Ten years ago the UN Secretary-General pledged to intensify efforts to move from a culture of reaction to a culture of prevention. In 2005, heads of state and government at the UN World Summit solemnly renewed their commitment “to promote a culture of prevention of armed conflict.”
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In September 2011, the office of the UN Secretary-General released its first report focused specifically on preventive diplomacy; the report was subsequently discussed at the Security Council. This paper aims to contribute to these ongoing discussions by providing a primer on the UN’s work on conflict prevention and ideas for improvement.This report seeks to answer […]
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Elections have facilitated the emergence of democratic governments in Africa, and, in some cases, more stable societies have emerged. In some other cases, however, elections have been manipulated to legitimize autocratic regimes or to ensure dynastic successions on the continent.
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While this is an exciting period for the people of South Sudan, the future presents them (and their neighbors in the North) with many difficult challenges. The status of Abyei and postreferendum issues between North and South—such as citizenship, oil sharing, border demarcation, currency, and debts, among others—are yet to be resolved.
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The mass arrival and prolonged presence of refugees in neighboring countries can have a negative impact on peace. Yet the issue of refugees has entered very little into contemporary discussions of peacebuilding.
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The current configuration of the Security Council has produced widespread speculation regarding the impact the new non-permanent members–some with aspirations for permanent seats–will have on the tone and substance of the Council’s work this year.
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On January 9, 2011, Sudan is scheduled to hold two referenda in accordance with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the twenty-two-year civil war between north and south. This issue brief highlights the main actors and challenges in the referenda preparations.
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The International Peace Institute (IPI) has undertaken a project called Understanding Local Context, which aims to enhance our understanding of how international actors grapple with local context and political dynamics in partner countries.
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In spite of positive indications, the challenges ahead for developing more effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) methodologies for peace operations are considerable.There are still many institutional, bureaucratic, and conceptual barriers that need to be overcome — or at least managed better — in order for significant progress to be made.This report is the product of […]
Read moreLast week, at least 15 people died in protests demanding UN peacekeepers leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The week before, the military junta ruling Mali halted troop rotations for the UN mission there and ejected the…
Member states agreed to an overall increase in the peacekeeping budget for the first time in…
Looking at green water, the rainwater available to plants, shows that freshwater’s ability to sustain a stable Earth system is even more threatened than…
The UN Security Council does not have the luxury of choosing between normative imperatives associated with preventing…
Despite the instability it faces, Guinea-Bissau—alongside countries like Madagascar, Chad, or the…
There are a number of reasons why it is difficult for…
Without a corresponding political process, UN protection activities are an ineffective bandaid in situations of…
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The International Peace Institute is an independent, international not-for-profit think tank with a staff representing more than 20 nationalities, located in New York across from United Nations headquarters. IPI is dedicated to promoting the prevention and resolution of conflicts between and within states by strengthening international peace and security institutions. To achieve its purpose, IPI employs a mix of policy research, convening, publishing and outreach.
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