Supporting Post-Conflict Peacebuilding and Development

There are important linkages and similarities between humanitarian relief efforts and the SDGs. Many peace operations have a mandate to contribute to secure humanitarian relief activities.

But any relationship between humanitarian actors and a peace operation involves a balancing act. Humanitarian principles are paramount. The MLT must play a key role in this relationship, while delivering the mission mandate.

What is humanitarian relief?

Humanitarian activities aim to save lives, reduce suffering and protect human dignity. Humanitarian crises may be due to natural disasters or conflict. In both cases, a host state or government may not be in a position to provide basic services to the population.

A peace operation can assist the unimpeded delivery of relief by humanitarian agencies. Such agencies value their “humanitarian space”. They prefer to remain independent of and separate to uniformed UN personnel.

At the same time, a mission can support coordinating mechanisms (e.g. in concert with OCHA). This coordination can be indispensable in developing unarmed strategies to protect civilians.

In more volatile situations, peacekeepers may need to provide protection (e.g. for aid convoys). In extreme situations, the mission may also deliver humanitarian assistance. They might even need to assist in evacuating humanitarian workers. The DSRSG-RC/HC usually take a lead role in coordinating this.

If a peace operation has an enforcement mandate, it’s vital to separate humanitarian actors from the mission.

The host government has primary responsibility for the provision of basic services. Quite often, humanitarian actors will need to assist in service provision. Peacekeepers may also need to help if they are the only ones with access to isolated communities.

Relevant UN agencies and other actors may need to assist the government in the short term. But the mission should stress the primacy of the host government. This helps avoid perceptions that peacekeepers and other actors are the service providers.

OCHA, WFP, UNICEF and UNHCR coordinate the UN’s efforts with relevant NGOs. UNDP also helps mainstream early recovery.

Within the mission, the DSRSG-RC/HC (as Humanitarian Coordinator) ensures coordination of humanitarian and development activities. They also maintain close contact and cooperation with all relevant agencies.

Guidelines exist for the use of mission assets or personnel to support UN humanitarian activities. They require a detailed agreement between the MLT and the DSRSG-RC/HC, under the authority of the HoM.

Quick-impact projects in local communities can also help establish, strengthen or maintain relations. Missions should always consult with humanitarian and development actors before undertaking such activities. Quick-impact projects come under the authority of the HoM. The office of the DSRSG-RC/HC also plays a coordinating role.

Facilitating interaction between civilian and military actors occurs through established CMCoord mechanisms. The UN has developed extensive guidance on this relationship and its working methods.

Women’s participation in conflict prevention is essential to long-term sustainable peace. Their involvement is crucial when peace operations prepare to drawdown and transition. Missions should ensure mechanisms and reforms to promote women’s peace and security.

The Women, Peace and Security Agenda

Gender equality is a key indicator in assessing a country’s ability to emerge from conflict. The status of women in society affects its capacity to sustain peace. This is why women’s participation in political processes is so important. But women’s perceptions of their own security are also crucial.

Mechanisms to ensure women’s peace and security reflect the four pillars of the WPS Agenda:

1. women’s participation at all levels of decision making in peacebuilding;
2. prevention of conflict and all forms of violence against women;
3. protection of women and girls and their rights; and
4. gender responsive relief and recovery.

Responding to women’s needs entails mainstreaming a gender perspective. This applies to both the mission and local authorities.

Gender mainstreaming means asking how activities help reduce inequality between men and women. The MLT must also make sure its approach is sensitive to the wider social context.

The MLT should establish clear goals and provide resources to achieve gender mainstreaming. It should review and track compliance through regular meetings.

The MLT should consult gender advisers and encourage other components to do the same. It should draw on both civilian and military advice and expertise. This will assist senior leadership in monitoring progress and enhancing accountability.

This consultation should also include coordination with the UNCT and UN Women.

Promoting WPS is a shared responsibility for all mission personnel. But the MLT has a particularly important role in setting the tone when it comes to the WPS Agenda. It should make sure the mission follows the relevant UN resolutions. This includes actions to support women’s participation, and protect women and girls.

Local institutions can also help sustain women’s engagement in peace and security. The 2019 UN policy on gender-responsive peacekeeping provides options. To take one example, the MLT can ensure quick-impact projects apply a gender analysis. Further, at least 15% of these funds should go to projects supporting women’s empowerment.

The MLT should engage with donor countries in a similar way. For instance, it can ensure that all capacity-building projects include a gender analysis. It should coordinate this type of engagement with national authorities and the UNCT.

Formal political structures, including peace processes, often underrepresent youth perspectives. This risks stoking grievances, making youth an accessible demographic for armed groups. It also ignores the need to listen to, value and provide opportunities for young people.

The Youth, Peace and Security Agenda

Missions can help foster youth dialogues between the host authorities and civil society. UN Security Council Resolution 2250 mandated youth engagement in maintaining peace and security.

In conflict-affected countries, youth comprise a significant yet heterogeneous part of the population. Young people play many changing roles in conflict and peacebuilding. They can be peacebuilders and community leaders. Youth groups are often a source of resilience in any community.

But youth also account for many of those affected by conflict, not least as refugees and IDPs. Conflict may have disrupted their education and economic opportunities, increasing their vulnerability. Overlooking young people’s rights can make them an accessible demographic for armed groups.

Narratives around young people in conflict tend towards stereotype. Gender norms reinforce this view: young women and girls are victims; young men and boys are fighters. There is little recognition of their agency, perspectives and positive contributions to peace.

Young people’s understandings of local realities provide valuable insights for a mission. They are relevant during a situational awareness phase or a conflict analysis process. Young people also often make up the majority of the electorate. This means the host government has demographic incentives to value their engagement.

Peace operations have several different mechanisms for engaging with young people. For example, a mission can mobilize funding for youth agency and leadership activities.

Various mission sections can foster dialogue with host authorities and civil society. Examples include Civil Affairs, Political Affairs, Strategic Communications, and Community Policing. Military and police components however should exercise caution when engaging with youth.

The host government, the UNCT and NGOs are likely to lead youth programmes. The PBSO, UNDP, the UN Population Fund and UNESCO may also pay a role. The mission can also help support and kick-start youth engagement post-conflict settings. Relevant sections include Civil Affairs, Human Rights, Community Policing and Strategic Communications.

The mission can support external entities’ activities and factor them into its planning. But despite youth participation’s importance, missions rarely plan or budget for it.  Activities to support youth engagement are thus likely to need extra donor support. The peace operation is not always responsible for this, but the MLT can play a role. It can engage with partners to support initiatives in fulfilment of its mandate.

Civil society plays an essential role in building and sustaining peace. Peace operations can leverage civil society’s help in implementing a mission’s mandate. In particular, civil society engagement can help:

• prevent and mitigate local-level conflicts;
• provide early warning on human rights violations and abuses;
• devise protection strategies;
• facilitate local consultations; and
• foster greater inclusiveness (particularly women and youth).

But civil society is not a monolithic unit. It is a voluntary political space for organized peaceful collective action. It involves a range of actors “motivated by shared interests, values, or purposes to advance common ideas and objectives”.

Civil society embraces a diversity of spaces, actors and institutional forms. Each of these varies in its degrees of formality, autonomy and power. It can comprise:

• individuals
• human rights defenders
• journalists and independent media
• community leaders
• trade unions
• women’s groups
• youth groups
• faith-based organizations
• advocacy groups
• social movements
• social media communities

Peace operations often have a strong political mandate to work with civil society in the context of reconciliation, addressing local conflicts, promoting women’s participation and gender equality, fostering inclusiveness and reintegrating former combatants.

Mission activities with civil society must also account for the gender dimension. They should also address security risks to different groups. This might entail creating a space for consultations with the UNCT and civil society. Civil society advisory committees provide one possible model for this.

Although CSOs have an important role in shaping and transforming societies; they may not always support the same objectives as the UN, particularly when it comes to a peace process.

The mission must be aware of the nature of CSOs in their specific mission context and ensure “the needs of all segments of society are taken into account”. This requires understanding the extent to which different elements contribute to building peace. It will thus need to identify and map civil society actors on a regular basis. These stakeholder analyses should inform planning processes and reflect a theory of change.

If a mission only consults with elites, it will alienate other parts of the population. This has the potential to exacerbate tensions and conflict. The MLT should ensure that the mission take a holistic approach to civil society engagement and view it as a long-term process. If engagement is ad hoc, civil society will not view the mission as a reliable partner.

Engaging with civil society is also a whole of mission effort. Within the mission, the Civil Affairs section will have a central role in engaging with and forging partnerships with civil society. This reflects its focus on monitoring, facilitation, confidence building, and conflict management and reconciliation at the local level. It will also have a key role in amplifying local voices and forging civil society partnerships. well as confidence building, conflict management and reconciliation.

The Human Rights section will have a role to ensure that civil society is not coming under threat or having its rights violated). On security matters, it will be important to engage the FC and Police Commissioner in discussions.

Other UN actors (e.g. UNDP and OHCHR) also play an important role in supporting civil society.

The safe return and reintegration of refugees and IDPS is a sensitive and potentially volatile process. It begins with the identification and registration of affected persons and ends with their eventual voluntary return and subsequent reintegration. It is a process that emphasizes safety and dignity.

Specialized UN agencies (UNHCR and IOM) manage and lead the return of refugees and IDPs. WFP and UNICEF, and international and local NGOs, support them in this task. The mission can play important supporting roles before, during and after the return and is central to establishing safe and secure conditions.

The mission may use peacekeeping assets to support returning refugees and IDPs. The DSRSG-RC/HC should coordinate its efforts in concert with the FC for military matters.

Even after this return, political and security issues (e.g. property disputes) may arise. Others may have resettled in communities abandoned by their original residents. This may lead to tensions and renewed conflict.

The status of returnees who are former combatants may be complex. They may need further guidance in navigating legal and political challenges.

IDPs seeking protection from the UN

In extreme situations, missions may manage IDPs seeking protection from physical violence. This can occur in so-called “POC sites” on or alongside UN bases as part of their mandate to protect civilians.

This requires the direct and integrated engagement of the peacekeeping mission and the MLT. They must manage the facilities and provide security, in coordination with humanitarian actors. Similar issues apply to returning and reintegrating refugees in these sites.

Providing security for protection camps can tie down scarce mission resources. If possible, the mission should support local security services (i.e. the police). This will often mean providing police component resources.

Civilian sections (e.g. Political Affairs, Human Rights) perform several related functions. For example, they ensure that returns are voluntary and address potential disputes. This requires close coordination within the mission and the UNCT, and adequate resources.

Once the need for emergency assistance has subsided and early recovery is in progress, the focus should be on a smooth transition to longer-term development activities. Peace operations must also support essential activities that contribute to peaceful consolidation. These include the restoration of basic services and the revitalization of the economy.

A transition to development entails a gradual handover of responsibilities to national authorities. A successful transition from recovery to development will be a defining factor in a mission’s drawdown and exit strategy.

Planning for transition should begin early in the peacekeeping and peacebuilding phase. Ideally, it should define the roles and responsibilities of all UN actors on the ground. Clear benchmarks will make it easier to plan the exit strategy of the operation. These should be defined together with national authorities, donor governments and civil society. Benchmarks should be based on developing local capabilities rather than internal mission progress. Planning & analysis frameworks such as the UNSDCF, ISF and Common Country Analysis are important tools

Only national actors are in a position to meet their country’s needs and objectives in the long term. Thus national authorities will also need assistance in bringing together all relevant government branches to implement a holistic approach.

A host of UN and external partners contribute to emergency assistance, early recovery and development. The mission’s involvement in all these efforts requires close coordination with relevant actors. While the entire MLT plays a role, that of the DSRSG-RC/HC is particularly important. Careful cooperation and coordination with UNHQ, including the PBSO will also be crucial to determine possible follow-on arrangements to the peacekeeping mission.

The resourcing of recovery and development efforts is rarely controlled by the mission. Voluntary contributions fund many recovery and development activities. The MLT, especially the SRSG and DSRSG-RC/HC, will play an important role in coordinating UN efforts. It can also mobilize donor support and engagement to avoid a “financial cliff”. Key players include the World Bank, IMF, EU and regional financial institutions.

Free and responsible information flows support efforts to build and sustain peace. A free press can ensure that citizens have access to diverse sources of information. This enables their effective participation in society. An independent media that is engaged with citizens can support many of the same objectives as a peace operation. It can encourage dialogue and foster a range of different views. These might counter or dispel efforts to perpetuate misinformation or hate speech.

Investigative journalism can shine a light on impunity, atrocities or injustices. This supports the strengthening of government institutions and accountability. It also supports the implementation of a peace operation’s mandate.

But in the context of many peace operations, the media can also play a negative role. Media organizations may spread misinformation and hate speech. Restrictive laws may target or censor journalists. A lack of plurality in media institutions can exacerbate tensions and conflict.

Efforts to establish an independent media depend on the host authorities. A basic prerequisite is that these authorities support freedom of expression. Moreover, independent media depends on impartial regulators and funders.

Peace operations do not have a lead role in establishing an independent media nor is it always a mandated task. But peace operations can play an enabling role via political offices and capacity-building. This provides an opportunity to foster judicial and legal institutions, for example. A mission could help set up a radio station to provide free and independent news. This may require coordination among the relevant sections, as well as donors.The Strategic Communications and Public Information section can also help train local journalists.

MLT members can also act as role models for the host authorities. For example they can show openness through their engagement with the media. Criticism of the mission’s actions might even present an opportunity in this regard.