Researcher
Cedric H. de Coning
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Summary
Cedric de Coning is a Research Professor in the Research Group on Peace, Conflict and Development at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
His research focuses on how the United Nations and other multilateral institutions can more effectively sustain peace and security, with particular attention to mediation, peace operations and peacebuilding.
Drawing on complexity theory, he developed Adaptive Peace, a framework for sustaining peace and security amid the uncertainty of an increasingly turbulent global order. At NUPI he leads several international research projects on climate, peace and security, on artificial intelligence in peace and security, and on the effectiveness of peace operations.
He also contributes to the Training for Peace programme and the UN Peace and Stabilisation Operations project. He is a senior advisor to ACCORD and Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal on Conflict Resolution. A former South African diplomat and UN peacekeeper, he has served in various advisory roles with the African Union and the United Nations, including on the Secretary-General's Advisory Board for the UN Peacebuilding Fund.
Expertise
Education
2012 PhD, Applied Ethics, Department of Philosophy, University of Stellenbosch
2005 M.A., Conflict Management and Peace Studies, University of KwaZula-Natal
Work Experience
2020- Research Professor, NUPI
2012-2020 Senior Researcher, NUPI
2006-2012 Researcher, NUPI
2002- Senior Advisor (Consultant), ACCORD
2002 Training Officer, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO)
2001-2002 Political Affairs Officer, Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET)
2001 Civil Affairs Officer, Office of District Affairs, UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET)
2000 Assistant Director: Programmes, ACCORD
1999-2000 Civil Affairs Officer, Bobonaro District UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET)
1997-1999 Programme Manager: Peacekeeping, ACCORD
1988-1997 Assistant Director, Department of Foreign Affairs, Pretoria, South Africa
Aktivitet
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Clear all filtersCOVID-19 and the African Union. Challenges, prospects and side-effects
The African Union is coordinating the effort to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Africa, but the measures introduced are also significantly disrupting the reforms, programmes and operations of the AU.
Multilateral cooperation in the area of climate-related security and development risks in Africa
Over the past decade the impact of climate change on people’s everyday lives have become tangible. Its effects have contributed to loss of human life, it has undermined livelihoods, destroyed infrastructure, harmed national economies and stressed state budgets. Across the globe, its impacts have contributed to widened gender inequalities in different contexts. Climate change is also transforming and redefining the global security and development landscape. The implications of climate change for security and development has become increasingly recognized within the United Nations (UN), African Union (AU) and Regional Economic Communities (REC). The framing of climate change in the security and development discourse is undergoing an important change. In some spaces it is moving away from seeing climate change as a security ‘threat,’ and instead frames it as climate-related security and development ‘risks’. This approach, which is also the approach we take in this paper, emphasizes that climate change must not be seen as predominantly external in its cause, but rather that it exposes and compounds risks that are inherent in social-ecological systems, – especially in fragile and conflict-affected environments.
China's Evolving Approach to UN Peacekeeping in Africa
China’s new, assertive role in UN peacekeeping, especially in Africa, represents a significant shift in Beijing’s peace and security posture that is not yet fully reflected in official discourse and rhetoric, but that reflects China’s new confidence with its global power status. Every significant adaptation in its peacekeeping policy has reflected an important shift in the country’s practical foreign and security policy. Tracing and tracking China’s peacekeeping policy and practice is thus a useful proxy for analysing the evolution of its peace and security considerations. In this In this report Senior Research Fellows Kari Osland and Cedric de Coning consider the medium- to long-term trajectory of China’s peace and security practices by analysing its recent activity in Africa, focusing on how China has used its contributions to the UN peacekeeping missions in Mali (MINUSMA) and South Sudan (UNMISS).
China and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (CHINSDG)
What are Chinese priorities in relation to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and how do Chinese actors promote their interests and prospects for international cooperation...
How UN Peacekeeping Operations Can Adapt to a New Multipolar World Order
How will United Nations peacekeeping operations adapt to the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world order? The paper considers emerging dynamics in three areas that may suggest how UN peacekeeping are likely to be affected by a changing world order, namely strategic political coherence, the employment of force, and the outer limits of peace operations. It points out that one of the enduring characteristics of UN peacekeeping has been the resilience of its identity. Another has been the continuous evolution of the specific manifestations of that identity into practice. UN peacekeeping have thus shown a remarkable capacity to continuously adapt to new challenges over the past 70 plus years, and there is no evidence to suggest that it will not continue to do so into the future.
What is the impact of the UN missions in Mali and South Sudan?
On the occasion of the International Day of Peacekeeping, NUPI has the pleasure of inviting you to a seminar with a focus on the effectiveness of the UN missions in Mali and South Sudan.
Complexity thinking and adaptive peacebuilding
Cedric de Coning explores how complexity thinking can contribute to our understanding of how to create more inclusive peace processes, and how adaptive approaches enable local and external peacebuilders to apply new models of practice, experimentation and learning. These differ fundamentally from approaches where the role of peacebuilders is to implement a pre-designed intervention. De Coning suggests that pressure for change tends to accumulate over time often without signs of progress, and that key system changes occur during periods of turbulence when the self-sustaining ‘path dependencies of violence’ are disrupted. Adaptation does not imply embracing disorder or abandoning goals, but rather being more front-footed, coping with uncertainty, anticipating change and embracing experimentation.
UN Peace Operations and Changes in the Global Order: Evolution, Adaptation, and Resilience
Changes in the global order are contributing to a more pragmatic era of UN peace operations. Peace operations are likely to become less intrusive and more supportive of locally-led solutions. Three overarching themes are identified. First, the degree to which a peace operation contributes to strategic political coherence will become a key measure of its effectiveness. Second, the principle of minimum use of force is likely to remain a defining feature of peace operations. Third, the scope of peace operations mandates may be trimmed down to focus on protection, stability, and politics. Whilst UN peace operations have shown a capacity to continuously adapt to new challenges, they will also remain resiliently identifiable by their enduring principles of peacekeeping.
Africa and UN Peace Operations: Implications for the Future Role of Regional Organisations
Over the last decade and a half, Africa’s peace operations capacity has significantly increased. African states have deployed operations of their own and they now contribute half of all UN peacekeepers. The African Union (AU) and the UN have developed a strategic partnership that plays out at the political, policy, and operational levels, and reflects the reality that neither will deploy peace operations in Africa without close consultations and some form of cooperation with the other. While the UN peacekeeping model is not found to be well-suited to enforcement, counter-terrorism or trans-national operations, the AU, sub-regional organisations and ad hoc regional coalitions have developed capabilities designed to address these challenges. These African capabilities help relieve the pressure on the UN to conduct such operations.