Contemporary UN peace operations are expected to implement ambitious protection of civilians (POC) mandates while supporting host states through conflict prevention, peacemaking, and peacebuilding strategies. Reconciling these people-oriented POC mandates and the state-centric logic of UN-mandated interventions ranks among the greatest challenges facing peace operations today.This report explores how peace operations implement POC mandates when […]
Read moreProtection of Civilians
IPI’s protection of civilians (POC) program, launched in December 2017, focuses on issues related to the protection of civilians in the context of UN peace operations. Through this program, IPI supports the UN Secretariat in analyzing the challenges facing peace operations mandated to protect civilians and adapting policy and practice to improve the delivery of POC mandates. Since 2021, IPI has been examining protection efforts beyond the Department for Peace Operations (DPO), including the role of special political missions in protection and priorities for the UN Agenda for Protection.
IPI provides a space to gather member states, UN officials from headquarters and field missions, and researchers to build a common understanding of POC in the context of UN peace operations and across the UN system. Through research, convening, and outreach activities, IPI’s POC project seeks to provide lessons learned from the field and support the Secretariat in analyzing the challenges facing the UN system in:
- Fulfilling its protection mandates, including in peace operations and beyond;
- Leveraging its capacity to support protection actors in various contexts; and
- Developing a coherent institutional approach to protection.
IPI has published numerous issue briefs and policy papers on specific POC challenges, policy issues, and country-specific situations. Topics of recent publications have included UN peacekeeping and protection of civilians from sexual and gender-based violence; policy, strategic, and operational priorities for the UN Agenda for Protection; EU, UN, and NATO approaches to POC; and fighters.
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“When a mission fails to protect civilians, that calls into question the credibility of the entire peacekeeping undertaking and the credibility of the United Nations,” said Valentine Rugwabiza, Permanent Representative of Rwanda to the UN. “We’ve seen that. This is what is at stake.”Geraldine Byrne Nason, the Permanent Representative of Ireland to the UN, agreed, […]
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How COVID-19 and measures to curb its spread have amplified the vulnerabilities of civilians caught in conflict and raised new challenges for protection actors like humanitarian workers, peacekeepers, and human rights defenders was the subject of a May 28th IPI virtual policy forum. Co-hosting the event with IPI were the United Nations Office for the […]
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“Policing is about interaction, and if you are looking for lasting sustainable peace, then interaction, engagement, conversation, dialogue are very important. It is policing that enables this political process,” said Boniface Rutikanga, a former United Nations peacekeeper and now police adviser to the Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the UN.Mr. Rutikanga was speaking to a […]
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Since first deployed in 1960, United Nations police (UNPOL) have consistently been present in UN missions and have become increasingly important to achieving mission objectives. Since 1999, these objectives have often included the protection of civilians (POC), especially in places like the Central African Republic, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, and South […]
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When the Security Council mandated the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone to protect civilians in 1999, there was neither a clear definition of POC (protection of civilians) nor a way to account for action peacekeepers had taken to protect civilians. Over the last two decades, the UN Secretariat and peacekeeping missions in the […]
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The United Nations agendas for Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) and for Protection of Civilians (POC) both deal with protecting vulnerable populations. The comparison of these two agendas and opportunities to enhance protection were the focus of a November 1st IPI-Canada roundtable discussion, held under the Chatham House rule of non-attribution.Discussants expressed concern that protection […]
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The G5 Sahel Joint Force was launched in 2017 by Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Chad, and Mali to unite their efforts to address common security threats in the region. In a resolution authorizing the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) to provide operational and logistical support to the force, the United Nations Security Council […]
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Twenty years ago, the United Nations Security Council established the first explicit Protection of Civilians (POC) mandate, resolving that the UN peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone afford protection to civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.On May 22nd, during the week in which the Security Council held its annual POC open debate, IPI, in partnership […]
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In recent years, the UN and its member states have promoted comprehensive approaches and integrated structures and processes to improve coherence and consistency between political peacekeeping, humanitarian, human rights, and development efforts undertaken by the UN and its partners. For POC specifically, coordination between the military, police, and civilian components of peace operations; between peace […]
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