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Peace and security

17 October 2023

This week we are going to look at the functions that take up the most money of the United Nations proper (although not of the system), based on the direct delivery of services for peace and security. Next week we will look at humanitarian assistance, which is now qualitatively separate from the peace and security function but clearly related to it. Peace and security is also the most public of the services and the most fraught with controversy. It is where risk is highest, as the situations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and Syria clearly show. It is the area where bad management is noticed.  And, there is a connection with the situation in Ukraine, although the inability of the Security Council (thanks to the Russian veto) to authorize action limits this problem.

In contrast to regime creation, which is largely about ideas, the function here is about tangibles: troops moved, camps constructed, policing provided, crowds controlled, combatants disarmed.

A significant original purpose of the United Nations was to mount peace, security and humanitarian operations. This would provide short-run stability while the longer-term efforts related to development addressed the causes of war.

The delivery of these services has seen the greatest successes and the greatest failures of the United Nations in its first seventy-five years.

It was the area of by far greatest growth of the organization. From eight active missions with an annual budget of about $600 million, involving about 10,000 military and 5,000 civilian personnel, at its height grew to 29 missions with a total annual budget of over $3 billion, involving over 75,000 military and 13,000 civilians. It is still growing and, as long as the major contributors are willing to pay for it, will do so in the future.  A new trend is to have a peacekeeping operation to clean up after a Chapter VII operation, as happened in Bosnia, Kosovo, Liberia and now Afghanistan, and in Iraq. In June 2015, the General Assembly approved yearly budgets of over $8.75 billion for fifteen peacekeeping missions, not including UNTSO and UMOGIP. There was a reduction for 2018 to $6.689 billion because the United States insisted on a reduction to their contribution, although that can change based on circumstances. As the UN notes, "By way of comparison, this is less than half of one per cent of world military expenditures (estimated at $1,747 billion in 2013)."

It is therefore the greatest challenge for administration. This is related to a new political challenge. The Trump administration in the United States is trying to reduce the resources for peacekeeping.

The Agenda for Peace

One basis of the current discourse derives from Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali’s proposals on an Agenda for Peace in 1991, whose concepts continue today, built around five activities designed to maintain international peace and security:

• Preventive diplomacy: action to prevent disputes from arising between parties, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur;

• Peacemaking: diplomatic action to bring hostile parties to a negotiated agreement through such peaceful means as those foreseen under Chapter VI of the Charter;

• Peacekeeping: a United Nations presence in the field (normally including military and civilian personnel), with the consent of the parties, to implement or monitor the implementation of arrangements relating to the control of conflicts (cease-fires, separation of forces, etc.) and their resolution (partial or comprehensive settlements), and/or to protect the delivery of humanitarian relief;

• Peace-enforcement: when peaceful means fail. It consists of action under Chapter VII of the Charter, including the use of armed force, to maintain or restore international peace and security in situations where the Security Council has determined the existence of a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression;

• Peace-building: identifying and supporting measures and structures which will solidify peace and build trust and interaction among former enemies, in order to avoid a relapse into conflict.

These were updated slightly by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations, and have gone further since. For example, a Peacebuilding Council has been set up to work on that aspect.

I. ORIGINS OF Peace, security and humanitarian operations

A. Types of services foreseen in the Charter

Built on two conflicting aspects of realism, the Charter foresaw basically two types of peace and security operations: those collective responses to aggression set out in Chapter 7, and the good offices function of the Secretary-General.

It did not foresee what became very quickly the main type: peacekeeping; an intermediate stage between good offices and Chapter VII.

Good offices meant mediation: the United Nations or someone under its flag would seek to be neutral honest broker. The weakness was that it depended on the will of the two parties and had no implementation mechanism. (An example was Count Bernadotte, who, unfortunately got in the way of terrorists and was replaced by Ralph Bunche, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end to the first Arab-Israeli war.)

There were 66 peace and security operations since the founding of the United Nations through 2012. Of these 45 took place since 1988.  At the present time there are 12 operations ongoing. https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/data ). You can access details about them at Where We Operate.

 

 

How they are planning and managed has evolved over time.

B. Early peacekeeping operations

1. UNTSO and UNMOGIP

These were among the first observer missions. They placed military observers between warring parties. These two had indefinite mandates (i.e. until the conflicts were resolved which, up to now, they haven't been) and are now included in the regular budget.

2 Korea

The first, and for most of UN history, the last of the Chapter 7 events. UN troops, mostly US, under a US commander. Made possible by walkout of Security Council by Soviet Union. (The USSR refused to pay any contribution to it: main item was cemetery maintenance.)

3. Middle East, Cyprus

Starting in the mid-1950’s with the Suez Crisis and continuing through the mid-1960’s, a series of operations were based on sending large bodies of troops as interposition forces between combatants. Most were completed during the 1960’s, but UNFICYP has continued to today. It has to be renewed on a six-month basis, as do most operations.

4. Common features, lessons learned

All of the operations, except Korea, were based on a simple premise that both sides accepted the mission, that it did not conflict with Superpower interests, and that it would end when a peace accord between the combatants was signed.

On the whole, the operations were simple: troop (or observer) contributing countries would be identified and troops provided, on a reimbursement basis. A minimum core civilian infrastructure would be created using "field service" staff.

Field service staff were specialists in communications, logistics and administration who could be moved from operation to operation.

The equipment needed consisted of radios, blue berets and flags. A supply depot was created in Pisa, Italy (since most of the operations were in the Mediterranean area). Ah, life was good.

In the mid-1970's, when I was stationed in Pakistan, UNMOGIP consisted of some 160 observers. All were military officers from different countries. Their commander was a Chilean general (Gen. Tassara). They spent six months in Pakistan, at an old cantonment in Rawalpindi, and six months in Srinagar, in India. Their function was to spend time in observation posts between the two armies and ensure that no one crossed the cease-fire line. Whenever conflicts heated up, the observers, who were unarmed, were withdrawn.

C. Early multipurpose operations

In the early years of the United Nations there was only one peace operation that was at all similar to those currently undertaken. This was the Congo, and it scarred the organization for a quarter century.

1. The Congo

In 1960, the newly independent country of the Congo collapsed (the army rioted). The Congo had been one of the most ineptly governed European colonies. (At independence, there were only 7 Congolese university graduates.) The Belgians returned to restore order.

The UN operation was set up to ensure the withdrawal of Belgian forces, but when that was accomplished, the operation had to deal with wider problems (civil war, secession (Katanga)).

There were many exciting events: the murder of Lumumba, the rescue at Elizabethville of Western hostages, the Katanga Mercenaries (Rhodesians, etc.), the Italian pilots (UN personnel who were captured and murdered by mercentaries), the fighting Irish (an Irish contingent that was captured by the Katangese and were called that afterwards). Novels have been written about it (Most recently Ronan Bennett's The Catastrophist.)

For the UN it was in many ways a catastrophe:

• Problems with troops (Ghanaians and Nigerian contingents were said to have gotten involved in politics),

• Problems with definition of mission and international agreement (France and later USSR opposed, control shifted to the General Assembly) - France and USSR withheld assessments (caused first great financial crisis where USSR could have lost its vote...)

• Death of Secretary-General Hamarskjold in a plane crash where his plane might or might not have been shot down. (Curiously, the inquiry into this was reopened in 2015 and is still going on).

• It Stretched UN capacities to limit: new people had to be brought on board, who were not as committed to UN ideals.

2. Lessons learned

A complex operation needed adequate funding, staffing, and, most importantly political support. The latter was not forthcoming again until the last ten years or so.

D. Finance and management of operations

A number of procedures and practices developed in both peacekeeping and humanitarian relief.

1. Troop contributing countries

A few countries became permanent contributors: Nordics, Fiji, Austrians. There was a change of reimbursement rate from actual costs to a fixed per person rate of $1000 per month that made it lucrative for some countries to participate regularly. It has become a major source of foreign exchange, for example, for Fiji, whose two-battalion army rotates between peacekeeping assignments. Some began to build peacekeeping into military training (e.g. Norway and Austria).

2. UN administrative structures

Most of the operations were controlled from the political departments, but administration was part of regular Department of Administration and Management, which included the Field Operations Division. There was an assumption that the operations were all temporary.

3. Finance

Except for UNTSO and UNMOGIP, operations were funded outside the regular budget with their own assessments. Peacekeeping accounts were regularly borrowed against during the annual cash crises... Arrears built up, but, to compensate, the operations were overbudgeted anyway and cash shortages could be handled by delaying payment to the troop contributing countries or those that leased or loaned equipment to the operations.

II. Post-cold war operations

The change in the political environment has made the UN a major actor, as has been noted. There have been a plethora of operations of all types, working in cycles.

A. Peace enforcement: Chapter 7 operations

After a hiatus of almost forty years, there have been a several. Two have been under the leadership of the United States, one by France, two by NATO and one by Australia.

1. Kuwait/Iraq

The defeat of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was undertaken by a coalition of States under the leadership of the United States in response to a Security Council resolution. The main factor was that Iraq had broken the one major political taboo of the post-World War II period: Thou shall not invade a neighboring country to acquire territory.

2. Rwanda

Rwanda is classified as a Chapter 7 operation because, eventually, the French sent troops there to evacuate foreign nationals. This came on the heels of one of the most flagrant failures of UN peacekeeping. The official report on the situation stated:

·  ·  The failure by the United Nations to prevent, and subsequently, to stop the genocide in Rwanda was a failure by the United Nations system as a whole. The fundamental failure was the lack of resources and political commitment devoted to developments in Rwanda and to the United Nations presence there. There was a persistent lack of political will by Member States to act, or to act with enough assertiveness. This lack of political will affected the response by the Secretariat and decision-making by the Security Council, but was also evident in the recurrent difficulties to get the necessary troops for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). Finally, although UNAMIR suffered from a chronic lack of resources and political priority, it must also be said that serious mistakes were made with those resources which were at the disposal of the United Nations.

 

 

Over twenty years afterwards, the scars -- and the lessons learned -- are still visible, as can be seen in a PBS documentary called Ghosts of Rwanda and the movie Hotel Rwanda. Even more recently the person mentioned in the movie has been arrested for opposing the current government.

3. Haiti

This was a largely United States based effort, with some troop contingents from elsewhere in the region, essentially to restore an elected president and remove a coup leader. It has not been considered a success by many. It is still in operation and has been complicated by the earthquake and then by the epidemic of cholera brought to the island by UN troops from Asia. This is still an issue.

4. Bosnia

The Bosnia operation was not (and still isn't), the United Nations finest hour. The failure to act in Sebrinica was seen as a significant management failure that was bluntly documented in a report to the General Assembly.

5. Kosovo

Perhaps shamed by the Bosnia situation, NATO acted quickly to intervene once the situation produced major numbers of refugees and evidence of ethnic cleansing. Subsequently, the operation was turned over to the United Nations, with some success.

6. East Timor

Where Australia was mandated to stop the fighting in this island.

7. Iraq 2003

The Iraq War was not a Chapter VII operation. In fact, by not being authorized by the Security Council it was, in the eyes of some legal scholars, an illegitimate use of force.

B. Straight peacekeeping

This has continued.

1. Georgia (Abkhazia)

2. Central America

3. Mali, although this is becoming a transitional exercise.

C. Straight civilian human rights

A new category of peacekeeping, related to peacemaking, but involved with domestic issues that have, because of their international interest, become United Nations responsibilities.

1. Haiti

Effort to promote the implementation of the Governor’s Island Accords by monitoring violations. Not very successful. Was eventually replaced by the Chapter 7 operation.

2. Guatemala

Monitored the settlement of the internal conflict. Generally successful.

3.  East Timor

D. Transitional mixed (elections + peacekeeping)

Supervision of elections was an old UN function, but in the context of decolonization and trusteeship. It has become a feature of peacekeeping. Sometimes it has been successful, sometimes not. Now a new aspect is to send in an operation to control the consequences of an election whose legitimacy has been questioned, leading to violence.

1. Namibia. This was probably the most successful of the post-Cold War transitional operations. It succeeded in providing for a smooth transition from South African rule to independence, with a clean and fair election and a peaceful exit for South Africa. It was headed by Maarti Ahtisaari, who later was elected president of Finland.

2. Mozambique. Similarly, this was also successful, but not as much as Namibia. Here is was a case of solving a civil war, where one side was backed by South Africa. Eventually, it succeeded.

And there have been two others that are still underway, after ten years, and cannot be counted as successes.

3. Angola

4. Western Sahara

5. Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI)

E. Transitional mixed (peacekeeping plus humanitarian)

1. Yugoslavia

2. Rwanda

3. Afghanistan

4. Sudan (Darfur)

5. South Sudan

F. Failed state

Two operations were set up to help restore government to failed states. They were only moderately successful (Cambodia) or not successful at all.

1. Cambodia

2. Somalia: still going on... largely, however, through the African Union.

G. Peacebuilding

New effort to deal with re-establishing States and order after a major conflict. There is now a Peacebuilding Commission that intends to work on rehabilitation and re-building. Have been some successful cases:

1. Liberia

2. Sierra Leone

H. Responsibility to Protect

The problems that have ocurred when a state essentially collapses and there is extensive violence, including particularly genocide, has led to the development of a concept that, in those cases, the international system and the United Nations specifically have a responsibility to intervene with coercive force in order to present a catastrophe for civilians. The concept, while endorsed by the General Assembly some years ago, is still controversial, since one country's genocide is another country's civil war into which the UN should not intervene. A new classic example of this is Syria. For background on this, you can look at the website of the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide.

I. Problems and issues

1. Planning and preparation: dealing with the external environment.
2. The evaluation of the failure in Rwanda pointed out that proper planning, which is the United Nations Secretariat responsibility, has to be made. This includes realism in terms of the real commitment of the Security Council as well as the situation that is intended to be addressed. It includes an ability to adjust plans and mandates to a reality that may not have been anticipated The independent commission report states in a section entitled "The overriding failure":

The overriding failure in the response of the United Nations before and during the genocide in Rwanda can be summarized as a lack of resources and a lack of will to take on the commitment which would have been necessary to prevent or to stop the genocide. UNAMIR, the main component of the United Nations presence in Rwanda, was not planned, dimensioned, deployed or instructed in a way which provided for a proactive and assertive role in dealing with a peace process in serious trouble. The mission was smaller than the original recommendations from the field suggested. It was slow in being set up, and was beset by debilitating administrative difficulties. It lacked well-trained troops and functioning materiel. The mission’s mandate was based on an analysis of the peace process which proved erroneous, and which was never corrected despite the significant warning signs that the original mandate had become inadequate. By the time the genocide started, the mission was not functioning as a cohesive whole: in the real hours and days of deepest crisis, consistent testimony points to a lack of political leadership, lack of military capacity, severe problems of command and control and lack of coordination and discipline.

A force numbering 2,500 should have been able to stop or at least limit massacres of the kind which began in Rwanda after the plane crash which killed the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. However, the Inquiry has found that the fundamental capacity problems of UNAMIR led to the terrible and humiliating situation of a UN peacekeeping force almost paralysed in the face of a wave of some of the worst brutality humankind has seen in this century.

3. Neutrality

The main asset of the UN is its neutrality. However, in many peace operations involving internal conflict, it has proven difficult to maintain that neutrality.

Sometimes there has been a conflict between humanitarian and military: e.g. Somalia, where the Chapter VII action may have poisoned the water against the UN by making it appear that the UN was siding with a particular group of warlords..

Angola: The UN rep (Dame Margaret Anstee) was considered by UNITA not to be neutral. In fact, UNITA was not very good at living up to agreements in any case.) Dame Margaret's experience has been written in a book entitled Orphan of the Cold War.

2. Management environment

New York vs. field. Conflict between partners (e.g. UNHCR vs. UN in Yugoslavia).

3. Troop command

All troops are supposed to obey central UN. However, not always possible: US insists that its troops be under UN command. Italy, in Somalia, refused to take UN orders.  The issue of accountability is related to the US insistance that its troops in peacekeeping operations be exempted from the provisions of the United Nations Criminal Court.

III. Problems of service delivery

The growth of operations exposed serious delivery problems. These have been extensively analyzed in the Secretary-General, General Assembly and in the specialized academic community.

A. Rapid response capacity

Rapid response is a problem. Movement of troops is, under any circumstances, slow: e.g. British in the Falkland/Malvinas conflict.

Decision-making process is slow: SC has to authorize; GA has to provide budget. Staff have to be recruited, troop contributions identified, equipment mobilized.

B. Staffing integrity

Growth of operations has stretched ability of using permanent staff. New staff not necessarily the same. Problems of socialization into international context. Often peacekeeping troops engaged in improper behavior, such as sexual vioence that is currently being discussed in the General Assembly.

C. Finance and procurement

Procurement had been set up based on controlled system of bidding. Speed and type of equipment needed made this difficult.

Payments into funds delayed. Problem of performance and budgeting of missions whose official life was only six (or three) months.

IV. Solutions

A. Secretariat organization: DPKO + administrative decentralization

A Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) was set up to manage a large number of operations. Has two parts: policies and planning and administration. Use of support account to provide positions. (6.5% off the top on expenditures -- compare with 13% used in other accounts).

B. Training

Training of peacekeepers, development of manuals. Stress training. Establishment of behavior standards.

C. Supply stockpiling

Development of basic kits. Unit to develop communications norms. UN supply base at Brindisi.  It stocks radios, berets, flags and trucks.

D. Forward planning

Situation room. Policy analysis.

E. On-call forces

Setting up standby forces in troop contributing countries was an option considered, but has little support. The DPKO site states:.

F. Trust Fund for Peacekeeping

Setting aside enough money to fund start-up pending approval of budget and assessment. Because of US withholdings, this never had a chance.

Perhaps the most thorough set of proposals is that made in the Brahimi report, named after the chair of the Independent Panel on Peace Operations. It recommendations state:

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Preventive action:

·  (a) The Panel endorses the recommendations of the Secretary-General with respect to conflict prevention contained in the Millennium Report and in his remarks before the Security Council’s second open meeting on conflict prevention in July 2000, in particular his appeal to "all who are engaged in conflict prevention and development – the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, Governments and civil society organizations – [to] address these challenges in a more integrated fashion";

(b) The Panel supports the Secretary-General’s more frequent use of fact-finding missions to areas of tension, and stresses Member States’ obligations, under Article 2(5) of the Charter, to give "every assistance" to such activities of the United Nations.

2. Peace-building strategy:

(a) A small percentage of a mission’s first-year budget should be made available to the representative or special representative of the Secretary-General leading the mission to fund quick impact projects in its area of operations, with the advice of the United Nations country team’s resident coordinator;

(b) The Panel recommends a doctrinal shift in the use of civilian police, other rule of law elements and human rights experts in complex peace operations to reflect an increased focus on strengthening rule of law institutions and improving respect for human rights in post-conflict environments;

(c) The Panel recommends that the legislative bodies consider bringing demobilization and reintegration programmes into the assessed budgets of complex peace operations for the first phase of an operation in order to facilitate the rapid disassembly of fighting factions and reduce the likelihood of resumed conflict;

(d) The Panel recommends that the Executive Committee on Peace and Security (ECPS) discuss and recommend to the Secretary-General a plan to strengthen the permanent capacity of the United Nations to develop peace-building strategies and to implement programmes in support of those strategies.

3. Peacekeeping doctrine and strategy:

Once deployed, United Nations peacekeepers must be able to carry out their mandates professionally and successfully and be capable of defending themselves, other mission components and the mission’s mandate, with robust rules of engagement, against those who renege on their commitments to a peace accord or otherwise seek to undermine it by violence.

4. Clear, credible and achievable mandates:

(a) The Panel recommends that, before the Security Council agrees to implement a ceasefire or peace agreement with a United Nations-led peacekeeping operation, the Council assure itself that the agreement meets threshold conditions, such as consistency with international human rights standards and practicability of specified tasks and timelines;

(b) The Security Council should leave in draft form resolutions authorizing missions with sizeable troop levels until such time as the Secretary-General has firm commitments of troops and other critical mission support elements, including peace-building elements, from Member States;

(c) Security Council resolutions should meet the requirements of peacekeeping operations when they deploy into potentially dangerous situations, especially the need for a clear chain of command and unity of effort;

(d) The Secretariat must tell the Security Council what it needs to know, not what it wants to hear, when formulating or changing mission mandates, and countries that have committed military units to an operation should have access to Secretariat briefings to the Council on matters affecting the safety and security of their personnel, especially those meetings with implications for a mission’s use of force.

5. Information and strategic analysis:

The Secretary-General should establish an entity, referred to here as the ECPS Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat (EISAS), which would support the information and analysis needs of all members of ECPS; for management purposes, it should be administered by and report jointly to the heads of the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO).

6. Transitional civil administration:

The Panel recommends that the Secretary-General invite a panel of international legal experts, including individuals with experience in United Nations operations that have transitional administration mandates, to evaluate the feasibility and utility of developing an interim criminal code, including any regional adaptations potentially required, for use by such operations pending the re-establishment of local rule of law and local law enforcement capacity.

7. Determining deployment timelines:

The United Nations should define "rapid and effective deployment capacities" as the ability, from an operational perspective, to fully deploy traditional peacekeeping operations within 30 days after the adoption of a Security Council resolution, and within 90 days in the case of complex peacekeeping operations.

8. Mission leadership:

(a) The Secretary-General should systematize the method of selecting mission leaders, beginning with the compilation of a comprehensive list of potential representatives or special representatives of the Secretary-General, force commanders, civilian police commissioners, and their deputies and other heads of substantive and administrative components, within a fair geographic and gender distribution and with input from Member States;

(b) The entire leadership of a mission should be selected and assembled at Headquarters as early as possible in order to enable their participation in key aspects of the mission planning process, for briefings on the situation in the mission area and to meet and work with their colleagues in mission leadership;

(c) The Secretariat should routinely provide the mission leadership with strategic guidance and plans for anticipating and overcoming challenges to mandate implementation, and whenever possible should formulate such guidance and plans together with the mission leadership.

9. Military personnel:

(a) Member States should be encouraged, where appropriate, to enter into partnerships with one another, within the context of the United Nations Standby Arrangements System (UNSAS), to form several coherent brigade-size forces, with necessary enabling forces, ready for effective deployment within 30 days of the adoption of a Security Council resolution establishing a traditional peacekeeping operation and within 90 days for complex peacekeeping operations;

(b) The Secretary-General should be given the authority to formally canvass Member States participating in UNSAS regarding their willingness to contribute troops to a potential operation, once it appeared likely that a ceasefire accord or agreement envisaging an implementing role for the United Nations, might be reached;

(c) The Secretariat should, as a standard practice, send a team to confirm the preparedness of each potential troop contributor to meet the provisions of the memoranda of understanding on the requisite training and equipment requirements, prior to deployment; those that do not meet the requirements must not deploy;

(d) The Panel recommends that a revolving "on-call list" of about 100 military officers be created in UNSAS to be available on seven days’ notice to augment nuclei of DPKO planners with teams trained to create a mission headquarters for a new peacekeeping operation.

10. Civilian police personnel:

(a) Member States are encouraged to each establish a national pool of civilian police officers that would be ready for deployment to United Nations peace operations on short notice, within the context of the United Nations Standby Arrangements System;

(b) Member States are encouraged to enter into regional training partnerships for civilian police in the respective national pools, to promote a common level of preparedness in accordance with guidelines, standard operating procedures and performance standards to be promulgated by the United Nations;

(c) Members States are encouraged to designate a single point of contact within their governmental structures for the provision of civilian police to United Nations peace operations;

(d) The Panel recommends that a revolving on-call list of about 100 police officers and related experts be created in UNSAS to be available on seven days’ notice with teams trained to create the civilian police component of a new peacekeeping operation, train incoming personnel and give the component greater coherence at an early date;

(e) The Panel recommends that parallel arrangements to recommendations (a), (b) and (c) above be established for judicial, penal, human rights and other relevant specialists, who with specialist civilian police will make up collegial "rule of law" teams.

11. Civilian specialists:

(a) The Secretariat should establish a central Internet/Intranet-based roster of pre-selected civilian candidates available to deploy to peace operations on short notice. The field missions should be granted access to and delegated authority to recruit candidates from it, in accordance with guidelines on fair geographic and gender distribution to be promulgated by the Secretariat;

(b) The Field Service category of personnel should be reformed to mirror the recurrent demands faced by all peace operations, especially at the mid- to senior-levels in the administrative and logistics areas;

(c) Conditions of service for externally recruited civilian staff should be revised to enable the United Nations to attract the most highly qualified candidates, and to then offer those who have served with distinction greater career prospects;

(d) DPKO should formulate a comprehensive staffing strategy for peace operations, outlining, among other issues, the use of United Nations Volunteers, standby arrangements for the provision of civilian personnel on 72 hours' notice to facilitate mission start-up, and the divisions of responsibility among the members of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security for implementing that strategy.

12. Rapidly deployable capacity for public information:

Additional resources should be devoted in mission budgets to public information and the associated personnel and information technology required to get an operation’s message out and build effective internal communications links.

13. Logistics support and expenditure management:

(a) The Secretariat should prepare a global logistics support strategy to enable rapid and effective mission deployment within the timelines proposed and corresponding to planning assumptions established by the substantive offices of DPKO;

(b) The General Assembly should authorize and approve a one-time expenditure to maintain at least five mission start-up kits in Brindisi, which should include rapidly deployable communications equipment. These start-up kits should then be routinely replenished with funding from the assessed contributions to the operations that drew on them;

(c) The Secretary-General should be given authority to draw up to US$50 million from the Peacekeeping Reserve Fund, once it became clear that an operation was likely to be established, with the approval of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) but prior to the adoption of a Security Council resolution;

(d) The Secretariat should undertake a review of the entire procurement policies and procedures (with proposals to the General Assembly for amendments to the Financial Rules and Regulations, as required), to facilitate in particular the rapid and full deployment of an operation within the proposed timelines;

(e) The Secretariat should conduct a review of the policies and procedures governing the management of financial resources in the field missions with a view to providing field missions with much greater flexibility in the management of their budgets;

(f) The Secretariat should increase the level of procurement authority delegated to the field missions (from $200,000 to as high as $1 million, depending on mission size and needs) for all goods and services that are available locally and are not covered under systems contracts or standing commercial services contracts.

14. Funding Headquarters support for peacekeeping operations:

(a) The Panel recommends a substantial increase in resources for Headquarters support of peacekeeping operations, and urges the Secretary-General to submit a proposal to the General Assembly outlining his requirements in full;

(b) Headquarters support for peacekeeping should be treated as a core activity of the United Nations, and as such the majority of its resource requirements for this purpose should be funded through the mechanism of the regular biennial programme budget of the Organization;

(c) Pending the preparation of the next regular budget submission, the Panel recommends that the Secretary-General approach the General Assembly with a request for an emergency supplemental increase to the Support Account to allow immediate recruitment of additional personnel, particularly in DPKO.

15. Integrated mission planning and support:

Integrated Mission Task Forces (IMTFs), with members seconded from throughout the United Nations system, as necessary, should be the standard vehicle for mission-specific planning and support. IMTFs should serve as the first point of contact for all such support, and IMTF leaders should have temporary line authority over seconded personnel, in accordance with agreements between DPKO, DPA and other contributing departments, programmes, funds and agencies.

16. Other structural adjustments in DPKO:

(a) The current Military and Civilian Police Division should be restructured, moving the Civilian Police Unit out of the military reporting chain. Consideration should be given to upgrading the rank and level of the Civilian Police Adviser;

(b) The Military Adviser’s Office in DPKO should be restructured to correspond more closely to the way in which the military field headquarters in United Nations peacekeeping operations are structured;

(c) A new unit should be established in DPKO and staffed with the relevant expertise for the provision of advice on criminal law issues that are critical to the effective use of civilian police in the United Nations peace operations;

(d) The Under-Secretary-General for Management should delegate authority and responsibility for peacekeeping-related budgeting and procurement functions to the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations for a two-year trial period;

(e) The Lessons Learned Unit should be substantially enhanced and moved into a revamped DPKO Office of Operations;

(f) Consideration should be given to increasing the number of Assistant Secretaries-General in DPKO from two to three, with one of the three designated as the "Principal Assistant Secretary-General" and functioning as the deputy to the Under-Secretary-General.

17. Operational support for public information:

A unit for operational planning and support of public information in peace operations should be established, either within DPKO or within a new Peace and Security Information Service in the Department of Public Information (DPI) reporting directly to the Under-Secretary-General for Communication and Public Information.

18. Peace-building support in the Department of Political Affairs:

(a) The Panel supports the Secretariat’s effort to create a pilot Peace-building Unit within DPA, in cooperation with other integral United Nations elements, and suggests that regular budgetary support for this unit be revisited by the membership if the pilot programme works well. This programme should be evaluated in the context of guidance the Panel has provided in paragraph 46 above, and if considered the best available option for strengthening United Nations peace-building capacity it should be presented to the Secretary-General within the context of the Panel’s recommendation contained in paragraph 47 (d) above;

(b) The Panel recommends that regular budget resources for Electoral Assistance Division programmatic expenses be substantially increased to meet the rapidly growing demand for its services, in lieu of voluntary contributions;

(c) To relieve demand on the Field Administration and Logistics Division (FALD) and the executive office of DPA, and to improve support services rendered to smaller political and peace-building field offices, the Panel recommends that procurement, logistics, staff recruitment and other support services for all such smaller, non-military field missions be provided by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

19. Peace operations support in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:

The Panel recommends substantially enhancing the field mission planning and preparation capacity of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, with funding partly from the regular budget and partly from peace operations mission budgets.

20. Peace operations and the information age:

(a) Headquarters peace and security departments need a responsibility centre to devise and oversee the implementation of common information technology strategy and training for peace operations, residi