Military

84. Many observers have questioned why it takes so long for the United Nations to fully deploy operations following the adoption of a Security Council resolution. The reasons are several. The United Nations does not have a standing army, and it does not have a standing police force designed for field operations. There is no reserve corps of mission leadership: special representatives of the Secretary-General and heads of mission, force commanders, police commissioners, directors of administration and other leadership components are not sought until urgently needed. The Standby Arrangements System (UNSAS) currently in place for potential government-provided military, police and civilian expertise has yet to become a dependable supply of resources. The stockpile of essential equipment recycled from the large missions of the mid-1990s to the United Nations Logistics Base (UNLB) at Brindisi, Italy, has been depleted by the current surge in missions and there is as yet no budgetary vehicle for rebuilding it quickly. The peacekeeping procurement process may not adequately balance its responsibilities for cost-effectiveness and financial responsibility against overriding operational needs for timely response and mission credibility. The need for standby arrangements for the recruitment of civilian personnel in substantive and support areas has long been recognized but not yet implemented. And finally, the Secretary-General lacks most of the authority to acquire, hire and preposition the goods and people needed to deploy an operation rapidly before the Security Council adopts the resolution to establish it, however likely such an operation may seem.

85. In short, few of the basic building blocks are in place for the United Nations to rapidly acquire and deploy the human and material resources required to mount any complex peace operation in the future.

86. The proceedings of the Security Council, the reports of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations and input provided to the Panel by the field missions, the Secretariat and the Member States all agree on the need for the United Nations to significantly strengthen capacity to deploy new field operations rapidly and effectively. In order to strengthen these capacities, the United Nations must first agree on basic parameters for defining what "rapidity" and "effectiveness" entail.

87. The first six to 12 weeks following a ceasefire or peace accord is often the most critical period for establishing both a stable peace and the credibility of the peacekeepers. Credibility and political momentum lost during this period can often be difficult to regain. Deployment timelines should thus be tailored accordingly. However, the speedy deployment of military, civilian police and civilian expertise will not help to solidify a fragile peace and establish the credibility of an operation if these personnel are not equipped to do their job. To be effective, the missions’ personnel need materiel (equipment and logistics support), finance (cash in hand to procure goods and services) information assets (training and briefing), an operational strategy and, for operations deploying into uncertain circumstances, a military and political "centre of gravity" sufficient to enable it to anticipate and overcome one or more of the parties’ second thoughts about taking a peace process forward.

88. Timelines for rapid and effective deployment will naturally vary in accordance with the politico-military situations that are unique to each post-conflict environment. Nevertheless, the first step in enhancing the United Nations capacity for rapid deployment must begin with agreeing upon a standard towards which the Organization should strive. No such standard yet exists. The Panel thus proposes that the United Nations develop the operational capabilities to fully deploy "traditional" peacekeeping operations within 30 days of the adoption of a Security Council resolution, and complex peacekeeping operations within 90 days. In the case of the latter, the mission headquarters should be fully installed and functioning within 15 days.

89. In order to meet these timelines, the Secretariat would need one or a combination of the following: (a) standing reserves of military, civilian police and civilian expertise, materiel and financing; (b) extremely reliable standby capacities to be called upon on short notice; or (c) sufficient lead-time to acquire these resources, which would require the ability to foresee, plan for and initiate spending for potential new missions several months ahead of time. A number of the Panel’s recommendations are directed at strengthening the Secretariat’s analytical capacities and aligning them with the mission planning process in order to help the United Nations be better prepared for potential new operations. However, neither the outbreak of war nor the conclusion of peace can always be predicted well in advance. In fact, experience has shown that this is often not the case. Thus, the Secretariat must be able to maintain a certain generic level of preparedness, through the establishment of new standing capacities and enhancement of existing standby capacities, so as to be prepared for unforeseen demands.

90. Many Member States have argued against the establishment of a standing United Nations army or police force, resisted entering into reliable standby arrangements, cautioned against the incursion of financial expenses for building a reserve of equipment or discouraged the Secretariat from undertaking planning for potential operations prior to the Secretary-General having been granted specific, crisis-driven legislative authority to do so. Under these circumstances, the United Nations cannot deploy operations "rapidly and effectively" within the timelines suggested. The analysis that follows argues that at least some of these circumstances must change to make rapid and effective deployment possible.

91. Summary of key recommendation on determining deployment timelines: the United Nations should define "rapid and effective deployment capacities" as the ability, from an operational perspective, to fully deploy traditional peacekeeping operations within 30 days after the adoption of a Security Council resolution, and within 90 days in the case of complex peacekeeping operations.

92. Effective, dynamic leadership can make the difference between a cohesive mission with high morale and effectiveness despite adverse circumstances, and one that struggles to maintain any of those attributes. That is, the tenor of an entire mission can be heavily influenced by the character and ability of those who lead it.

93. Given this critical role, the current United Nations approach to recruiting, selecting, training and supporting its mission leaders leaves major room for improvement. Lists of potential candidates are informally maintained. RSGs and SRSGs, heads of mission, force commanders, civilian police commissioners and their respective deputies may not be selected until close to or even after adoption of a Security Council resolution establishing a new mission. They and other heads of substantive and administrative components may not meet one another until they reach the mission area, following a few days of introductory meetings with Headquarters officials. They will be given generic terms of reference that spell out their overall roles and responsibilities, but rarely will they leave Headquarters with mission-specific policy or operational guidance in hand. Initially, at least, they will determine on their own how to implement the Security Council’s mandate and how to deal with potential challenges to implementation. They must develop a strategy for implementing the mandate while trying to establish the mission’s political/military centre of gravity and sustain a potentially fragile peace process.

94. Factoring in the politics of selection makes the process somewhat more understandable. Political sensitivities about a new mission may preclude the Secretary-General’s canvassing potential candidates much before a mission has been established. In selecting SRSGs, RSGs or other heads of mission, the Secretary-General must consider the views of Security Council members, the States within the region and the local parties, the confidence of each of whom an RSG/SRSG needs in order to be effective. The choice of one or more deputy SRSGs may be influenced by the need to achieve geographic distribution within the mission’s leadership. The nationality of the force commander, the police commissioner and their deputies will need to reflect the composition of the military and police components, and will also need to consider the political sensitivities of the local parties.

95. Although political and geographic considerations are legitimate, in the Panel’s view managerial talent and experience must be accorded at least equal priority in choosing mission leadership. Based on the personal experiences of several of its members in leading field operations, the Panel endorses the need to assemble the leadership of a mission as early as possible, so that they can jointly help to shape a mission’s concept of operations, its support plan, its budget and its staffing arrangements.

96. To facilitate early selection, the Panel recommends that the Secretary-General compile, in a systematic fashion, and with input from Member States, a comprehensive list of potential SRSGs, force commanders, police commissioners and potential deputies, as well as candidates to head other substantive components of a mission, representing a broad geographic and equitable gender distribution. Such a database would facilitate early identification and selection of the leadership group.

97. The Secretariat should, as a matter of standard practice, provide mission leadership with strategic guidance and plans for anticipating and overcoming challenges to mandate implementation and, whenever possible, formulate such guidance and plans together with the mission leadership. The leadership should also consult widely with the United Nations resident country team and with NGOs working in the mission area to broaden and deepen its local knowledge, which is critical to implementing a comprehensive strategy for transition from war to peace. The country team’s resident coordinator should be included more frequently in the formal mission planning process.

98. The Panel believes that there should always be at least one member of the senior management team of a mission with relevant United Nations experience, preferably both in a field mission and at Headquarters. Such an individual would facilitate the work of those members of the management team from outside the United Nations system, shortening the time they would otherwise need to become familiar with the Organization’s rules, regulations, policies and working methods, answering the sorts of questions that pre-deployment training cannot anticipate.

99. The Panel notes the precedent of appointing the resident coordinator/humanitarian coordinator of the team of United Nations agencies, funds and programmes engaged in development work and humanitarian assistance in a particular country as one of the deputies to the SRSG of a complex peace operation. In our view, this practice should be emulated wherever possible.

100. Conversely, it is critical that field representatives of United Nations agencies, funds and programmes facilitate the work of an SRSG or RSG in his or her role as the coordinator of all United Nations activities in the country concerned. On a number of occasions, attempts to perform this role have been hampered by overly bureaucratic resistance to coordination. Such tendencies do not do justice to the concept of the United Nations family that the Secretary-General has tried hard to encourage.

101. Summary of key recommendations on mission leadership:

(a) The Secretary-General should systematize the method of selecting mission leaders, beginning with the compilation of a comprehensive list of potential representatives or special representatives of the Secretary-General, force commanders, civilian police commissioners and their deputies and other heads of substantive and administrative components, within a fair geographic and gender distribution and with input from Member States;

(b) The entire leadership of a mission should be selected and assembled at Headquarters as early as possible in order to enable their participation in key aspects of the mission planning process, for briefings on the situation in the mission area and to meet and work with their colleagues in mission leadership;

(c) The Secretariat should routinely provide the mission leadership with strategic guidance and plans for anticipating and overcoming challenges to mandate implementation and, whenever possible, should formulate such guidance and plans together with the mission leadership.

102. The United Nations launched UNSAS in the mid-1990s in order to enhance its rapid deployment capabilities and to enable it to respond to the unpredictable and exponential growth in the establishment of the new generation of complex peacekeeping operations. UNSAS is a database of military, civilian police and civilian assets and expertise indicated by Governments to be available, in theory, for deployment to United Nations peacekeeping operations at seven, 15, 30, 60 or 90 days’ notice. The database currently includes 147,900 personnel from 87 Member States: 85,000 in military combat units; 56,700 in military support elements; 1,600 military observers; 2,150 civilian police; and 2,450 other civilian specialists. Of the 87 participating States, 31 have concluded memoranda of understanding with the United Nations enumerating their responsibilities for preparedness of the personnel concerned, but the same memoranda also codify the conditional nature of their commitment. In essence, the memorandum of understanding confirms that States maintain their sovereign right to "just say no" to a request from the Secretary-General to contribute those assets to an operation.

103. The absence of detailed statistics on responses notwithstanding, many Member States are saying "no" to deploying formed military units to United Nations-led peacekeeping operations, far more often than they are saying "yes". In contrast to the long tradition of developed countries providing the bulk of the troops for United Nations peacekeeping operations during the Organization’s first 50 years, in the last few years 77 per cent of the troops in formed military units deployed in United Nations peacekeeping operations, as of end-June 2000, were contributed by developing countries.

104. The five Permanent Members of the Security Council are currently contributing far fewer troops to United Nations-led operations, but four of the five have contributed sizeable forces to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-led operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo that provide a secure environment in which the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) and the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) can function. The United Kingdom also deployed troops to Sierra Leone at a critical point in the crisis (outside United Nations operational control), providing a valuable stabilizing influence, but no developed country currently contributes troops to the most difficult United Nations-led peacekeeping operations from a security perspective, namely the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) and the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC).

105. Memories of peacekeepers murdered in Mogadishu and Kigali and taken hostage in Sierra Leone help to explain the difficulties Member States are having in convincing their national legislatures and public that they should support the deployment of their troops to United Nations-led operations, particularly in Africa. Moreover, developed States tend not to see strategic national interests at stake. The downsizing of national military forces and the growth in European regional peacekeeping initiatives further depletes the pool of well-trained and well-equipped military contingents from developed countries to serve in United Nations-led operations.

106. Thus, the United Nations is facing a very serious dilemma. A mission such as UNAMSIL would probably not have faced the difficulties that it did in spring 2000 had it been provided with forces as strong as those currently keeping the peace as part of KFOR in Kosovo. The Panel is convinced that NATO military planners would not have agreed to deploy to Sierra Leone with only the 6,000 troops initially authorized. Yet, the likelihood of a KFOR-type operation being deployed in Africa in the near future seems remote given current trends. Even if the United Nations were to attempt to deploy a KFOR-type force, it is not clear, given current standby arrangements, where the troops and equipment would come from.

107. A number of developing countries do respond to requests for peacekeeping forces with troops who serve with distinction and dedication according to very high professional standards, and in accord with new contingent-owned equipment (COE) procedures ("wet lease" agreements) adopted by the General Assembly, which provide that national troop contingents are to bring with them almost all the equipment and supplies required to sustain their troops. The United Nations commits to reimburse troop contributors for use of their equipment and to provide those services and support not covered under the new COE procedures. In return, the troop contributing nations undertake to honour the memoranda of understanding on COE procedures that they sign.

108. Yet, the Secretary-General finds himself in an untenable position. He is given a Security Council resolution specifying troop levels on paper, but without knowing whether he will be given the troops to put on the ground. The troops that eventually arrive in theatre may still be underequipped: Some countries have provided soldiers without rifles, or with rifles but no helmets, or with helmets but no flak jackets, or with no organic transport capability (trucks or troops carriers). Troops may be untrained in peacekeeping operations, and in any case the various contingents in an operation are unlikely to have trained or worked together before. Some units may have no personnel who can speak the mission language. Even if language is not a problem, they may lack common operating procedures and have differing interpretations of key elements of command and control and of the mission’s rules of engagement, and may have differing expectations about mission requirements for the use of force.

109. This must stop. Troop-contributing countries that cannot meet the terms of their memoranda of understanding should so indicate to the United Nations, and must not deploy. To that end, the Secretary-General should be given the resources and support needed to assess potential troop contributors’ preparedness prior to deployment, and to confirm that the provisions of the memoranda will be met.

110. A further step towards improving the current situation would be to give the Secretary-General a capability for assembling, on short notice, military planners, staff officers and other military technical experts, preferably with prior United Nations mission experience, to liaise with mission planners at Headquarters and to then deploy to the field with a core element from DPKO to help establish a mission’s military headquarters, as authorized by the Security Council. Using the current Standby Arrangements System, an "on-call list" of such personnel, nominated by Member States within a fair geographic distribution and carefully vetted and accepted by DPKO, could be formed for this purpose and for strengthening ongoing missions in times of crisis. Personnel assigned to this on-call list of about 100 officers would be at the rank of Major to Colonel and would be treated, upon their short-notice call-up, as United Nations military observers, with appropriate modifications.

111. Personnel selected for inclusion in the on-call list would be pre-qualified medically and administratively for deployment worldwide, would participate in advance training and would incur a commitment of up to two years for immediate deployment within 7-days notification. Every three months, the on-call list would be updated with some 10 to 15 new personnel, as nominated by Member States, to be trained during an initial three-month period. With continuous updating every three months, the on-call list would contain about five to seven teams ready for short-notice deployment. Initial team training would include at the outset a pre-qualification and education phase (brief one-week classroom and apprentice instruction in United Nations systems), followed by a hands-on professional development phase (deployment to an ongoing United Nations peacekeeping operation as a military observer team for about 10 weeks). After this initial three-month team training period, individual officers would then return to their countries and assume an on-call status.

112. Upon Security Council authorization, one or more of these teams could be called up for immediate duty. They would travel to United Nations Headquarters for refresher orientation and specific mission guidance, as necessary, and interaction with the planners of the Integrated Mission Task Force (see paras. 198-217 below) for that operation, before deploying to the field. The teams’ mission would be to translate the broad strategic-level concepts of the mission developed by IMTF into concrete operational and tactical plans, and to undertake immediate coordination and liaison tasks in advance of the deployment of troop contingents. Once deployed, an advance team would remain operational until replaced by deploying contingents (usually about 2 to 3 months, but longer if necessary, up to a six-month term).

113. Funding for a team's initial training would come from the budget of the ongoing mission in which the team is deployed for initial training, and funding for an on-call deployment would come from the prospective peacekeeping mission budget. The United Nations would incur no costs for such personnel while they were on on-call status in their home country as they would be performing normal duties in their national armed forces. The Panel recommends that the Secretary-General outline this proposal with implementing details to the Member States for immediate implementation within the parameters of the existing Standby Arrangements System.

114. Such an emergency military field planning and liaison staff capacity would not be enough, however, to ensure force coherence. In our view, in order to function as a coherent force the troop contingents themselves should at least have been trained and equipped according to a common standard, supplemented by joint planning at the contingents’ command level. Ideally, they will have had the opportunity to conduct joint training field exercises.

115. If United Nations military planners assess that a brigade (approximately 5,000 troops) is what is required to effectively deter or deal with violent challenges to the implementation of an operation’s mandate, then the military component of that United Nations operation ought to deploy as a brigade formation, not as a collection of battalions that are unfamiliar with one another’s doctrine, leadership and operational practices. That brigade would have to come from a group of countries that have been working together as suggested above to develop common training and equipment standards, common doctrine, and common arrangements for the operational control of the force. Ideally, UNSAS should contain several coherent such brigade-size forces, with the necessary enabling forces, available for full deployment to an operation within 30 days in the case of traditional peacekeeping operations and within 90 days in the case of complex operations.

116. To that end, the United Nations should establish the minimum training, equipment and other standards required for forces to participate in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Member States with the means to do so could form partnerships, within the context of UNSAS, to provide financial, equipment, training and other assistance to troop contributors from less developed countries to enable them to reach and maintain that minimum standard, with the goal that each of the brigades so established should be of comparably high quality and be able to call upon effective levels of operational support. Such a formation has been the objective of the Standing High-Readiness Brigade (SHIRBRIG) group of States, who have also established a command-level planning element that works together routinely. However, the proposed arrangement is not intended as a mechanism for relieving some States from their responsibilities to participate actively in United Nations peacekeeping operations or for precluding the participation of smaller States in such operations.

117. Summary of key recommendations on military personnel:

(a) Member States should be encouraged, where appropriate, to enter into partnerships with one another, within the context of the United Nations Standby Arrangements System (UNSAS), to form several coherent brigade-size forces, with necessary enabling forces, ready for effective deployment within 30 days of the adoption of a Security Council resolution establishing a traditional peacekeeping operation and within 90 days for complex peacekeeping operations;

(b) The Secretary-General should be given the authority to formally canvass Member States participating in UNSAS regarding their willingness to contribute troops to a potential operation once it appeared likely that a ceasefire accord or agreement envisaging an implementing role for the United Nations might be reached;

(c) The Secretariat should, as a standard practice, send a team to confirm the preparedness of each potential troop contributor to meet the provisions of the memoranda of understanding on the requisite training and equipment requirements, prior to deployment; those that do not meet the requirements must not deploy;

(d) The Panel recommends that a revolving "on-call list" of about 100 military officers be created in UNSAS to be available on seven days’ notice to augment nuclei of DPKO planners with teams trained to create a mission headquarters for a new peacekeeping operation.

118. Civilian police are second only to military forces in numbers of international personnel involved in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Demand for civilian police operations dealing with intra-State conflict is likely to remain high on any list of requirements for helping a war-torn society restore conditions for social, economic and political stability. The fairness and impartiality of the local police force, which civilian police monitor and train, is crucial to maintaining a safe and secure environment, and its effectiveness is vital where intimidation and criminal networks continue to obstruct progress on the political and economic fronts.

119. The Panel has accordingly argued (see paras. 39, 40 and 47 (b) above) for a doctrinal shift in the use of civilian police in United Nations peace operations, to focus primarily on the reform and restructuring of local police forces in addition to traditional advisory, training and monitoring tasks. This shift will require Member States to provide the United Nations with even more well-trained and specialized police experts, at a time when they face difficulties meeting current requirements. As of 1 August 2000, 25 per cent of the 8,641 police positions authorized for United Nations operations remained vacant.

120. Whereas Member States may face domestic political difficulties in sending military units to United Nations peace operations, Governments tend to face fewer political constraints in contributing their civilian police to peace operations. However, Member States still have practical difficulties doing so, because the size and configuration of their police forces tend to be tailored to domestic needs alone.

121. Under the circumstances, the process of identifying, securing the release of and training police and related justice experts for mission service is often time-consuming, and prevents the United Nations from deploying a mission’s civilian police component rapidly and effectively. Moreover, the police component of a mission may comprise officers drawn from up to 40 countries who have never met one another before, have little or no United Nations experience, and have received little relevant training or mission-specific briefings, and whose policing practices and doctrines may vary widely. Moreover, civilian police generally rotate out of operations after six months to one year. All of those factors make it extremely difficult for missions’ civilian police commissioners to transform a disparate group of officers into a cohesive and effective force.

122. The Panel therefore calls upon Member States to establish national pools of serving police officers (augmented, if necessary, by recently retired police officers who meet the professional and physical requirements) who are administratively and medically ready for deployment to United Nations peace operations, within the context of the United Nations Standby Arrangements System. The size of the pool will naturally vary with each country’s size and capacity. The Civilian Police Unit of DPKO should assist Member States in determining the selection criteria and training requirements for police officers within these pools, by identifying the specialities and expertise required and issuing common guidelines on the professional standards to be met. Once deployed in a United Nations mission, civilian police officers should serve for at least one year to ensure a minimum level of continuity.

123. The Panel believes that the cohesion of police components would be further enhanced if police-contributing States were to develop joint training exercises, and therefore recommends that Member States, where appropriate, enter into new regional training partnerships and strengthen existing ones. The Panel also calls upon Member States in a position to do so to offer assistance (e.g., training and equipment) to smaller police-contributing States to maintain the requisite level of preparedness, according to guidelines, standard operating procedures and performance standards promulgated by the United Nations.

124. The Panel also recommends that Member States designate a single point of contact within their governmental structures to be responsible for coordinating and managing the provision of police personnel to United Nations peace operations.

125. The Panel believes that the Secretary-General should be given a capability for assembling, on short notice, senior civilian police planners and technical experts, preferably with prior United Nations mission experience, to liaise with mission planners at Headquarters and to then deploy to the field to help establish a mission’s civilian police headquarters, as authorized by the Security Council, in a standby arrangement that parallels the military headquarters on-call list and its procedures. Upon call-up, members of the on-call list would have the same contractual and legal status as other civilian police in United Nations operations. The training and deployment arrangements for members of the on-call list also could be the same as those of its military counterpart. Furthermore, joint training and planning between the military and civilian police officers on the respective lists would further enhance mission cohesion and cooperation across components at the start-up of a new operation.

126. Summary of key recommendations on civilian police personnel:

(a) Member States are encouraged to each establish a national pool of civilian police officers that would be ready for deployment to United Nations peace operations on short notice, within the context of the United Nations standby arrangements system;

(b) Member States are encouraged to enter into regional training partnerships for civilian police in the respective national pools in order to promote a common level of preparedness in accordance with guidelines, standard operating procedures and performance standards to be promulgated by the United Nations;

(c) Members States are encouraged to designate a single point of contact within their governmental structures for the provision of civilian police to United Nations peace operations;

(d) The Panel recommends that a revolving on-call list of about 100 police officers and related experts be created in UNSAS to be available on seven days’ notice with teams trained to create the civilian police component of a new peacekeeping operation, train incoming personnel and give the component greater coherence at an early date;

(e) The Panel recommends that parallel arrangements to recommendations (a), (b) and (c) above be established for judicial, penal, human rights and other relevant specialists, who with specialist civilian police will make up collegial "rule of law" teams.

127. To date, the Secretariat has been unable to identify, recruit and deploy suitably qualified civilian personnel in substantive and support functions either at the right time or in the numbers required. Currently, about 50 per cent of field positions in substantive areas and up to 40 per cent of the positions in administrative and logistics areas are vacant, in missions that were established six months to one year ago and remain in desperate need of the requisite specialists. Some of those who have been deployed have found themselves in positions that do not match their previous experience, such as in the civil administration components of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and UNMIK. Furthermore, the rate of recruitment is nearly matched by the rate of departure by mission personnel fed up with the working conditions that they face, including the short-staffing itself. High vacancy and turnover rates foreshadow a disturbing scenario for the start-up and maintenance of the next complex peacekeeping operation, and hamper the full deployment of current missions. Those problems are compounded by several factors.

1. Lack of standby systems to respond to unexpected or high-volume surge demands

128. Each new complex task assigned to the new generation of peacekeeping operations creates demands that the United Nations system is not able to meet on short notice. This phenomenon first emerged in the early 1990s, with the establishment of the following operations to implement peace accords: the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), the United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL), the United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM) and the United Nations Operation in Mozambique (ONUMOZ). The system struggled to recruit experts on short notice in electoral assistance, economic reconstruction and rehabilitation, human rights monitoring, radio and television production, judicial affairs and institution-building. By mid-decade, the system had created a cadre of individuals, which had acquired on-the-job expertise in these areas, hitherto not present in the system. However, for reasons explained below, many of those individuals have since left the system.

129. The Secretariat was again taken by surprise in 1999, when it had to staff missions with responsibilities for governance in East Timor and Kosovo. Few staff within the Secretariat, or within United Nations agencies, funds or programmes possess the technical expertise and experience required to run a municipality or national ministry. Neither could Member States themselves fill the gap immediately, because they, too, had done no advance planning to identify qualified and available candidates within their national structures. Moreover, the understaffed transitional administration missions themselves took some time to even specify precisely what they required. Eventually, a few Member States offered to provide candidates (some at no cost to the United Nations) to satisfy substantial elements of the demand. However, the Secretariat did not fully avail itself of those offers, partly to avoid the resulting lopsided geographic distribution in the missions’ staffing. The idea of individual Member States taking over entire sectors of administration (sectoral responsibility) was also floated, apparently too late in the process to iron out the details. This idea is worth revisiting, at least for the provision of small teams of civil administrators with specialized expertise.

130. In order to respond quickly, ensure quality control and satisfy the volume of even foreseeable demands, the Secretariat would require the existence and maintenance of a roster of civilian candidates. The roster (which would be distinct from UNSAS) should include the names of individuals in a variety of fields, who have been actively sought out (on an individual basis or through partnerships with and/or the assistance of the members of the United Nations family, governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations), pre-vetted, interviewed, pre-selected, medically cleared and provided with the basic orientation material applicable to field mission service in general, and who have indicated their availability on short notice.

131. No such roster currently exists. As a result, urgent phone calls have to be made to Member States, United Nations departments and agencies and the field missions themselves to identify suitable candidates at the last minute, and to then expect those candidates to be in a position to drop everything overnight. Through this method, the Secretariat has managed to recruit and deploy at least 1,500 new staff over the last year, not including the managed reassignments of existing staff within the United Nations system, but quality control has suffered.

132. A central Intranet-based roster should be created, along the lines proposed above, that is accessible to and maintained by the relevant members of ECPS. The roster should include the names of their own staff whom ECPS members would agree to release for mission service. Some additional resources would be required to maintain these rosters, but accepted external candidates could be reminded automatically to update their own records via the Internet, particularly as regards availability, and they should be able to access on-line briefing and training materials via the Internet, as well. Field missions should be granted access and delegated the authority to recruit candidates from the roster, in accordance with guidelines to be promulgated by the Secretariat for ensuring fair geographic and gender distribution.

2. Difficulties in attracting and retaining the best external recruits

133. As ad hoc as the recruitment system has been, the United Nations has managed to recruit some very qualified and dedicated individuals for field assignments throughout the 1990s. They have managed ballots in Cambodia, dodged bullets in Somalia, evacuated just in time from Liberia and came to accept artillery fire in former Yugoslavia as a feature of their daily life. Yet, the United Nations system has not yet found a contractual mechanism to appropriately recognize and reward their service by offering them some job security. While it is true that mission recruits are explicitly told not to harbour false expectations about future employment because external recruits are brought in to fill a "temporary" demand, such conditions of service do not attract and retain the best performers for long. In general, there is a need to rethink the historically prevailing view of peacekeeping as a temporary aberration rather than a core function of the United Nations.

134. Thus, at least a percentage of the best external recruits should be offered longer-term career prospects beyond the limited-duration contracts that they are currently offered, and some of them should be actively recruited for positions in the Secretariat’s complex emergency departments in order to increase the number of Headquarters staff with field experience. A limited number of mission recruits have managed to secure positions at Headquarters, but apparently on an ad hoc and individual basis rather than according to a concerted and transparent strategy.

135. Proposals are currently being formulated to address this situation by enabling mission recruits who have served for four years in the field to be offered "continuing appointments", whenever possible; unlike current contracts, these would not be restricted to the duration of a specific mission mandate. Such initiatives, if adopted, would help to address the problem for those who joined the field in mid-decade and remain in the system. They might not, however, go far enough to attract new recruits, who would generally have to take up six-month to one-year assignments at a time, without necessarily knowing if there would be a position for them once the assignment had been completed. The thought of having to live in limbo for four years might be inhibiting for some of the best candidates, particularly for those with families, who have ample alternative employment opportunities (often with more competitive conditions of service). Consideration should therefore be given to offering continuing appointments to those external recruits who have served with particular distinction for at least two years in a peace operation.

3. Shortages in administrative and support functions at the mid- to senior-levels

136. Critical shortfalls in key administrative areas (procurement, finance, budget, personnel) and in logistics support areas (contracts managers, engineers, information systems analysts, logistics planners) plagued United Nations peace operations throughout the 1990s. The unique and specific nature of the Organization’s administrative rules, regulations and internal procedures preclude new recruits from taking on these administrative and logistics functions in the dynamic conditions of mission start-up, without a substantial amount of training. While ad hoc training programmes for such personnel were initiated in 1995, they have yet to be institutionalized because the most experienced individuals, the would-be trainers, could not be spared from their full-time line responsibilities. In general, training and the production of user-friendly guidance documents are the first projects to be set aside when new missions have to be staffed on an urgent basis. Accordingly, the updated version of the 1992 field administration handbook still remains in draft form.

4. Penalizing field deployment

137. Headquarters staff who are familiar with the rules, regulations and procedures do not readily deploy to the field. Staff in both administrative and substantive areas must volunteer for field duty and their managers must agree to release them. Heads of departments often discourage, dissuade and/or refuse to release their best performers for field assignments because of shortages of competent staff in their own offices, which they fear temporary replacements cannot resolve. Potential volunteers are further discouraged because they know colleagues who were passed over for promotion because they were "out of sight, out of mind." Most field operations are "non-family assignments" given security considerations, another factor which reduces the numbers of volunteers. A number of the field-oriented United Nations agencies, funds and programmes (UNHCR, the World Food Programme (WFP), UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UNDP) do have a number of potentially well qualified candidates for peacekeeping service, but also face resource constraints, and the staffing needs of their own field operations generally take first priority.

138. The Office of Human Resources Management, supported by a number of interdepartmental task forces, has proposed a series of progressive reforms that address some of these problems. They require mobility within the Secretariat, and aim to encourage rotation between Headquarters and the field by rewarding mission service during promotion considerations. They seek to reduce recruitment delays and grant full recruitment authority to heads of departments. The Panel feels it is essential that these initiatives be approved expeditiously.

5. Obsolescence in the Field Service category

139. The Field Service is the only category of staff within the United Nations designed specifically for service in peacekeeping operations (and whose conditions of service and contracts are designed accordingly and whose salaries and benefits are paid for entirely from mission budgets). It has lost much of its value, however, because the Organization has not dedicated enough resources to career development for the Field Service Officers. This category was developed in the 1950s to provide a highly mobile cadre of technical specialists to support in particular the military contingents of peacekeeping operations. As the nature of the operations changed, so too did the functions the Field Service Officers were asked to perform. Eventually, some ascended through the ranks by the late 1980s and early 1990s to assume managerial functions in the administrative and logistics components of peacekeeping operations.

140. The most experienced and seasoned of the group are now in limited supply, deployed in current missions, and many are at or near retirement. Many of those who remain lack the managerial skills or training required to effectively run the key administrative components of complex peace operations. Others’ technical knowledge is dated. Thus, the Field Service’s composition no longer matches all or many of the administrative and logistics support needs of the newer generation of peacekeeping operations. The Panel therefore encourages the urgent revision of the Field Service’s composition and raison d’etre, to better match the present and future demands of field operations, with particular emphasis on mid- to senior-level managers in key administrative and logistics areas. Staff development and training for this category of personnel, on a continual basis, should also be treated as a high priority, and the conditions of service should be revised to attract and retain the best candidates.

6. Lack of a comprehensive staffing strategy for peace operations

141. There is no comprehensive staffing strategy to ensure the right mix of civilian personnel in any operation. There are talents within the United Nations system that must be tapped, gaps to be filled through external recruitment and a range of other options that fall in between, such as the use of United Nations Volunteers, subcontracted personnel, commercial services, and nationally-recruited staff. The United Nations has turned to all of these sources of personnel throughout the past decade, but on a case-by-case basis rather than according to a global strategy. Such a strategy is required to ensure cost-effectiveness and efficiency, as well as to promote mission cohesion and staff morale.

142. This staffing strategy should address the use of United Nations Volunteers in peacekeeping operations, on a priority basis. Since 1992, more than 4,000 United Nations Volunteers have served in 19 different peacekeeping operations. Approximately 1,500 United Nations Volunteers have been assigned to new missions in East Timor, Kosovo and Sierra Leone in the last 18 months alone, in civil administration, electoral affairs, human rights, administrative and logistics support roles. United Nations Volunteers have historically proven to be dedicated and competent in their fields of work. The legislative bodies have encouraged greater use of United Nations Volunteers in peacekeeping operations based on their exemplary past performance, but using United Nations Volunteers as a form of cheap labour risks corrupting the programme and can be damaging to mission morale. Many United Nations Volunteers work alongside colleagues who are making three or four times their salary for similar functions. DPKO is currently in discussion with the United Nations Volunteers Programme on the conclusion of a global memorandum of understanding for the use of United Nations Volunteers in peacekeeping operations. It is essential that such a memorandum be part of a broader comprehensive staffing strategy for peace operations.

143. This strategy should also include, in particular, detailed proposals for the establishment of a Civilian Standby Arrangements System (CSAS). CSAS should contain a list of personnel within the United Nations system who have been pre-selected, medically cleared and committed by their parent offices to join a mission start-up team on 72 hours’ notice. The relevant members of the United Nations family should be delegated authority and responsibility, for occupational groups within their respective expertise, to initiate partnerships and memoranda of understanding with intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, for the provision of personnel to supplement mission start-up teams drawn from within the United Nations system.

144. The fact that responsibility for developing a global staffing strategy and civilian standby arrangements has rested solely within the Field Administration and Logistics Division (FALD), acting on its own initiative whenever there are a few moments to spare, is itself an indication that the Secretariat has not dedicated enough attention to this critical issue. The staffing of a mission, from the top down, is perhaps one of the most important building blocks for successful mission execution. This subject should therefore be accorded the highest priority by the Secretariat’s senior management.

145. Summary of key recommendations on civilian specialists:

(a) The Secretariat should establish a central Internet/Intranet-based roster of pre-selected civilian candidates available to deploy to peace operations on short notice. The field missions should be granted access to and delegated authority to recruit candidates from it, in accordance with guidelines on fair geographic and gender distribution to be promulgated by the Secretariat;

(b) The Field Service category of personnel should be reformed to mirror the recurrent demands faced by all peace operations, especially at the mid- to senior-levels in the administrative and logistics areas;

(c) Conditions of service for externally recruited civilian staff should be revised to enable the United Nations to attract the most highly qualified candidates, and to then offer those who have served with distinction greater career prospects;

(d) DPKO should formulate a comprehensive staffing strategy for peace operations, outlining, among other issues, the use of United Nations Volunteers, standby arrangements for the provision of civilian personnel on 72 hours’ notice to facilitate mission start-up, and the divisions of responsibility among the members of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security for implementing that strategy.

146. An effective public information and communications capacity in mission areas is an operational necessity for virtually all United Nations peace operations. Effective communication helps to dispel rumour, to counter disinformation and to secure the cooperation of local populations. It can provide leverage in dealing with leaders of rival groups, enhance security of United Nations personnel and serve as a force multiplier. It is thus essential that every peace operation formulate public information campaign strategies, particularly for key aspects of a mission’s mandate, and that such strategies and the personnel required to implement them be included in the very first elements deployed to help start up a new mission.

147. Field missions need competent spokespeople who are integrated into the senior management team and project its daily face to the world. To be effective, the spokesperson must have journalistic experience and instincts, and knowledge of how both the mission and United Nations Headquarters work. He or she must also enjoy the confidence of the SRSG and establish good relationship with other members of the mission leadership. The Secretariat must therefore increase its efforts to develop and retain a pool of such personnel.

148. United Nations field operations also need to be able to speak effectively to their own people, to keep staff informed of mission policy and developments and to build links between components and both up and down the chain of command. New information technology provides effective tools for such communications, and should be included in the start-up kits and equipment reserves at UNLB in Brindisi.

149. Resources devoted to public information and the associated personnel and information technology required to get an operation’s message out and build effective internal communications links, which now infrequently exceed one per cent of a mission’s operating budget, should be increased in accordance with a mission’s mandate, size and needs.

150. Summary of key recommendation on rapidly deployable capacity for public information: additional resources should be devoted in mission budgets to public information and the associated personnel and information technology required to get an operation’s message out and build effective internal communications links.

151. The depletion of the United Nations reserve of equipment, long lead-times even for systems contracts, bottlenecks in the procurement process and delays in obtaining cash in hand to conduct procurement in the field further constrain the rapid deployment and effective functioning of missions that do actually manage to reach authorized staffing levels. Without effective logistics support, missions cannot function effectively.

152. The lead-times required for the United Nations to provide field missions with basic equipment and commercial services required for mission start-up and full deployment are dictated by the United Nations procurement process. That process is governed by the Financial Regulations and Rules promulgated by the General Assembly and the Secretariat’s interpretations of those regulations and rules (known as "policies and procedures" in United Nations parlance). The regulations, rules, policies and procedures have been translated into a roughly eight-step process that Headquarters must follow to provide field missions with the equipment and services it requires, as follows:

1. Identify the requirements and raise a requisition.

2. Certify that finances are available to procure the item.

3. Initiate an invitation to bid (ITB) or request for proposal (RFP).

4. Evaluate tenders.

5. Present cases to the Headquarters Committee on Contracts (HCC).

6. Award a contract and place an order for production.

7. Await production of the item.

8. Deliver the item to the mission.

153. Most governmental organizations and commercial companies follow similar processes, though not all of them take as long as that of the United Nations. For example, this entire process in the United Nations can take 20 weeks in the case of office furniture, 17 to 21 weeks for generators, 23 to 27 weeks for prefabricated buildings, 27 weeks for heavy vehicles and 17 to 21 weeks for communications equipment. Naturally, none of these lead-times enable full mission deployment within the timelines suggested if the majority of the processes are commencing only after an operation has been established.

154. The United Nations launched the "start-up kit" concept during the boom in peacekeeping operations in the mid-1990s to partially address this problem. The start-up kits contain the basic equipment required to establish and sustain a 100-person mission headquarters for the first 100 days of deployment, pre-purchased, packaged and waiting and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice at Brindisi. Assessed contributions from the mission to which the kits are deployed are then used to reconstitute new start-up kits, and once liquidated a mission’s non-disposable and durable equipment is returned to Brindisi and held in reserve, in addition to the start-up kits.

155. However, the wear and tear on light vehicles and other items in post-war environments may sometimes render the shipping and servicing costs more expensive than selling off the item or cannibalizing it for parts and then purchasing a new item altogether. Thus, the United Nations has moved towards auctioning such items in situ more frequently, although the Secretariat is not authorized to use the funds acquired through this process to purchase new equipment but must return it to Member States. Consideration should be given to enabling the Secretariat to use the funds acquired through these means to purchase new equipment to be held in reserve at Brindisi. Furthermore, consideration should also be given to a general authorization for field missions to donate, in consultation with the United Nations resident coordinator, at least a percentage of such equipment to reputable local non-governmental organizations as a means of assisting the development of nascent civil society.

156. Nonetheless, the existence of these start-up kits and reserves of equipment appears to have greatly facilitated the rapid deployment of the smaller operations mounted in the mid-to-late 1990s. However, the establishment and expansion of new missions has now outpaced the closure of existing operations, so that UNLB has been virtually depleted of the long lead-time items required for full mission deployment. Unless one of the large operations currently in place closes down today and its equipment is all shipped to UNLB in good condition, the United Nations will not have in hand the equipment required to support the start-up and rapid full deployment of a large mission in the near future.

157. There are, of course, limits to how much equipment the United Nations can and should keep in reserve at UNLB or elsewhere. Mechanical equipment in storage needs to be maintained, which can be an expensive proposition, and if not addressed properly can result in missions receiving long awaited items that are inoperable. Furthermore, the commercial and public sectors at the national level have moved increasingly towards "just-in-time" inventory and/or "just-in-time delivery" because of the high opportunity costs of keeping funds tied up in equipment that may not be deployed for some time. Furthermore, the current pace of technological advancements renders certain items, such as communications equipment and information systems hardware, obsolete within a matter of months, let alone years.

158. The United Nations has accordingly also moved in that direction over the past few years, and has concluded some 20 standing commercial systems contracts for the provision of common equipment for peace operations, particularly those required for mission start-up and expansion. Under the systems contracts, the United Nations has been able to cut down lead-times considerably by selecting the vendors ahead of time, and keeping them on standby for production requests. Nevertheless, the production of light vehicles under the current systems contract takes 14 weeks and requires an additional four weeks for delivery.

159. The General Assembly has taken a number of steps to address this lead-time issue. The establishment of the Peacekeeping Reserve Fund, which when fully capitalized amounts to $150 million, provided a standing pool of money from which to draw quickly. The Secretary-General can seek the approval of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) to draw up to $50 million from the Fund to facilitate the start-up of a new mission or for unforeseen expansion of an existing one. The Fund is then replenished from the mission budgets once it has been approved or increased. For commitment requests in excess of $50 million, the General Assembly’s approval is required.

160. In exceptional cases, the General Assembly, on the advice of ACABQ, has granted the Secretary-General authority to commit up to $200 million in spending to facilitate the start-up of larger missions (UNTAET, UNMIK and MONUC), pending submission of the necessary detailed budget proposals, which can take months of preparation. These are all welcome developments and are indicative of the Member States’ support for enhancing the Organization’s rapid deployment capacities.

161. At the same time, all of these developments are only applicable after a Security Council resolution has been adopted authorizing the establishment of a mission or its advance elements. Unless some of these measures are applied well in advance of the desired date of mission deployment or are modified to help and maintain a minimum reserve of equipment requiring long lead-times to procure, the suggested targets for rapid and effective deployment cannot be met.

162. The Secretariat should thus formulate a global logistics support strategy to enable rapid and effective mission deployment within the deployment timelines proposed. That strategy should be formulated based on a cost-benefit analysis of the appropriate level of long lead-time items that should be kept in reserve and those best acquired through standing contracts, factoring in the cost of compressed delivery times, as required, to support such a strategy. The substantive elements of the peace and security departments would need to give logistics planners an estimate of the number and types of operations that might need to be established over 12 to 18 months. The Secretary-General should submit periodically to the General Assembly, for its review and approval, a detailed proposal for implementing that strategy, which could entail considerable financial implications.

163. In the interim, the General Assembly should authorize and approve a one-time expenditure for the creation of three new start-up kits at Brindisi (for a total of five), which would then automatically be replenished from the budgets of the missions that drew upon the kits.

164. The Secretary-General should be given authority to draw up to $50 million from the Peacekeeping Reserve Fund, prior to the adoption of a Security Council resolution authorizing a mission’s establishment but with the approval of ACABQ, to facilitate the rapid and effective deployment of operations within the proposed timelines. The Fund should be automatically replenished from assessed contributions to the missions that used it. The Secretary-General should request that the General Assembly consider augmenting the size of the Fund, should he determine that it had been depleted due to the establishment of a number of missions in rapid succession.

165. Well beyond mission start-up, the field missions often wait for months to receive items that they need, particularly when initial planning assumptions prove to be inaccurate or mission requirements change in response to new developments. Even if such items are available locally, there are several constraints on local procurement. First, field missions have limited flexibility and authority, for example, to quickly transfer savings from one line item in a budget to another to meet unforeseen demands. Second, missions are generally delegated procurement authority for no more than $200,000 per purchase order. Purchases above that amount must be referred to Headquarters and its eight-step decision process (see para. 152 above).

166. The Panel supports measures that reduce Headquarters micro-management of the field missions and provide them with the authority and flexibility required to maintain mission credibility and effectiveness, while at the same time holding them accountable. Where Headquarters’ involvement adds real value, however, as with respect to standing contracts, Headquarters should retain procurement responsibility.

167. Statistics from the Procurement Division indicate that of the 184 purchase orders raised by Headquarters in 1999 in support of peacekeeping operations, for values of goods and services between US$ 200,000 and US$ 500,000, 93 per cent related to aircraft and shipping services, motor vehicles and computers, which were either handled through international tenders or are currently covered under systems contracts. Provided that systems contracts are activated quickly and result in the timely provision of goods and services, it appears that the Headquarters’ involvement in those instances makes good sense. The systems contracts and international tenders presumably enable bulk purchases of items and services more cheaply than would be possible locally, and in many instances involve goods and services not available in the mission areas at all.

168. However, it is not entirely clear what real value Headquarters involvement adds to the procurement process for those goods and services that are not covered under systems contracts or standing commercial services contracts and are more readily available locally at cheaper prices. In such instances, it would make sense to delegate the authority to the field to procure those items, and to monitor the process and its financial controls through the audit mechanism. Accordingly, the Secretariat should assign priority to building capacity in the field to assume a higher level of procurement authority as quickly as possible (e.g., through recruitment and training of the appropriate field personnel and the production of user-friendly guidance documents) for all goods and services that are available locally and not covered under systems contracts or standing commercial services contracts (up to US$ 1 million, depending on mission size and needs).

169. Summary of key recommendations on logistics support and expenditure management:

(a) The Secretariat should prepare a global logistics support strategy to enable rapid and effective mission deployment within the timelines proposed and corresponding to planning assumptions established by the substantive offices of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations;

(b) The General Assembly should authorize and approve a one-time expenditure to maintain at least five mission start-up kits in Brindisi, which should include rapidly deployable communications equipment. The start-up kits should then be routinely replenished with funding from the assessed contributions to the operations that drew on them;

(c) The Secretary-General should be given authority to draw up to US$ 50 million from the Peacekeeping Reserve Fund once it became clear that an operation was likely to be established, with the approval of ACABQ but prior to the adoption of a Security Council resolution;

(d) The Secretariat should undertake a review of the entire procurement policies and procedures (with proposals to the General Assembly for amendments to the Financial Rules and Regulations, as required), to facilitate in particular the rapid and full deployment of an operation within the proposed timelines;

(e) The Secretariat should conduct a review of the policies and procedures governing the management of financial resources in the field missions with a view to providing field missions with much greater flexibility in the management of their budgets;

(f) The Secretariat should increase the level of procurement authority delegated to the field missions (from $200,000 to as high as $1 million, depending on mission size and needs) for all goods and services that are available locally and are not covered under systems contracts or standing commercial services contracts.