Summary
The United Nations (UN) 2015 peacebuilding review makes a number of recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of its peacebuilding responses across different UN entities. One of the key messages in this review relates to the core role of conflict prevention in sustaining peace.
This policy brief examines how member states can respond to the recommendations made in the review, with a view to enhancing conflict prevention in particular.
Peacebuilding in the United Nations (UN) is at a crossroads in its efforts to be more relevant and effective. In 2014, the UN General Assembly and the Security Council called for a review of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture (UNPBA). A group of seven global peacebuilding experts was appointed to carry out this task and their report was released on 29 June 2015.
The report made a number of peacebuilding recommendations aimed at different entities across the UN system, including through the three components of the UNPBA – namely the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) and Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) – and through other structures such as the General Assembly, Security Council and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
The 2015 peacebuilding report provides a number of key messages, focusing on what needs to be done within the UN system if peacebuilding is to be successful. One of the principal points in the report relates to the need for a more holistic approach to peacebuilding, looking in particular at the core role of conflict prevention. While this point raises a number of important conceptual issues, how the member states choose to respond will determine the relevance of this report, and how successful peacebuilding is in the future.
With member states in the General Assembly and Security Council expected to conduct the next round of discussions in September/October under the 2015 UNPB review, this policy brief unpacks the concept of conflict prevention across the UN system, from its inception to the current review’s notion of ‘sustaining peace’. The brief situates the peacebuilding arguments in the context of other ongoing processes such as the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the report of the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) review and global study on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women, peace and security. Most importantly it presents some considerations that member states will have to make in the next phase of the review.