Review of the Peacebuilding Fund (original) (raw)
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While demand for international peacebuilding assistance increases around the world, the UN’s Peacebuilding Architecture (PBA) remains a largely ineffective and marginal player in the peacebuilding field. There are many reasons for the PBA’s shortcomings, including its original design, the Security Council’s uneasy relations with the Peacebuilding Commission, turf battles within the UN system, and the changing nature of conflicts that require for peacebuilding interventions. In its current incarnation, the likelihood of the PBC becoming a critical player in peacebuilding—even for second or third level conflicts—is very slim. It simply does not have the political clout, the expertise or the resources to assert itself. Yet, for the international community, the opportunity cost of keeping the PBA afloat in its current form is quite high. This is an unsustainable state of affairs. This paper examines various options for making the PBA a more effective instrument of conflict management and peacebuilding.
This article examines three levels – policies, programs, and philosophies – and two types – cognitive and normative – of ideas in the policy discourse around the formation of the United Nations (UN) Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), using discursive institutionalism. This study of ideas helped explain this important global policy change and identify causal factors behind it. Underlying the policy ideas for the PBC and several antecedents, failed peacebuilding proposals were programmatic ideas about what peacebuilding was, whether it was relief, development, or security, and whether it should include prevention. A major questioning of ideas at the philosophical level, sparked by the 9/11 attacks and the 2002–2003 Iraq crisis, created the conditions under which the PBC policy idea could be brought forward. Tracing normative as well as cognitive ideas also helped explain policy change, by identifying policy actors’ motivations behind the policy proposals. Normative ideas were about what was wrong in post-conflict countries, including peacekeeping disasters, largescale refugee and internally displaced persons (IDP) situations, a purportedly high rate of relapse into conflict, northern concerns about failed states, and southern concerns about a strong UN Security Council (UNSC). They also drove the particular policy proposals, including that for a small PBC with preventive functions and reporting only to the UNSC, and for the later removal of preventive functions, addition of General Assembly members to the PBC, and reporting to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
Between a Rock and a Hard Place Recognizing the Primacy of Politics in UN Peacebuilding
This study asks whether the United Nations system is capable of conducting peacebuilding in contested intra-state settings. At the core is the dichotomy be- tween the political and the non-political parts of the UN, and the question of the degree to which the non-political parts can conduct peacebuilding irrespec- tive of Security Council backing. To explore this question, this study first reviews key peacebuilding actors and authority structures within the UN Secretariat and across the UN system. Secondly, it provides an in-depth assessment of the on- going reform process of the UN peacebuilding architecture. The analysis traces the process by which the reasoning on peacebuilding best practices and related reforms have shifted from developmental and structural notions towards an en- gagement with political negotiation and mediation. The argument holds that the UN’s perennial pre-occupation with improving peacebuilding coherence and coordination across its bodies and specialized agencies is bound up with the attempt to project greater political leverage vis-à-vis host state governments. In this regard, while the Peacebuilding Commission as an inter-governmental advi- sory body has so far failed to deliver on its promises in linking the political and non-political parts of the UN, it has helped bring about a re-politicized under- standing of the role of UN peacebuilders across the organization. More recently, the discussion on peacebuilding reform appears to have come full circle by ac- knowledging the fundamental dilemma of conducting intra-state peacebuilding in ‘non-cooperative’ environments as a challenge to be addressed at the political level of intergovernmental cooperation rather than through the non-political parts of the UN system.
Pooled funding is increasingly seen as an important component of efforts to improve aid effectiveness by harmonising aid activities. This review was commissioned by the UNDG/ECHA Task Team on Financing for Transition to: a) clarify how pooled funds can contribute to aid effectiveness in post-conflict transition situations and through that to improved aid flows and 2) recommend improvements in current systems, procedures and policies to donors and agencies. This report examines 15 funds in some detail: United Nations (UN)- and World Bank- administered funds as well as funds managed by the private sector and/or bilateral donors. The review focuses on four issues relating to aid effectiveness: ownership, coordination, risk management and mitigation, and speed and flexibility of response. Drawing on the findings in each of these areas, the review team identifies a number of policy level considerations that should be taken into account when seeking to strengthen the aid effectiveness of pooled funding. Pooled funding mechanisms can take many forms but as defined in the review‟s ToR, they all utilise donor contributions against a set of common objectives and activities approved by a joint governing mechanism. The review has identified four categories of funds (Box ES-1) based on their structure and the rules that govern their financing, with most of the funds surveyed falling into Categories II and III. There is a significant difference in the governance structures of these categories of funds, with important implications for ownership and capacity building and hence aid effectiveness. National actors generally are not included in the decision-making bodies of Category I funds, although they may be part of priority setting exercises. In Category II, III and IV funds, national actors are included in decision-making structures (although the rapid response modalities of Category III and IV funds (for example, the Immediate Response Facility (IRF) of the PBF) are less participatory in that the fund Steering Committee tends to play no role in project development or approval). Similarly, the guiding strategies of Category I funds are developed primarily by the international community while national actors and strategies play a larger role in determining the guiding strategies of Category II, III and IV funds. (Disbursements from Category IV funds are based on projects/project portfolios, not strategies.)
State feminism going global: Norway on the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission
Cooperation and Conflict, 2014
This article examines the role played by small states in the promotion or reinforcement of new ideas and emerging norms within international society. More specifically, it examines the role played by Norway in reinforcing the normative framework of 'women, peace and security', with a particular view to Norway's first period of membership in the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission. Norway is regarded internationally as one of the lead countries in terms of promoting women's rights in relation to peace and security. The article discusses four possible reasons that may explain Norway's apparent suitability and effectiveness as a norm entrepreneur in this particular issue-area.