The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation has been working with the UN Peacebuilding Support Office, the Review Secretariat and Member States over the past two years to support the 2015 Review of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture (PBA) by facilitating discussions and providing inputs. As part of this effort, the Foundation organised a writer’s workshop on 15-16 October for a select group of academics, practitioners and policy analysts who have been closely following and contributing to the PBA, the Peace Operations and the 1325 Reviews, to discuss the conclusions and recommendations presented in the reports from the three reviews.
Discussions focused on key themes and recommendations raised in the Advisory Group of Experts (AGE) report, how they relate to the analysis and conclusions of the other two reviews and what is needed to ensure strong implementable resolutions at the conclusion of the intergovernmental phase of the process. A joint analytical document will be produced as an outcome of the workshop and shared as an input to current and future discussions and negotiations among Member States and the UN system on the future of the UN’s efforts in sustaining peace.
The issues being covered in these three important processes are inextricably interlinked, which has been highlighted repeatedly. If real and robust change to how the UN contributes to sustaining peace is the goal, it will be crucial that the policy changes and reform proposals coming out of the reviews are aligned and mutually reinforcing, taking to heart the call in the AGE report to address the fragmentation within the UN that begins at the inter-governmental level and trickles all the way down to the operational level. The narrow definition of a UN Peacebuilding Architecture that has been contributing to this fragmentation needs to be revisited.