Peacekeeping Reform: Democratisation, Devolution Or Multilateralism?

Festus B Aboagye
Head, Training for Peace Programme, ISS

 

Can it be a coincidence that the new UN Secretary General, Mr Ban Ki-Moon, has found it urgently necessary to undertake yet another restructuring of the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO)? What are the policy imperatives that have driven him tos this measure so soon after taking office; and does this restructuring have any synergies with the wider UN reform agenda of his predecessor, Mr. Kofi Annan? This piece will argue that while the restructuring of the DPKO may be in the right direction, other related issues that have contributed to the underlying need for the restructuring have to be given more holistic consideration.

 

According to the UN’s Department of Public information (DPI), the 61st General Assembly Plenary passed two resolutions on 15 March 2007. In the first resolution the Assembly “supported the establishment of a new Department of Field Support (DFS) as part of restructuring of the DPKO …” headed by an Under Secretary General (USG), to be responsible for the whole gamut of administration and management of field personnel, procurement, information, communication technology and finances for peace operations. However, the DFS will report to and be answerable to the USG of the new Department of Peace Operations (DPO). The second resolution related to the establishment of an Office for Disarmament Affairs, under a High Representative of equivalent USG rank.

 

According to the Secretary General, the restructuring is aimed at “…realigning responsibilities and resources from the DPKO’s Office of Mission Support, as well as from the Department of Management.” In principle therefore, this particular restructuring appears to be consistent with the newly established concept of integrated missions—a system-wide UN response, through subsuming actors and approaches within an overall political-strategic crisis management framework(1) - as part of the post-Brahimi Panel (2000) reforms. These reforms, particularly those relating to strategic level capacities, have in time led to the establishment of the Integrated Training Service (ITS) -- for instance at the headquarters -- while a number of Joint Integrated Mission Structures—Integrated Support Services, Joint Logistics Operations Centres, Joint Operations Centres and Joint Mission Analysis Centres—have been embedded at the operational level in missions.

 

So, given the apparent wisdom in integrating strategic level management and logistical structures, why did the General Assembly caution the Secretary General “to take full account of…the need to guarantee ‘unity of command’, promote integration of efforts and strengthen operational capacities both at headquarters and in the field”?

 

It would appear that although the integration of management/mission support structures is desirable and may be workable at the strategic (political) level, the creation of another administrative and logistical ‘command’ to deal with the demands of field support has the potential to threaten the well established principle of unity of (field operational) command. It remains to be seen how the organic resources of the DFS will be placed under command of field missions without the attendant nightmare of command, control and communications that such affiliation will potentially entail, not to mention the possible resultant clash of personalities.

 

It is worth recalling that subsequent studies (Eide 2005) into the concept and practice of integrated missions have shown that not all structures need to be integrated all the time and that integration should be based, among other things, on a consideration of the various functions and roles that missions have to play in the context of complex multifunctional operations. Given the currency of the integrated mission approach, it is arguable that the restructuring of the DPKO should be located in that policy discourse, not only using as its key determinants the “three dilemmas to integration: …the humanitarian dilemma; the human rights dilemma; and the local ownership dilemma,” but also operational requirement for simplicity, cooperation, efficiency, foresight and flexibility.

 

The General Assembly’s caution about unity of command and integration of effort also needs to be examined in light of the recent policy complexities around hybrid Command, Control, Communications and Information Systems (C3IS) arrangements for the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS). Quite apart from the political hurdles pertaining to Sudan’s intransigence over the acceptance of foreign forces and the deployment of the hybrid AU-UN force,(2) a great number of fundamental questions exist as to the practical application of such parallel or tangential lines of C3IS arrangements, especially in the political minefield of Sudan’s Darfur conflict.

 

It behoves all stakeholders - the UN, AU, international partners and others - to adhere to established (military) doctrines rather than have recourse to political expediency. It has to be recognised, for instance, that the dynamics of co-deployment of much smaller missions, such as the OAU (AU) Mission in Ethiopia-Eritrea (OLMEE) alongside the much larger UN Mission in Ethiopia-Ethiopia-Eritrea (UNMEE) in the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ), is wholly different from a similar deployment of sizeable regional and UN missions within a state that is unable or unwilling to halt, or is itself complicit in, grave violations of international law. Coupled with this is the whole dilemma of a Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA, May 2006) that has been totally rejected by major forces and significant segments of the population in Darfur. There is reason to believe that an attempt on the part of the UN to re-translate the existing notions of C3IS earlier agreed with the AU, to one in which the UN acts as the bigger rather than an ‘equal political’ player, has frayed political nerves in Africa.

 

On the assumption that the dual DPO and DFS may be tested in the AMIS theatre, one may very well ask such mundane but pertinent questions as to whom, how and through what channels the dual hybrid mission may request substantive logistical support under the new arrangement?

 

Indeed, for the simple reason that the General Assembly resolution cited the complexities of Darfur as one of the, if not the only, key motivations for the proposed restructuring, it is important to also look at the characteristics of the conflict in Darfur.

 

Practically speaking, the operational problems in Darfur devolve on the politically weak mandate, coupled with lack of compliance with both the Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement (HCFA, April 2004) and the DPA (2006), which then exacerbate the insufficiency of the AMIS. It is doubtful that in the exigencies of the Darfur peace operation, mission support dilemmas absolutely underscore the need for such strategic level restructuring of the world body that is unable, at least so far, to gain political and operational entry into the management of the conflict.

 

In reality, one may make a passing comment that the nightmare of mission logistics have resulted in part from the absence of well-resourced contributions from the developed world. This has engendered ‘dry lease’ contributions from the developing world that then have to be virtually re-equipped by the UN and the international community, as is typically the case in Darfur, where the proposed hybrid force will turn out to be the largest mission ever deployed. This underscores the notion that the regionalisation of peacekeeping has also contributed to turning peacekeeping into a numbers game depending, as it does in the case of regional initiatives, on the deployment of large numbers of third-world contributions that are maintained - including strategic lift, equipment, logistics, funding, planning and C3IS resources - through external support initiatives.

 

Without necessarily detracting from the wisdom of the Secretary General in continuing to seek to restructure the DPKO as a matter of both policy formulation and implementation, it ought to be said that the real solution to the dilemmas of contemporary peacekeeping does not lie in the devolution of peacekeeping manpower contributions to the have-nots and financial contributions to the haves. However, in “…rethinking the means, [as well as] the methods of implementing mandates set out by the Security Council,” it should be ensured that the question of the (operational) relationship between the DPO and the DFS facilitates mission level C3IS, reinforces the concept of integrated missions and simplifies mission administration and logistics.

 

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