Reports:

In early July 2011, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey hosted an informal retreat
for members of the United Nations Security Council in Istanbul. The retreat gathered ambassadorial-level representatives of the Security Council together with several member states that were not members of the council at the time, senior officials of the United Nations Secretariat, and independent experts to discuss ways to strengthen preventive diplomacy and mediation. In an informal setting and under the Chatham House rule of nonattribution, the discussion sought to build on and enrich the ongoing debate on how best to realize the full potential of preventive diplomacy and mediation as cost-effective options for dealing with crises. The exchange of views benefited from insights gained at the first Istanbul Retreat for members of the Security Council in June 2010. It drew, as well, on lessons learned from recent and ongoing crises and conflicts that have taxed the council’s capacities for maintaining international peace and security.

Summary

Problem Identified
Peacebuilding operations in conflict and post-conflict societies often undermine local capacity, ownership, and sustainability. The acknowledged remedy is to empower local actors to take the lead in planning and implementing programs, but few empowerment strategies that work in practice have been documented and explained.

Action Taken
- Several organizations have reconfigured empowerment techniques traditionally used for peacetime development to work in societies emerging from conflict.
- Local actors have seized the chance presented by these new approaches to develop and implement their own creative solutions to conflict. Local ownership has in turn enabled the integration of other sectors of society and government into peacebuilding activities.

Lessons Learned
- Focus on facilitating processes instead of trying to achieve specific outcomes. Successful interventions help participants open channels to defend their own interests, with the participants determining the final decisions and outcomes.
- Design programs to promote learning rather than to yield specific results. Effective programs create opportunities for participants to seek out and absorb knowledge critical to good decision making.
- Don’t be deflected by political pressures. Even well-known empowerment principles (such as respecting local counterparts) can be sidelined if interveners do not prioritize them above the kinds of political pressures typically encountered in conflict zones.

For over two decades, the United Nations has sought to create greater coherence within the UN system. UN integration is part of this push - an attempt to maximise the impact of UN efforts to consolidate peace in conflict and post-conflict states.  The benefits and risks of UN integration for humanitarian action have been subject to intense debate. Some UN humanitarian staff, and many staff in non-UN humanitarian organisations, remain sceptical that UN integration can benefit humanitarian action. Many NGOs are opposed to UN integration, arguing that it blurs the distinction between humanitarian, military and political action and subordinates humanitarian priorities to political prerogatives. Conversely, many in the UN political and peacekeeping community stress the need for enhanced coherence and highlight the positive experiences of UN integration and the significant progress made in policy development and practice in recent years. 

This independent study, carried out jointly by the Humanitarian Policy Group and the Stimson Center, was commissioned by the UN Integration Steering Group to look in detail at the impacts of UN integration on humanitarian action. The study focused on three main case studies (Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia), and was complemented by a desk review of the Central African Republic, Darfur (Sudan) and Liberia. The study looked at the impact of UN integration arrangements on five areas of key humanitarian concern: humanitarian aid worker security, access to beneficiaries, engagement with non-state armed actors, perceptions of humanitarian actors and humanitarian advocacy.

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.”

To what extent have the UN and the international community turned their aspiration for a culture of prevention into a reality? How well do multilateral instruments for conflict prevention perform today? What challenges exist in tapping into their full potential, and how can these challenges be addressed?

This meeting report presents a synthesis of discussions of these questions that took place during the sixteenth New York Seminar on May 4-6, 2011. It also summarizes key recommendations made by participants at the meeting.

The report finds:Multilateral conflict prevention has undergone significant change in recent years.

The report finds:

- Multilateral conflict prevention has undergone significant change in recent years.
- Capabilities, working methods, and the normative framework for multilateral conflict prevention have evolved considerably in response to greater receptiveness by many states facing conflict risks and increasing preparedness by third parties to engage in preventive diplomacy and structural prevention.  This trend has been accompanied by a proliferation of the number of third states, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations undertaking preventive action.
- Achieving coordination and coherence among these numerous third parties in their pursuit of preventive goals constitutes a critical challenge.