Partnering to Prevent Conflict
Fifteen years ago, the then UN Department of Political Affairs (now the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, or DPPA) and the UN Development Program (UNDP) came together to help bridge the gap between political and development work and boost the capacity of individual countries to prevent conflict and consolidate peace. Today, the Peace and Development Advisors (PDAs) of the Joint UNDP-DPPA Programme on Building National Capacities for Conflict Prevention are active around the world, empowering national stakeholders to strengthen existing mechanisms and capacities for inclusive dialogue and conflict prevention. PDAs support UN Country Teams to effectively identify entry points for prevention and peacebuilding, and adapt and respond to complex political situations. At an event on the sidelines of the UN’s High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development on 15 July, Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohamed, DPPA chief Rosemary DiCarlo, UNDP head Achim Steiner and Tunisian Minister of Foreign Affairs Khemaies Jhinaoui, joined by representatives of dozens of UN member states, hailed the program’s achievements and called for continued support for the groundbreaking initiative. Following the event, Ms. DiCarlo told us where she sees the program going.
What is your assessment of Joint Programme on this anniversary year?
As we heard during the event this week at UN Headquarters, I think there is strong support among member States for the Joint Programme. We are also seeing an increase in the demand for the Joint Programme to support UN Country Teams in the area of conflict prevention. To respond to that growing demand, we are strengthening our teams at the country level by adding national PDAs or UN Volunteers to support PDAs. I think the support is testament to the fact that, in close partnership with national stakeholders, the Joint Programme has contributed to innovative approaches to conflict prevention.
You place a lot of emphasis on working in partnership with national stakeholders. How does that actually happen?
Well, the Peace and Development Advisors play a key role in working closely with national counterparts and are some of our best joint assets to encourage collaboration and coherence of action. PDAs are ever more critical in the context of the UN reforms and continue to help us all deliver shared results.
The Joint Programme provides a unique vehicle for connecting the work of the peace and security pillar with development efforts on the ground. PDAs are at the forefront of working with national counterparts on long-running issues, but also on emerging areas. For example, in Bangladesh, a partnership between Facebook South Asia, the Ministry of Telecommunications and the UN was initiated to bring young people together to produce digital platforms and content that promote tolerant and inclusive vision of the Bangladeshi society.
How is the peace and security reform of the United Nations reflected in the work of the Joint Programme?
As the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) is now fully integrated in DPPA following the reform, we are investing in having closer alignment of the work of the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) and the rest of the UN’s Peace and Security pillar. PDAs play a key role in ensuring that there is a link between strategic analysis of situation and the prioritization of programmes. For instance, in Cameroon, Mauritania and Nigeria, PDAs have played an important role in formulating the conflict analyses that helped frame eligibility requests and programmatic interventions.
Over the years, we have featured the work of PDAs and their contributions in the countries in which they are deployed. Jared Kotler, currently DPPA’s Team Leader for Colombia based in New York, was PDA in Colombia (from May 2014 — August 2016) as the country’s Government and the FARC-EP guerrillas were negotiating an end to over 50 years of conflict. Here he looks back on that experience.
When you arrived in Colombia the parties were still in the thick of negotiations. How did the work of a PDA intersect with the peace process?
I arrived at a time when several roles, or potential roles, were already emerging for the United Nations in the peace process.
On the one hand, the then Resident Coordinator (RC), Fabrizio Hochschild, was positioning the UN system to respond to requests of various kinds to support the talks in Havana, while also encouraging a shift from “business as usual” to preparing for the post-conflict. As PDA, I was there to assist him, with political advice and support as needed, but also in operational ways. Some specific duties included overseeing a communications campaign to promote positive public attitudes towards peace and contributing to the large team effort, involving many UN agencies, to organized forums and delegations allowing civil society a voice in the peace process. There was also an element of outreach to the UN system, including the responsibility to lead a regular exchange of analysis and information on the peace process with the key UN agencies and offices.
At the same time, the Colombian government was quietly liaising with DPPA (DPA at the time) in exploration of a possible UN role in the verification of a peace agreement. This eventually materialized in the establishment of a Special Political Mission. Both the RC and DPPA agreed that I should support that dialogue, particularly given previous experience in the Department and knowledge of SPMs. This translated into a range of activities including: contributions to the research and drafting of options papers for UN assistance; assisting top-level DPA officials in conversations with the Colombian government and the FARC; and liaising with countries of influence who were supportive of a UN role. Once the UN Mission began to arrive in 2016, there was further opportunity to contribute by facilitating some of its early political contacts on the ground and its relations with the UN system.
What lessons did you draw from your experience as PDA in Colombia? Are those lessons transferable to other contexts?
Whether it can be transferred I’m not sure, but what I observed in watching how the UN came to have various roles in supporting the peace process is how this evolved incrementally, through trial and experience and the gaining of trust between the Organization and the national actors.
The UN had earned respect in Colombia over the years even before there was a peace process. The system had been involved in local peacebuilding and humanitarian, human rights and development work related to the conflict for a long time.
Fast forwarding to the period of the peace talks, the work of the RC, along with the Catholic Church and a Colombian university in leading delegations of victims to the Havana peace table, was an important step. This was highly sensitive politically for the Government and the FARC, requiring a careful balance. Before there was a Mission, this experience probably helped to demonstrate that the UN could act impartially as a third party.
And as DPA fielded the interest of the Colombian parties in a potential UN verification role, it was careful not to try to sell any UN role or template, and instead listened to what the Colombians felt they needed and offered flexible solutions. The successive SPMs — first dealing with the cease-fire and laying down of arms, and second with FARC reintegration and post-conflict security — reflect this tailored, staged approach. A large peacekeeping operation would not likely have been acceptable.
In Colombia, the UN role is to support a nationally-led, owned and designed peace process.
How did your experience as a PDA help your subsequent work?
Without a doubt I was better prepared to lead the DPPA’s desk work on the peace process from New York with the benefit of some country depth and a network of contacts stemming from having worked for several years in Bogota and gotten to know the issues and the actors. That kind of country experience, whether as a PDA or in a field operation or agency setting should be valued as preparation for leadership roles at headquarters.
I would add that a big part of the PDA experience is the link to the Country Team. The PDA’s are working on political issues through a lens that focuses not necessarily on classic mediation or the peace operation model, but rather the opportunities for a Country Team to support conflict prevention and peacebuilding. Those of us working from headquarters in the backstopping of a peace operation are better able to do that job if we have that wider view of the work of the United Nations in the country.
Title picture: Former combatants of the FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — People’s Army) and members of the Colombian Armed Forces played a friendly football match along with other residents of the village of Dabeiba in the Department of Antioquia. The match was organized by the UN Verification Mission in Colombia as part of the Mission’s Football for Peace and Reconciliation initiative. Antioquia, Colombia. UN Photo/Jeniffer Moreno Canizales
