unjust wars. When is it justified to start a war or to intervene in one? What actions are legally permissible in war, and what actions constitute war crimes? What is the proper role of multilateral institutions in deciding these questions? And how have attitudes toward International Humanitarian Law and the norms of war shifted in recent years? These were some of the questions addressed during session three.

Current trends reflect an increasing tendency of civil wars to become internationalized and an increasing vulnerability of civilians during conflict. Participants discussed how geopolitical divisions exacerbate these trends and how these trends affect our understanding of military interventions, civil wars, and how they are fought.

Participants discussed the laws of war, conflict prevention, the use of force to protect civilians, and the rising levels of criminal violence in some parts of the world.

Session 4 provided the opportunity for participants to engage in an interactive discussion to identify concrete opportunities for international cooperation. The crisis of multilateralism is real, but global challenges will not wait. The hard work of international cooperation must continue. Participants gathered in small roundtables to discuss a series of questions before reconvening as a group. 1) What issues present the best opportunities for positive multilateral engagement? 2) What mechanisms or processes offer the best chances of success of improving international cooperation? Do these need to be created, or do they already exist? 3) What kinds of actors hold the key? In addition to key member states, what is the role for regional organizations, civil society, the private sector, or other non-governmental actors?

Participants were also asked to identify their main takeaways from the day’s discussion, and what, if any, action points they would recommend. Key takeaways identified in the discussion included the need to discern which issues lend themselves to partial or functional coalitions for international cooperation and which require global, multilateral processes to move forward. At the end of the day, there was broad agreement that there is a need to broaden the circle to include more voices in multilateral processes, including civil society. In particular, the need to include women and youth was highlighted. There was also broad agreement that international cooperation cannot be only among the like-minded. There is a need to reach out to the “unlike-minded” as well.

One key action point in particular was discussed: there is a need to “bring it to the people.” The case for multilateralism must be made to the public, and the public must be engaged in questions of multilateralism.

The day ended on an optimistic note. While the challenges discussed over the course of the forum are daunting, it was generally agreed that that it is not all doom and gloom. Crises breed opportunities, and many actors are mobilizing to take advantage of them.

Speakers and panelists included: František Ružička, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic; Ferdinando Nelli Feroci, President, Istituto Affari Internazionali; Karin von Hippel, Director-General, The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI); Amre Moussa, Former Secretary-General of the Arab League; Turki Al Faisal, Chairman, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies; Steven Erlanger, New York Times Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for Europe; Reinhard Krumm, Head, The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Regional Office for Cooperation and Peace in Europe; Snežana Samardžić-Marković, Director-General for Democracy, The Council of Europe; Christian Strohal, Senior Adviser to the Slovak OSCE Chairperson-in-Office; Dragan Aleksoski, International Organization for Migration Austria; Anthony Dworkin, Senior Policy Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations; Kate Ferguson, Director, Protection Approaches; Jean-Luc Lemahieu, Director, Policy Analysis and Public Affairs, UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Speaking for IPI were its president, Terje Rød-Larsen; Vice President Adam Lupel; and Senior Adviser Nasra Hassan.

Particularly in the complex environments where it increasingly deploys, the UN depends on a range of functions to implement its mandate. These include but are not limited to provision of security, facilitation of access, medical support, support to staff welfare, logistics, coordination, and risk management. Compared to substantive tasks implemented as part of mandates, these enabling functions, or enablers, have received less scrutiny. As a result, enablers—and their financial costs—are often unknown or misunderstood by member states, donors, and even UN staff.

This paper explores these enablers by explaining what they are, why they are needed, how much they cost, and how they are—or should be—funded. It then investigates the challenges the UN needs to tackle to put enablers on a path to sustainable funding, including:

• Reporting and consolidating data: While data is not the end point, it is a necessary starting point for the UN to engage in dialogue with those who use enablers and those who pay for them.
• Dedicating the necessary capacity: More spending on enablers is required now if lives and resources are to be saved later.
• Managing trade-offs: The UN needs to set and articulate clear priorities to guide the difficult trade-offs between different enablers and their associated risks.
• Integrating operations into planning: Operational planning is critical to avoid retroactive, ad hoc arrangements, especially during mission transitions.
• Communicating the importance of enablers: Effective communication on the need for enablers is necessary to convince member states and donors to fund them.

Ultimately, there must be greater coherence between those who define UN mandates, those who fund them, and those who implement them.

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In response to the threat of violent extremism, the UN has adopted a comprehensive approach that involves both aligning ongoing interventions with the goals of preventing violent extremism (PVE) and implementing PVE-specific programming. These initiatives aspire to use human rights-based approaches as opposed to hard-security counterterrorism responses. To date, however, there has been inadequate research on how the UN and other international organizations can promote human rights as part of their PVE programming.

This issue brief introduces findings on the strategic shift of UN peacebuilding interventions toward PVE and the barriers these interventions face to protecting human rights, drawing on research conducted in Kyrgyzstan. It concludes that PVE approaches to peacebuilding are fundamentally ambiguous, which may be hindering promotion of human rights. These ambiguities lie both in the terminology and strategies of intervention and in the drivers of radicalization and violent extremism. By clarifying its approach to PVE, the UN can dilute the inherent contradiction in its dual role as a critic and supporter of host states and reduce the odds that its interventions legitimize human rights violations.

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UN peace operations are going through an accelerated period of reconfiguration and drawdown. Between June 2017 and March 2018, long-standing peacekeeping missions in Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia closed, while the mission in Haiti was reconfigured into a transitional peacekeeping mission. Looking ahead, the Security Council has mandated the closure of the peacekeeping mission in Darfur and the initial drawdown of the peacebuilding mission in Guinea-Bissau, and its attention is starting to shift to other missions.

With these upcoming transitions in mind, this issue brief explores experiences and lessons from recent UN transitions in Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, and Liberia. Each of these transitions has been the subject of a detailed IPI policy report published as part of IPI’s project on “Planning for United Nations Peacekeeping Operations Transitions.” Drawing on this research, this issue brief recommends how to manage politics and recalibrate policies to better shape future transitions. Its recommendations include to:

• Adopt shared and long-term political strategies, particularly in Security Council mandates and benchmarks, as well as through regular sharing of assessments from the field.
• Ensure integration in field-level planning strategies well before the Security Council sets transition timelines, with senior leadership from the mission shaping the vision, driving planning, and providing concrete recommendations for the future UN presence in the country.
• Strategically engage the host society to align peacebuilding priorities and to communicate the core message that the mission is leaving but the UN is remaining in the country.
• Engage early to secure adequate financing, capitalizing on debates surrounding the transition while it is still on the Security Council’s agenda.
• Institutionalize dedicated transition support capacity within the UN system, including policy and programmatic guidance, operational support, planning expertise, and surge capacities.
• Sustain long-term peacebuilding through partnerships, ensuring that residual peacebuilding challenges are mainstreamed into national development plans and international and regional development frameworks.

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On Thursday, July 18th, IPI is hosting a Speaker Series event featuring H.E. Mr. Lamberto Zannier, OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities.

Remarks will begin at 10:15am PST / 1:15pm EST

Ambassador Zannier has occupied this position since July 2017. Previously, he was OSCE Secretary General for two consecutive three-year terms, from July 2011 until June 2017. Other senior positions include UN Special Representative for Kosovo and Head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) from 2008 to 2011, Director of the Conflict Prevention Centre of the OSCE (2002-2006), Chairperson of the negotiations on the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (1998-1999) and Head of Disarmament, Arms Control and Cooperative Security at NATO (1991-1997). Zannier joined the Italian Foreign Ministry as a career diplomat in 1978 and also served in Rome, Abu Dhabi, Vienna, and The Hague, mainly specializing in multilateral and security affairs. He has authored several publications on security, conflict prevention, and crisis management issues. He holds a law degree and an honorary degree in International and Diplomatic Sciences from the University of Trieste, Italy.

The event will be moderated by Dr. Adam Lupel, Vice President of IPI.

On Wednesday, July 17th, IPI together with the United Nations, and the Al Baraka Banking Group is cohosting a policy forum event titled “Financing the 2030 Agenda: How Financial Institutions are Integrating the SDGs in their Core Business.”

Remarks will begin at 5:15am PST / 8:15am EST

While the 2030 Agenda has attracted public and private investments in a wide variety of areas that support the achievement of the SDGs, financing for sustainable development requires action by diverse global actors, both public and private. Though the public and private sectors are often seen as having incompatible goals, innovative financing modalities continue to emerge, offering the United Nations and its partners in development important new avenues to finance the 2030 Agenda. The financial services sector in particular has pioneered a number of innovations and best practices in both financing and promoting sustainable development. This side event brings together several of the world’s leading financial institutions to discuss best practices in financing for sustainable development.

Welcoming remarks:
Dr. Adam Lupel, Vice President, International Peace Institute
Mr. Amin El Sharkawi, UN Resident Coordinator in Bahrain

Opening remarks:
Mr. Elliott Harris, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development and Chief Economist in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)

Speakers:
Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, SVP, The World Bank Group
Zubaida Bai, Founder and President, ayzh Inc and Happy Woman Fund
Bruno Bastit, Senior Corporate Governance & Sustainable Finance Specialist, S&P Global Ratings
Christian Deseglise, Global Head of Central Banks and Global Sponsor of Sustainable Financing, HSBC
Dr. Ali Adnan Ibrahim, First VP – Head of Sustainability & Social Responsibility, Al Baraka Banking Group
Rina Gee Kupferschmid-Rojas, Managing Director/ Head of Sustainable Finance, UBS
Amit Puri, Global Head Environmental & Social Risk Management, Standard Chartered
Muna Abu Suleman, Global SDG Philanthropist

Moderator:
Ms. Jimena Leiva Roesch, Senior Fellow, International Peace Institute

On Thursday, July 11th, IPI together with Saferworld, TAP Network and eight campaign partners is hosting a policy forum entitled “Voices of SDG16+: Stories for Global Action.”

Remarks will begin at 10:10am PST / 1:10pm EST

Around the world, the 2030 Agenda has helped catalyze and support a wide range of innovative, grassroots-led work around SDG16+ with a variety of civil society actors. While the actions and commitments of civil society at the national level are often overlooked in global-level discussions, the 2019 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) provides a unique opportunity to bring civil society from a wide range of contexts together to showcase best practices and innovative initiatives supporting SDG16+ implementation, and a chance to explore opportunities for further civil society collaboration at all levels around SDG16+ going forward.

Saferworld, TAP Network and International Peace Institute (IPI) along with eight campaign partners launched the Voices of SDG16+: Stories for Global Action campaign collecting stories of grassroots efforts and initiatives from around the world that are implementing the SDG16+ targets. The civil society participants hail from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Canada, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Nepal, Philippines, Somaliland, Uganda, and Yemen, and were selected from well over 200 videos of local leaders and changemakers around the world working to put the 2030 Agenda and its commitment to peace, justice and inclusion into action.

In this event we will showcase the stories of the campaign peace actors, who will share their innovative work on access to justice, women’s political participation, youth peacebuilding, non-violent education and inclusive decision-making.

On Wednesday, July 10th, IPI is hosting a policy forum entitled “Organized Crime, Arms Trafficking, and Illicit Financial Flows: Exploring SDG Target 16.4.”

Remarks will begin at 10:15am PST / 1:15pm EST

This year’s UN High-Level Political Forum provides states and stakeholders the opportunity for an in-depth review of SDG 16 on peaceful and inclusive societies and its targets. This side-event brings together experts working on the components of Target 16.4 to share their knowledge of the interplay between organized crime, illicit financial flows, arms flows, and development efforts.

The adoption of Target 16.4 was, in many ways, a watershed moment that decisively placed organized crime and illicit financial flows on the development agenda. While each component remains a very specific issue, nothing is done in isolation within Agenda 2030. These issues have clear links to other SDG goals, such as those on gender, reducing inequality, decent work, and sustainable cities. This policy forum provides the opportunity to reflect on the role of Target 16.4 in pushing ahead with Agenda 2030.

Opening remarks:
Mr. Gerardo Isaac Morales Tenorio, Deputy Director General for Multidimensional Security,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico

Speakers:
Ms. Anna Alvazzi del Frate, Vice President, Small Arms Survey
Mr. Tom Cardamone, President, Global Financial Integrity
Ms. Tuesday Reitano, Deputy Director, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Mr. Martin Borgeaud, Chief Technical Advisor for Justice, Security and Human Rights, UNDP Lebanon

Moderator:
Dr. Adam Lupel, Vice President, International Peace Institute

There are currently fourteen UN sanctions regimes, which member states are legally required to implement. Many of these are implemented in the context of armed conflict, where international humanitarian law outlines obligations to protect the provision of and access to principled humanitarian action. But despite efforts to make sanctions regimes more targeted, they continue to have unintended consequences, including impeding or preventing the provision of humanitarian assistance and protection—particularly when they coexist with counterterrorism measures.

This issue brief explains the various ways in which sanctions regimes can impact humanitarian action. Acknowledging that this is not a new issue—though one that may be of increasing concern—it identifies several factors that make it challenging to resolve. Finally, it lays out some avenues for progress, pointing to existing efforts and highlighting where more could be done.

Given that sanctions regimes are mostly targeted and that member states are bound to uphold the principles in the UN Charter and international humanitarian law (where it applies), sanctions should protect and not inhibit humani­tarian action. Where sanctions hinder aid, the impact on civilian populations is immediate, and efforts to backtrack will always come too late. Going forward, member states, the UN, financial institutions, and humanitarian actors should proactively and preventively tackle this problem. While the most effective courses of action will require political will, stakeholders at all levels can take incremental steps to help mitigate the impact.

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In an interview with FRANCE 24 in The Hague, IPI President Terje Rød-Larsen discussed the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and also shared his thoughts on the merits of the Trump administration’s plans for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.