United Nations: Civilian Capacity in the Aftermath of Conflict
In the United Nations context, this issue of civilian capacities became a priority when the UN Secretary-General’s 2009 report on ‘Peacebuilding in the Immediate Aftermath of Conflict’ pointed out that ‘a review needs to be undertaken that would analyse how the UN and the international community can help to broaden and deepen the pool of civilian experts to support the immediate capacity development needs of countries emerging from conflict’. In 2010, the Secretary-General tasked a senior advisory group, led by former chief for UN Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Marie Guéhenno.
After taking stock and consultations, the group delivered Report of the Independent Review of Civilian Capacity in the Aftermath of Conflict to the Secretary-General in 2011, which was subsequently shared with the UN Security Council and General Assembly. The Secretary-General followed up and released his own reports on the issue in August 2011 and September 2012. He tasked Susana Malcorra, then Under Secretary-General for the UN Department of Field Support, and now Chef de Cabinet for the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, to follow up the recommendations contained in his report. As one of the concrete outputs of this implementation process, the UN launched an online portal CAPMATCH during the General Assembly in September 2012.
NUPI has supported this process from its inception. NUPI provide inputs and support to the Secretary-General’s senior advisory group, and arranged an international consultation with the training and rostering community in 2010 in Addis Ababa, so that technical experts from this group could provide inputs to the independent review. NUPI was also commissioned by the UN Civilian Capacity Team to undertake a study of the NGO roster sector. In 2011 NUPI again convened a meeting of the international training and rostering group in New York to comment on the senior advisory group’s report. In 2012 NUPI convened a further meeting of the international training and rostering group in New York to comment on the CAPMATCH tool.
NUPI also produced a number of policy briefs and research papers over this period in support of this process:
- List of Policy Briefs and publications
During 2012, as a follow-up to the UN Secretary-General’s report on civilian capacities, regional consultations have been arranged in Asia, Africa, and the Arab world, and a future consultation is planned for Latin America at the end of 2012/beginning of 2013. NUPI has contributed to these regional consultations with inputs on various panels. Regional consultations have so far been arranged in Indonesia, South Africa and Morocco.
Activities
- 10 Sep 2012: John Karlsrud presented “Triangular cooperation supporting civilian capacity development” on Panel 6: “Practical Issues in Mobilizing National Capacities and Joint Cooperation” at the Strengthening Partnerships for Civilian Capacities in the Arab World in the Aftermath of Conflict , Civilian Capacities Regional Consultation, Rabat 10-11, September 2012. Hosted by the Governments of Morocco, Norway and Qatar, in collaboration with the League of Arab States, and with the support of the United Nations.
This work is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This work has been undertaken under the auspices of the Training for Peace Programme.