"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 it is the yardstick with which the Organization is judged by the peoples it exists to serve...Without renewed commitment on the part of Member States, significant institutional change and increased financial support, the United Nations will not be capable of executing the critical peacekeeping and peace-building tasks that the Member States assign to it in coming months and years."
Executive Summary Brahimi Report, 21 August 2000

A distinguished group, the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, was asked by Secretary General Kofi Annan to outline the processes and changes which shall enable and allow the United Nations to be better prepared to meet the challenges of Peacekeeping facing the Member States and the United Nations in the 21st Century. The Brahimi Report seeks pragmatic and practical solutions to matters related to peacekeeping today and as such must be both referred to and placed in this context. It does not claim to be an inclusive solution of global conflicts rather it should be taken as a starting point in any discussion or process towards the management of global conflict.

The Brahimi Report focuses on:

• Shortcomings in the existing system.

• Frank and realistic recommendations for change.

• Political and strategic issues.

• Operational and Organizational issues.

Calls for:

• Clear, strong and sustained political support from Member States.

• The fundamental ability to project credible force.

• Political will to support the United Nations politically, financially and operationally to enable the United Nations to be a truly credible force for peace.

Peace operations and conflicts
Calls for:

• Member States and the UN must develop more effective strategies for the prevention of conflict.

• The use of fact finding missions in areas of tension.

• The recognition and support of the role of peace-building in the transition from war to peace in complex peace operations.

• The UN system to address the deficiencies in the way it has conceived of, funded and implemented peace-building strategies and activities.

• The member states to strengthen the permanent capacity of the UN to develop strategies and to implement programs in support of those strategies.

• A doctrinal shift in the use of civilian police and related rule of law elements with regard to complex operations; a team approach which collectively manages the conflicts.

• The inclusion of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programs into the assessed budgets of complex peace operations in their first phase and flexibility in terms of their funding and operation.

• Better integration of electoral assistance into a broader strategy for the support of governance institutions.

Doctrine and mandates
Calls for:

• The consent of local parties, impartiality and the use of force only in self-defense should remain as principles of peacekeeping.

• Impartiality means adherence to the principles of the Charter not necessarily equal treatment of all parties to the conflict.

• The UN must be able to respond effectively to the challenges that pertain to complex peace operations.

• UN military units must be able to defend themselves, other mission components and the mission mandate.

• Rules of engagement must be robust enough not to cede the initiative to their attackers.

• The Secretariat should not simply apply best case deployment assumptions to peace operations.

• Mandates should specify an operations authority to use force.

• The UN should have bigger forces and better equipment - this is more costly but a more effective deterrent.

• Complex peace operations to have field intelligence and other capabilities for effective defense.

• UN peacekeeping missions to be given a broad and explicit mandate for civilian protection and the necessary resources to enable this function.

• UN planning for peace operations should be contingent upon what is needed not on what the Security Council wants.

• Security Council mandates should reflect the clarity peace operations require for unity of effort.

• Security Council mandates should remain in draft form until the Secretary General has confirmation of sufficient troop and equipment commitments from Member States to properly implement the resolution.

• Contributing states to peace operations to be invited to consult with the Security Council, and for the establishment of subsidiary or ad hoc organs to address this process.

Strategic analysis and intelligence
Calls for:

• A new information-gathering and analysis entity to be created.

• This body to support the analytical needs of the Secretary-General and members of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security (ECPS). It is proposed as the ECPS

• Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat (EISAS). The EISAS is to develop databases, distribute information, generate policy analyses, formulate long term strategies for ECPS.

Mission leadership
Calls for:

• The assembly of the mission's leadership of a new mission as early as possible at UNHQ to fully engage the broad issues and foci of peace operations.

• The creation of a comprehensive list of potential leadership candidates representative in terms of both geography and gender.

Rapid reaction capacity
Calls for:

• The UN to define 'rapid and effective deployment capacity' as the ability to fully deploy traditional peacekeeping operations within 30 days of the adoption of a Security Council resolution, and within 90 days in the case of complex operations.

• The UN standby arrangements system (UNSAS) be deployed further to include several coherent, multinational, brigade-size forces.

• The Member States working in partnership to provide the necessary enabling forces.

• The Secretariat to measure the readiness of the troop contributors and equipment requirements prior to deployment.

• An 'on call list' created within the UNSAS of 100 experienced military officers, should be created.

• The officers to be deployable within 7 days notice.

• They are to act as core staff in the translation of HQ strategy into operational and tactical planning for the peace operations.

• Parallel on-call lists of civilian police, international judicial experts, penal experts and human rights experts should be developed and also should be part of UNSAS.

• Formation of national 'pools' of personnel to cater to the high demand for civilian police and related criminal justice/rule of law expertise. This can be further augmented through regional partnerships and programs.

• The development of a transparent decentralized recruitment mechanism, the improved retention of civilian specialists and the creation of standby rapid reaction arrangements.

• Peacekeeping budgeting and procurement to be moved from the Department of Management and to be placed in the DPKO.

• A new and distinct body of field procurement policies and procedures.

• A global logistics support strategy for stockpiling of equipment reserves and standing contracts with the private sector. The availability of 'start up kits' to be maintained at the UN Logistics base in Brindisi, Italy.

• $50M to be made available to the Secretary General to commit in advance of a SC resolution when it is clear that an operation is needed.

Enhance UNHQ capacity
Calls for:

• Peacekeeping to be treated as a core activity of the UN.

• The majority of peacekeeping resource requirements to be funded through the UN regular budget.

• An increase to the HQ support funding, at present it is only approximately 2% of peacekeeping costs.

• A change to the shortfall in terms of staff HQ support for field operations, the present ratio of HQ staff to field staff is inadequate; 32 officers: 27,000 troops; 9 civilian police officers: 8600 in the field; 15 political desk officers: 14 operations. Only 1.25% of the total costs of peacekeeping is attributable to HQ administrative and logistic support.

Integrated Mission Task Forces
Calls for:

• IMTFs to be created from staff throughout the UN system to help with HQ support for the field.

• The Military and Civilian Police Division to be reorganized into two separate divisions.

• The Lessons Learned Unit and elements of the Department of Political Affairs to be moved into the DPKO Office of Operations.

• The role of the UNHCR is to become more integrated within peace operations.

Information Age
Calls for:

• HQ needs to develop a strong responsibility center for user-level IT strategy and policy in peace operations.

• The development of a Peace Operations Extranet.