In an era of rising global challenges, intensifying geopolitical polarisation and a rapid reconfiguration of the world order, the role of United Nations peace operations is evolving.  Recognising the challenges to UN peace operations, this paper analyses requirements and opportunities for current and future peace operations. Scarce funding is a recurrent theme in the analysis, as is the need to focus on the success factors of UN peace operations, namely legitimacy and credibility of missions. 

The paper is a collective effort by members of the Global Alliance for Peace Operations. It identifies key trends and developments and explores the changing role, relevance, limitations, and achievements of UN peace operations. The authors undertook an AI-generated meta analysis of findings of the Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (EPON) studies, including 14 studies on contemporary peace operations and five thematic studies.3 It also draws on other relevant publications, including the independent study The Future of Peacekeeping, New Models and Related Capabilities.4 On the basis of AI analysis, desk research and the collective experience of the authors, this paper proposes a set of recommendations to strengthen impact through enhanced legitimacy, credibility, efficiency and effectiveness. 

While recent developments and challenges to peace operations can appear daunting at a time of great turbulence, it is timely to recall that the UN has successfully adapted to different geopolitical realities over the past 77 years, and that it has deployed over 120 peace operations to date.5 Recognising both successes and failures, the majority of UN peace operations closed with mandates implemented and missions achieved. Research demonstrates that peace operations remain a cost-efficient and effective multilateral tool for preventing armed conflict, managing and resolving threats to international security and sustaining peace, provided it is used according to the principles and doctrine for which it has been designed and is resourced accordingly. 

The paper argues that the UN system, its Member States and partners must seize this moment of transition to reimagine and reform peace operations, without losing the essential features that have ensured its effectiveness in the past. As the current world order transforms, the authors believe there will be a renewed need for impartial, consent-based, multinational peace operations.

With the consistently high occurrence of armed conflict in recent years,6 the UN and its Member States need to step up efforts to further develop and improve the collective peace operations toolbox. Paradoxically, just when the need is growing, there is unprecedented political and financial pressure on the UN. The extent of the political and financial crisis is uncertain: at worst, the US defunding of UN peacekeeping and general budget would have a significant disruptive effect on existing peace operations and make new peace operations the exception. It would lead to significant downsizing, mandate adjustment and mission closures and affect posts and initiatives at UN Headquarters and regional service centres. Even if the financial crisis is less severe and the UN continues to deploy many of its existing peace operations, it will do so at a smaller scale. Everywhere on this spectrum, the UN and the peace operations policy, practice and expert community will be under pressure to demonstrate and further enhance the legitimacy, credibility and effectiveness of peace operations. 

In the past, UN peace operations’ responses to global crises have demonstrated that significant institutional adaptation is possible with sufficient commitment and support. Where there is a will, there is a way. Just as the COVID-19 pandemic catalysed the rapid dismantling of bureaucratic obstacles, the field of peace operations now faces its own inflection point. The upcoming UN Peacekeeping Ministerial 2025 provides its Member States with a strategic opportunity to shape the future of peace operations.

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This description was excerpted from aspi.org.au