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31. Administrative Reform in International Organizations : The Case of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

Author:
Olivier Nay
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
This paper focuses on the causal factors, implementation, and side effects of administrative reforms launched within the United Nations system, in the field of HIV and AIDS. It is based on an empirical analysis of the UNAIDS Programme, an interorganizational system bringing together ten UN agencies to combat the worldwide epidemic, with the support of a Secretariat. Firstly, the paper argues that the administrative reform of UNAIDS was unlikely to have come from the UN organizations themselves, although the Programme was expected to lead these organizations to better coordinate and harmonize their AIDS strategies. Secondly, it identifies three external factors that have led UN organizations to reform their governance mechanisms and procedures. Thirdly, it explores the conditions under which the reform of UNAIDS has been implemented since 2005, with particular attention to the Secretariat that has become involved as an active “reform entrepreneur.” Finally, it identifies some of the unexpected effects of the reform, with a particular emphasison competition between UN agencies, organizational complexity, and bureaucratization. The concluding remarks argue that when analyzing administrative reforms within international organizations, one should investigate the interrelations between the external pressures that drive reforms and the activity of reform entrepreneurs.
Topic:
HIV/AIDS, Health, Humanitarian Aid, United Nations, and Infectious Diseases

32. Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2008

Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Global demand for peacekeepers continued to rise in 2007. By the end of the year, there were over 160,000 peacekeepers in the field. The UN remained the centerpiece of the international peacekeeping system, providing nearly 50 percent of all peacekeepers in the field. In 2007, the UN's deployments of uniformed personnel grew by 10 percent to 83,000 personnel. In addition, there were nearly 20,000 civilian staff serving in UN peace operations.
Topic:
Security, International Cooperation, Peace Studies, and United Nations

33. Toward an Understanding of Peacekeeping Partnerships: Prospects, Lessons Learned and the Future of Partnerships in Africa

Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The conflicts in Africa have presented the international community with an unprecedented opportunity to cooperate in bringing stability to the continent. But despite a history of inter-institutional cooperation in peacekeeping there, developments in Darfur are showing that these relationships and their outcomes are still far from predictable. With these realities in mind, the Center on International Cooperation convened a group of experts in the field to discuss the nature of peacekeeping partnerships in Africa and whether they can be made more consistent.
Topic:
Security and United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa and United States

34. UNIFIL: Old lessons for the new force

Author:
Richard Gowan
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Peacekeeping is a repetitive business. All too often, international forces are required to return to crumbling states that have already played host to one or more peace operations – and in some cases seem to have become dependent on outside interventions. Take Haiti, to which five separate UN missions have been deployed in the last fifteen years. Or Timor-Leste, which remained stable for less than five months after the UN departed in December 2005 – UN police are back there now, alongside Australian troops. Or, looking at a longer timeframe, think of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the 1960s, the UN deployed nearly 20,000 troops to the former Belgian colony. Today, it has similar-sized force back in the country - few analysts believe it should withdraw soon. And then there is Lebanon. Next year will be the thirtieth anniversary of the UN's first deployment to the south of the country. After last summer's crisis and the ensuing surge of UN troops, there may be blue helmets around to mark such anniversaries for a while yet. And it is possible to identify a series of recurring patterns in Lebanese peacekeeping.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Peace Studies, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Lebanon

35. Peacekeeping in Sudan: The Dynamics of Protection, Partnerships and Inclusive Politics

Author:
Ian Johnstone and Alhaji M.S. Bah
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The inter-related conflicts and peace processes in Sudan present a monumental peacekeeping challenge. The protracted crisis in Darfur has put the African Union – and the broader international community -- to a severe test. Plans for a hybrid African Union-United Nations operation there continue, but Khartoum remains opposed. Meanwhile, implementation of the north-south peace agreement is faltering, with the UN mission struggling to keep it on track in the face of indifference from both parties and frequent hostility from the north.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, International Cooperation, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

36. The UN and Peacekeeping: taking the strain?

Author:
Richard Gowan
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The summer of 2006 was open season for political sniping at United Nations peace operations, bookended by wrangling over the Darfur conflict and the Israel/Hizbollah conflict in the Lebanon. In early June, a delegation of Security Council ambassadors visited Sudan to negotiate the deployment of around 15,000 troops to Darfur. They were promptly followed by the organisation's Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guéhenno. But a combined total of a month's negotiations failed to deliver any deal.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, International Cooperation, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Sudan, Israel, and Lebanon

37. A Crowded Field: Groups of Friends, the United Nations and the Resolution of Conflict

Author:
Tessa Whitifield
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
This paper traces the evolution of groups of Friends—understood as informal groups of states formed to support the peacemaking of the United Nations—from the emergence of Friends of the Secretary-General on El Salvador in 1990, at a moment of post-Cold War optimism regarding the UN's peacemaking capacity, to the more complex (and crowded) environment for conflict resolution of the mid-2000s. The intervening fifteen years saw an explosion of groups of all kinds to support peacemaking, peacekeeping and post-conflict peacebuilding, a mirror of the extraordinary upsurge in a range of efforts to address global security in this period. Analysis of the groups is complicated by the great diversity they represent, including in the impact they have had on the processes with which they have been engaged. Indeed Annex I distinguishes four different categories of groups engaged with the UN in conflict resolution: Friends of the Secretary- General, Friends of a country, Contact groups and Implementation and/or monitoring groups. This paper's primary focus is on groups that have supported UN-led mediation efforts; however its analysis and conclusions embrace both issues specific to UN leadership, and broader considerations of the efficacy of group engagement in conflict management.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Cooperation, Peace Studies, and United Nations

38. Discussion Paper on the High Level Panel on Threats Challenges and Change

Author:
Shepard Forman
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
There is by now ample evidence of substantial gaps in the planning, financing and implementation capacities for the critical civilian components of complex missions. While substantial improvements have been made over the years in the international community's peacebuilding capacities, concepts, policies and practice continue to evolve within the UN system, including the international financial institutions, and among bilateral donors. In proposing the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission and related Peacebuilding Support Office in the Secretariat, the High Level Panel is seeking to build on and consolidate these advances in order to strengthen national as well as the UN's and international community's shared capacity to prevent state failure and more effectively manage post ‐ conflict peacebuilding.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Peace Studies, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States

39. Building Civilian Capacity for Conflict Management and Sustainable Peace

Author:
Shepard Forman
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Since the early 1990s, the UN system, the World Bank Group, and bilateral donors have been involved in a broad array of state-support and peace-building functions in the aftermath of conflicts – many of them protracted – that have either severely weakened or largely decimated the institutions of governance. Designated variably as post-conflict reconstruction or peace-building, these activities have included a wide variety of administrative and public management tasks, ranging from political observation and negotiation in El Salvador, to technical assistance and advisory services in Mozambique, to the “light [but extensive] footprint” in Afghanistan and the full-fledged governing authority assumed by UNTAET in East Timor and UNMIK in Kosovo.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Cooperation, Peace Studies, United Nations, and Governance
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Kosovo, Mozambique, El Salvador, and Timor

40. Peace Operations: the Civilian Dimension Accounting for UNDP and the UN Specialized Agencies

Author:
Susan Woodward
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Complex, multidimensional peacekeeping is a creature of the 1990s. The civilian tasks are those set out in Agenda for Peace (1992), and its 1995 Supplement, while the lessons of the 1990s for UN operations were only codified in the Brahimi Report of August 2000 and its proposed reforms. The explicit contribution to peacekeeping missions of UNDP and the Specialized Agencies, with the important exception of those with an established humanitarian mandate such as UNHCR and WFP, is thus little more than a decade old. Capacity-building reforms within UNDP and the agencies for this conflict-related and post-conflict role date to 2001-2002 at best. Accommodation by the UN system for peacekeeping operations of their now integral role has not begun.
Topic:
Development, International Organization, Peace Studies, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States