United Nations Peacebuilding Commission Research Articles

Interview with Peter Maurer

Peter Maurer served as President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from 2012 to 2022. During his time as President, Maurer prioritized strengthening humanitarian diplomacy, engaging States and other actors for the respect of international humanitarian law, and improving the humanitarian response through innovation and new partnerships. Meanwhile, he oversaw an historic budget increase and organizational expansion. Prior to his role at the ICRC, Mr Maurer served as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Switzerland and headed the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs. Earlier, Mr Maurer held various positions representing Switzerland at the United Nations (UN) in New York, including Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the UN, Chairman of the UN's Fifth Committee, and member of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. Mr Maurer had first joined the Swiss diplomatic service in 1987, through which he held various positions in Bern, Pretoria and New York. Maurer was born in Thun, Switzerland in 1956. He studied history and international law in Bern, where he also earned a doctorate.

Positive Peace and the Methodology of Costing Peacebuilding Needs: The Case of Burundi

Studies on conflict and social justice issues are increasingly focusing on positive peace instead of violence itself. Accordingly, a key challenge facing the international community in promoting positive peace is the cost of peacebuilding needs. This is a particularly difficult issue for the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, tasked with developing peacebuilding programs for fragile countries at risk of returning to civil war and putting them on the path to positive peace. Peacebuilding efforts address a wide variety of issues rooted in positive peace. Such a developmental approach to peacebuilding requires significant resources which must be properly targeted. That is to say, a central problem in implementing the peacebuilding mission and promoting positive peace is simply determining what needs should be focused upon and what amount of resources should be allocated. In this article, we develop a novel and creative way to costing the peacebuilding needs that underpin positive peace based on a project that we recently undertook for the UN Peacebuilding Commission and applied it to Burundi. We refer to our approach as the Adjusted Comparative Historical Method (ACHM). This work contributes to the theory and praxis of positive peace by addressing both conceptual and practical issues in administering positive peace.

Is Peacebuilding Coordinated and Coherent?

Reforms on the policies and actions of the United Nations (UN) due to peace operations highlight the first decade of the 2000s. In December 2005, the Security Council at the UN General Assembly created the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). As an institutional mechanism, its role is to articulate the interests of various peacebuilding actors and to develop country-specific strategies to address distinguishing post-conflict scenarios. Moreover, the PBC is the UN’s attempt to respond to the inconsistencies regarding cooperation and coherence found in the peacebuilding architecture.What follows will examine how the PBC contributes to ensuring a coordinated and coherent strategy in UN Peacebuilding actions through analysis of the commission’s primary instrument, the Integrated Peacebuilding Strategy (IPBS). The PBC has taken part in six cases, and this essay will focus on how the IPBS was operationalized in two of these cases: Burundi and Sierra Leone.

The establishment of the Peacebuilding Commission: reflecting power shifts in the United Nations

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the changing distribution of international power by taking the example of the establishment of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). The paper points to tensions between the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly over the responsibility for the PBC and in the composition of the Commission’s Organizational Committee. These tensions portray the reality of the current international system that is characterized by a shift in the geopolitical power distribution. It is a shift from a system in which the Security Council, strongly marked by the veto power of the permanent members, is responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security to a multilateral one that reflects an increased involvement of non-permanent members in the governance of international peace and security. The Commission marks a transformation of the UN from a system in which power of a state is understood in military terms to one that recognizes the growing importance of other aspects such as economic influence and geographical representation.

Bridging the Chasm between Domestic and International Approaches to Peacebuilding: Conceptual and Institutional Tools*

This paper focuses on the chasm between domestic and international understandings and approaches to peacebuilding and the mixed outcomes that characterize contemporary efforts to assist war-torn countries. It argues that post-Cold War peacebuilding relies on a wide array of international actors with diverse interests and mandates which are not necessarily aligned with local realities or needs. Building on the rich literature on the role of external actors in conflict zones, the paper examines the interface between domestic and international actors through the concept of hybridity. It then reviews two mechanisms that aim to level the playing field between war-affected countries and international actors: the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission and the New Deal for Engagement with Fragile States.

Constructing civil society: Gender, power and legitimacy in United Nations peacebuilding discourse

The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission was created in 2005 to have oversight of United Nations peacebuilding operations. In the foundational resolution, adopted simultaneously by the United Nations Security Council (S/RES/1645) and the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/60/180), the Peacebuilding Commission is mandated to encourage meaningful participation in peacebuilding-related activities by civil society actors. This article investigates the construction of ‘civil society’ as a subject of United Nations peacebuilding discourse, drawing on both policy documents and interview data. The inclusion of civil society actors in peacebuilding-related activities is currently considered central to the success of these activities; if it is taken for granted that the meaningful participation of civil society actors ensures that United Nations programmes build better peace, and I argue that it is, then it is important to understand what is meant by ‘civil society’ and to comprehend the kinds of actions that are prescribed and proscribed by the meanings attached to the concept. Specifically, I map out a peacebuilding discourse that (re)produces the United Nations — as representative of ‘the international community’ — as the architect/legitimate knower of peacebuilding practice, and the communities working on building peace as the labourers/known objects. This has significant implications for the ways in which civil society organisations, and the forms of knowledge that these organisations represent, are encountered and engaged in peacebuilding practices; ‘local’ knowledge is at once valued (in the process of extraction) and yet subordinated.

A discursive institutionalist analysis of global policy ideas in the creation of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission

This article examines three levels – policies, programs, and philosophies – and two types – cognitive and normative – of ideas in the policy discourse around the formation of the United Nations (UN) Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), using discursive institutionalism. This study of ideas helped explain this important global policy change and identify causal factors behind it. Underlying the policy ideas for the PBC and several antecedents, failed peacebuilding proposals were programmatic ideas about what peacebuilding was, whether it was relief, development, or security, and whether it should include prevention. A major questioning of ideas at the philosophical level, sparked by the 9/11 attacks and the 2002–2003 Iraq crisis, created the conditions under which the PBC policy idea could be brought forward. Tracing normative as well as cognitive ideas also helped explain policy change, by identifying policy actors’ motivations behind the policy proposals. Normative ideas were about what was wrong in post-conflict countries, including peacekeeping disasters, large-scale refugee and internally displaced persons (IDP) situations, a purportedly high rate of relapse into conflict, northern concerns about failed states, and southern concerns about a strong UN Security Council (UNSC). They also drove the particular policy proposals, including that for a small PBC with preventive functions and reporting only to the UNSC, and for the later removal of preventive functions, addition of General Assembly members to the PBC, and reporting to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

State feminism going global: Norway on the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission

This article examines the role played by small states in the promotion or reinforcement of new ideas and emerging norms within international society. More specifically, it examines the role played by Norway in reinforcing the normative framework of ‘women, peace and security’, with a particular view to Norway’s first period of membership in the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission. Norway is regarded internationally as one of the lead countries in terms of promoting women’s rights in relation to peace and security. The article discusses four possible reasons that may explain Norway’s apparent suitability and effectiveness as a norm entrepreneur in this particular issue-area.

Komisja Budowania Pokoju Organizacji Narodów Zjednoczonych – sukces czy porażka?

Rozwiązywanie konfliktów i dążenie do ustanowienia trwałego pokoju jest jednym z nadrzędnych celów Organizacji Narodów Zjednoczonych. Przez lata angażowała się ona w działalność na rzecz budowania pokoju. Do chwili powstania Komisji Budowania Pokoju w 2006 r. żadna część systemu ONZ nie była bezpośrednio odpowiedzialna za pomoc krajom w okresie pokonfliktowym i w dążeniach do budowania trwałego pokoju. Komisja Budowania Pokoju pozwoliła wypełnić tę lukę przez zapewnienie instytucjonalnego i systematycznego połączenia między utrzymywaniem pokoju, operacjami pokonfliktowymi oraz międzynarodową siecią pomocy i działaniami darczyńców, w tym Banku Światowego. Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie funkcjonowania Komisji Budowania Pokoju: zasady jej działania, skład oraz zadania jej postawione. Po przedstawieniu strony normatywnej pokrótce opisano konkretne przypadki zaangażowania Komisji. Podjęto też próbę odpowiedzi na tytułowe pytanie – czy działalność Komisji to sukces czy porażka oraz jakie czynniki mają wpływ na sprawne i skuteczne działanie Komisji Budowania Pokoju.

Bridging the Gap: The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission and the Challenges of Integrating DDR and Transitional Justice

While peacebuilding is a long-term and complex endeavor, a cacophony of actors and agendas, together with a persistent tendency to focus on short-term needs at the expense of long-term priorities, stymie efforts to build lasting peace. Complex problems call for innovative and integrated interventions. The staples of post-conflict peacebuilding — including, disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR), security sector reform (SSR), rule of law initiatives, and transitional justice mechanisms ranging from prosecutions to truth commissions — are meant to serve overlapping constituencies and common purposes. In practice, however, such initiatives have often operated on separate tracks, leading to redundancy, avoidable tensions, and lost opportunities. This article focuses on the special challenges that arise out of the need to develop more integrated approaches to DDR and transitional justice and argues that the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) must play a stronger role in bringing together this and other pieces of the post-conflict puzzle. Even though the possibility of tension between transitional justice mechanisms and DDR programs cannot be eliminated, careful attention to areas of overlap should be part of innovative and integrated approaches to post-conflict peacebuilding going forward in order to advance common goals. The gains of such an approach would be modest, but worthwhile.

The clash of practice: political controversy and the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission

Controversy is at the heart of politics. Theories of practice offer a productive way of understanding controversies and potentially negotiating in them. In this paper, drawing on the work of Theodore Schatzki, Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, I introduce a heuristic for understanding controversies. I argue that what is often at stake in controversies are different types of practices of how a political issue should be handled. I introduce five of these types of practices. I analyse a case from global politics to demonstrate the value of such a perspective – the controversies in the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission are analysed as clashes between different practices of handling peacebuilding.

Strategic Frameworks that Embrace Mutual Accountability for Peacebuilding: Emerging Lessons in PBC and non-PBC Countries

This article examines the use of strategic frameworks in four countries emerging from conflict with a view to understanding the extent to which they have served to contribute to more effective peacebuilding outcomes. Two of the cases examined (Sierra Leone and Burundi) are currently on the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission's agenda, and two (Liberia and Afghanistan) are not, although they both host a United Nations peace mission. Core elements suggested as necessary for strategic frameworks to contribute to better peacebuilding include giving attention to: 1) addressing sources of conflict; 2) strengthening national capacities; 3) promoting coherence, coordination and integration among various actors; and 3) establishing mutual accountability of national and international actors. Comparative findings illustrate the need for more sustained attention to these issues within strategic frameworks in the collective search for sustained peace in conflict-affected countries.

The United Nations Peacebuilding in Kosovo

As the United Nations lacks the capacity to implement the multidimensional tasks of peacebuilding, it resorted to formal inter-organizational networking in Kosovo. The network structure gave birth to various coordination mechanisms and could accomplish some of the tasks, especially those involved with establish-ing straightforward institutional structures. However, it could not accomplish substantial change in Kosovo to ensure sustainable peace because there was no effective coordination. The analysis highlights the reasons for the lack of coordination among networking organizations and concludes that the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission has to be given more powers in order to overcome these problems and to bring about a degree of accountability among networking organizations.

Peacebuilding theory and the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission: implications for non-UN interventions

The extensive experience of the United Nations in peacekeeping and peacebuilding is beginning to reap rewards in terms of lessons learned and improved peacebuilding practice. Evolving peacebuilding theory and ideas about best practice to promote sustainable peacebuilding have been boosted by the creation of the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). This paper reviews sustainable peacebuilding theory and the potential contribution of the PBC to addressing some of the challenges faced by non-UN interventions such as the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), as well as the US-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. We argue that the adoption by non-UN interventions of peacebuilding principles and best practice could increase their legitimacy, accountability, transparency, integration and effectiveness.

The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission: An Early Assessment

The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, established in December 2005, was designed to strengthen efforts to consolidate peace in countries emerging from civil war. It has three broad aims: first, to bring coherence to the activities of peacebuilding actors around a shared strategy; second, to marshal resources and commitments in support of this strategic vision; and third, to enhance decision-making processes relevant to conflict-affected countries across UN bodies and the international financial institutions. Two years into the life of the Commission, this article assesses its performance in these three areas and argues that progress has been limited by three main factors: the Commission's lack of clarity on the nature of a peacebuilding strategy; its vague interpretation of the mandate to marshal resources; and ongoing tensions between intergovernmental organs for influence over the Commission. There is evidence that the Commission is developing institutional momentum and learning important lessons from its first cases, but it will need to capitalise on them rapidly to achieve worthwhile results.

Experiences of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission in Sierra Leone and Burundi

The creation of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission in 2005 was a landmark event for the UN as an institution. However, the true measure of success for any institution is not found in its lofty ideals, but in its ability to deliver a positive impact on people's lives. In mid-2007, ActionAid, CAFOD and CARE researched the Peacebuilding Commission's work in Sierra Leone and Burundi to try to capture local opinions and experiences of interacting with this nascent institution one year after its establishment. What they found was an institution whose impact was largely positive, but which faced important challenges and lessons to be learned. Now, one year on from that initial research, the Peacebuilding Commission has had time to overcome many of the initial teething problems common to new organisations and has become better placed to articulate its unique role in post-conflict contexts.

Towards Sustainable Peace and Development in Sierra Leone: Civil Society and the Peacebuilding Commission

The Sierra Leone civil war that ended in January 2002 was particularly brutal and left the country economically devastated. Four-and-a-half years later, Sierra Leone was selected as one of two countries to receive focussed attention from the newly created United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). The PBC is mandated to support post-conflict recovery and sustainable development with the participation of all relevant stakeholders, including civil society. Drawing on field research and theories of sustainable peacebuilding and the role of civil society, this paper assesses the PBC's performance in Sierra Leone in its first year of operation. The article concludes that the PBC needs to clarify its priorities in relation to civil society participation in order to fulfil its potential to assist governments in promoting sustainable peace and development.

The Rule of Law and the UN Peacebuilding Commission: a social development approach1

There is a danger that the Rule of Law Assistance Unit of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission will employ the same dominant but problematic paradigm that the international development community has pursued across the globe. This top-down, state-centred paradigm, sometimes known as ‘rule of law orthodoxy’, stands in contrast to an alternative set of strategies: legal empowerment. Legal empowerment involves the use of legal services, legal capacity-building and legal reform by and for disadvantaged populations, often in combination with other development activities, to increase their freedom, improve governance and alleviate poverty. It is typically carried out by domestic and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), but also by governments and official aid agencies. This alternative approach focuses directly on the disadvantaged and integration with other development activities, which means it often operates under the de facto rubric of social development. Legal empowerment strategies vary among countries and NGOs. But their impact includes reforming gender-biased, non-state justice systems in Bangladesh; ameliorating the legal system's corruption in post-conflict Sierra Leone; keeping the human rights flame burning in post-conflict Cambodia; advancing natural resources protection and indigenous peoples' rights in Ecuador; and strengthening agrarian reform in the Philippines. Addressing such priorities can help alleviate poverty, ameliorate conflict and prevent chaos or repression from dominating the disadvantaged, particularly in conflict or post-conflict societies.