Military

1. The United Nations was founded, in the words of its Charter, in order "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." Meeting this challenge is the most important function of the Organization, and, to a very significant degree, the yardstick by which it is judged by the peoples it exists to serve. Over the last decade, the United Nations has repeatedly failed to meet the challenge; and it can do no better today. Without significant institutional change, increased financial support, and renewed commitment on the part of Member States, the United Nations will not be capable of executing the critical peacekeeping and peace-building tasks that the Member States assign it in coming months and years. There are many tasks which the United Nations peacekeeping forces should not be asked to undertake, and many places they should not go. But when the United Nations does send its forces to uphold the peace, they must be prepared to confront the lingering forces of war and violence with the ability and determination to defeat them.

2. The Secretary-General has asked the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, composed of individuals experienced in various aspects of conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peace-building, to assess the shortcomings of the existing system and to make frank, specific and realistic recommendations for change. Our recommendations focus not only on politics and strategy but also on operational and organizational areas of need.

3. For preventive initiatives to reduce tension and avert conflict, the Secretary-General needs clear, strong and sustained political support from Member States. For peacekeeping to accomplish its mission, as the United Nations has discovered repeatedly over the last decade, no amount of good intentions can substitute for the fundamental ability to project credible force. However, force alone cannot create peace; it can only create a space in which peace can be built.

4. In other words, the key conditions for the success of future complex operations are political support, rapid deployment with a robust force posture and a sound peace-building strategy. Every recommendation in the present report is meant, in one way or another, to help ensure that these three conditions are met. The need for change has been rendered even more urgent by recent events in Sierra Leone and by the daunting prospect of expanded United Nations operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

5. These changes — while essential — will have no lasting impact unless the Member States of the Organization take seriously their responsibility to train and equip their own forces and to mandate and enable their collective instrument, so that together they may succeed in meeting threats to peace. They must summon the political will to support the United Nations politically, financially and operationally — once they have decided to act as the United Nations —if the Organization is to be credible as a force for peace.

6. The recommendations that the Panel presents balance principle and pragmatism, while honouring the spirit and letter of the Charter of the United Nations and the respective roles of the Organization’s legislative bodies. They are based on the following premises:

(a) The essential responsibility of Member States for the maintenance of international peace and security, and the need to strengthen both the quality and quantity of support provided to the United Nations system to carry out that responsibility;

(b) The pivotal importance of clear, credible and adequately resourced Security Council mandates;

(c) A focus by the United Nations system on conflict prevention and its early engagement, wherever possible;

(d) The need to have more effective collection and assessment of information at United Nations Headquarters, including an enhanced conflict early warning system that can detect and recognize the threat or risk of conflict or genocide;

(e) The essential importance of the United Nations system adhering to and promoting international human rights instruments and standards and international humanitarian law in all aspects of its peace and security activities;

(f) The need to build the United Nations capacity to contribute to peace-building, both preventive and post-conflict, in a genuinely integrated manner;

(g) The critical need to improve Headquarters planning (including contingency planning) for peace operations;

(h) The recognition that while the United Nations has acquired considerable expertise in planning, mounting and executing traditional peacekeeping operations, it has yet to acquire the capacity needed to deploy more complex operations rapidly and to sustain them effectively;

(i) The necessity to provide field missions with high-quality leaders and managers who are granted greater flexibility and autonomy by Headquarters, within clear mandate parameters and with clear standards of accountability for both spending and results;

(j) The imperative to set and adhere to a high standard of competence and integrity for both Headquarters and field personnel, who must be provided the training and support necessary to do their jobs and to progress in their careers, guided by modern management practices that reward meritorious performance and weed out incompetence;

(k) The importance of holding individual officials at Headquarters and in the field accountable for their performance, recognizing that they need to be given commensurate responsibility, authority and resources to fulfil their assigned tasks.

7. In the present report, the Panel has addressed itself to many compelling needs for change within the United Nations system. The Panel views its recommendations as the minimum threshold of change needed to give the United Nations system the opportunity to be an effective, operational, twenty-first century institution.

8. The blunt criticisms contained in the present report reflect the Panel’s collective experience as well as interviews conducted at every level of the system. More than 200 people were either interviewed or provided written input to the Panel. Sources included the Permanent Missions of Member States, including the Security Council members; the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations; and personnel in peace and security-related departments at United Nations Headquarters in New York, in the United Nations Office at Geneva, at the headquarters of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), at the headquarters of other United Nations funds and programmes; at the World Bank and in every current United Nations peace operation.