GPPi discusses peace operations with German development experts

On August 31, GPPi Fellow Philipp Rotmann contributed to a workshop held by the Network International Cooperation in Conflicts and Disasters (NICD) in Königstein, Germany. The network, which brings together over 70 projects of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), focuses on crisis prevention and peace building from the perspective of development programs.

In his presentation, Rotmann laid out the institutional and cultural evolution of institution-building efforts in the peacekeeping and crisis management operations of the United Nations, the European Union and NATO. Based on recently published research by the Global Public Policy Institute, he explained the progress made against huge obstacles within the UN bureaucracy, the biggest implementer of peace operations globally.

At the same time, he outlined three key challenges that peacebuilding as capacity-building is facing in peace operation environments: first, the real tradeoffs of inter-institutional coordination; second, the unanswered political and strategic questions about the desired end state and the level of ambition on the part of contributing countries and organizations; and third, the role of knowledge, analysis and critical reflection that remains less than adequately developed.

The session on peace operations was shared with Tobias Pietz of the Center for International Peace Operations, who had earlier introduced the historical evolution and conceptual framework of UN peace operations as a background for the more detailed discussion of peace building from the development perspective in such contexts.