of peacekeepers costs considerably less than any other military deployment. The total expenditure of UN peacekeeping operations represents a mere one-half of one percent (0.5%) of global military spending.
The rapid growth in peacekeeping since the early 1990s made managing large numbers of peacekeepers and their different mandates excruciatingly difficult. This led to a real crisis in the second half of that decade when serious problems had to be addressed. Unclear mandates, some of which were resulting from political divergences in the Security Council, the “mandate-giver”; ambiguities with respect to the use of force by the peacekeepers; inadequate numbers and operational capabilities of several peacekeeping operations and violations of human rights, including sexual abuses by the peacekeepers were some of the difficulties. All this led to a serious re-examination of peace operations and a series of new policy guidelines have been adopted on several occasions since 2000.
The situation has improved gradually since then and today peacekeepers are better prepared for a variety of tasks which include difficult mandates such as protecting humanitarian assistance and building a safe environment for economic recovery and political transitions. However, new challenges continue to arise. Increasingly, peacekeepers are deployed in situations where there is no peace to keep, where it is not easy to identify the parties to the conflict and where there is no viable political process.
The UN and its member states must keep up with the changing realities, both in the military and political sense. In the past few years, important innovations ←21 | 22→were introduced. Examples include the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and an international intervention brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) within the UN Organization Stabilization Mission (MONUSCO). The intervention brigade was mandated to conduct targeted offensive operations with the aim of disarming and neutralizing armed groups. The important premise for the Congo intervention brigade was the understanding – and possibly a future principle of peacekeeping – that impartiality of peacekeeping does not mean neutrality in the face of atrocities and that maintaining consent with the parties to a conflict does not mean that spoilers can prevent UN missions from accomplishing their mandates.
These innovations are important not only for the success of future peacekeeping missions but also for effective “post-conflict peacebuilding”. Peacekeeping and peacebuilding are increasingly merged in a broad variety of specific, sensitive and time-consuming tasks. Over time, the UN has, along with other international organizations and donor states, developed considerable experience and expertise in this domain.
However, the practical performance still offers a mixed picture. One has to appreciate the depth of endemic problems in some post-conflict situations, the adverse effects of the regional actors in others and the perennial problems of organizing international assistance in all situations. This was the reason for the establishment of the Peacebuilding Commission which aimed to take UN action in post-conflict peacebuilding to new levels. More time is needed to achieve the desired levels of success and more specialized experience will have to be developed for effective assistance to war-torn countries in their effort to build normal economies of peace.
Although peacekeeping and post-conflict peacebuilding belong to standard UN activities in the peace and security field, they are not the only ones. There are situations in which the UN can help as convener of peace processes and facilitator of peace agreements. Sometimes, only the unique convening power of the UN can provide real help. The Bonn Conference on Afghanistan in December 2001 is a case in point. On other occasions, UN sponsored conferences such as the ones on the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the more recent one on Syria failed.
While each of these large peace projects have their own features, there is also a common demand for cooperation among the permanent members of the Security Council. The entire history of the UN has confirmed, time and again, that there is no substitute for the cooperation necessary among the permanent members of the Security Council, the collective bearers of special responsibilities for the maintenance of international peace and security. The more effective their cooperation, the better the chances for UN success. Cooperation between permanent members in ←22 | 23→ending the war between Iraq and Iran in the late 1980s is an example which should inspire future action.
Today, with the accumulation of crisis situations, and a growing sense of a gathering storm calls for a renewed effort. A global security compact among the permanent members of the UN Security Council would be necessary. Such a compact was due but did not materialize in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. However, the intervening years have brought additional experience and wisdom. In an increasingly multipolar world, cooperation among the main strategic actors may be more difficult to achieve but it is also more necessary than ever before. Five policemen working in partnership is significantly more effective than two or three, or one working alone. This idea of great powers working together “in concert” is by no means a new one but has its origins in the history of diplomacy in the nineteenth century and was essential to the creation of the United Nations in 1945. The option of its revival, perhaps in the form of a “global security compact for the twenty-first century” should therefore continue to be kept in mind, no matter how serious the obstacles to it are at any given point.
And there is yet another key element in the UN system for the maintenance of peace and security. Recent history has shown that the role of the Secretary-General and his good offices in matters of peace and security continue to be relevant. While the Secretary-General only seldom invokes his powers under Article 99 directly and formally, he can achieve much in informal communication with members of the Security Council, other UN members and above all, with the countries involved in crisis situations. The Secretary-General should be encouraged in this role and should try to exercise this unique potential frequently and courageously – and above all – at an early stage in emerging conflicts.
The UN Charter contains extensive provisions on international economic and social cooperation. Solving economic and social problems was recognized as an important element of peace and is included among the purposes of the UN. However, the institutional evolution and the long-term vision of economic cooperation and development have been far from coherent. The UN was not given the tools for real economic and financial decision-making; those belong to the IMF, World Bank and later GATT, today the WTO. On the other hand, the UN has, from its early days, established various funds “for improvement and growth in the underdeveloped areas”. Today, the total budget of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) – central among the variety of UN agencies, funds and programs – is about $5 billion. This is a significant amount, but not a decisive one, in the contemporary world of global development efforts.
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In addition to funding, the UN continues to play a critically important role in conceptualizing the idea of development. Let me recall some of the main features of this role.
In 1960s and 1970s, the General Assembly adopted two UN development strategies which emphasized the needs of the newly independent countries which became UN member states in the process of decolonization. The slogan “trade, not aid” featured prominently in that context. In the mid-1970s the idea of a “New International Economic Order” was proposed as an attempt to focus the development debate and practice on the needs of the global south and to change international economic relations in the direction of redistributing the benefits of growth. However, the effort of the developing world to put forward a workable agenda of international economic restructuring did not and could not succeed. Instead, the main economic powers strengthened the instruments of the global market model of development and many of the countries of the global south ended the 1980s with adjustment programs imposed by the IMF.
The hardships caused by austerity policies and structural adjustment of the 1980s led to a different, ethically-based rationale for development. The examples of this ethically-based approach include the concept of “adjustment with a human face” proposed by UNICEF, the right to development as a human right and UNDP’s work on human development reports.
However,
