Suchergebnisse

The Sierra Leone civil war that ended in January 2002 was particularly brutal and left the country economically devastated. Four-and-a-half years later, Sierra Leone was selected as one of two countries to receive focused attention from the newly created United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). The PBC is mandated to support post-conflict recovery and sustainable development with the participation of all relevant stakeholders, including civil society. Drawing on field research and theories of sustainable peacebuilding and the role of civil society, this paper assesses the PBC's performance in Sierra Leone in its first year of operation. The article concludes that the PBC needs to clarify its priorities in relation to civil society participation in order to fulfil its potential to assist governments in promoting sustainable peace and development. Adapted from the source document.

Coordination between different United Nations (UN) departments, funds, agencies, and programmes has become an issue of increasing concern for scholars and practitioners alike. With the United Nations taking on ever more ambitious roles in countries emerging from conflict ; no single unit or agency can master the task of post-conflict reconstruction ; also known as peacebuilding ; alone; instead ; a concerted effort is called for. Recent efforts at reorganizing the way the United Nations works in peacebuilding missions have not yielded the desired results of achieving a more coherent ; and in that way more efficient and more effective UN presence. In order to offer fresh inputs for the debate ; this paper looks at the issue of coordination from a theoretical perspective. Informed by organization theory ; a framework for interorganizational coordination is developed and then applied to the United Nations and peacebuilding. The main finding is that in order to improve interorganizational coordination and in lieu of trying to become one streamlined hierarchical organization ; the United Nations should acknowledge its network character and cultivate those social and structural control mechanisms which facilitate coordination in networks. ; Die Koordination zwischen verschiedenen Einheiten des Systems der Vereinten Nationen (VN) hat in den letzten Jahren sowohl für Praktiker als auch für Akademiker zunehmend an Bedeutung gewonnen. Da die Vereinten Nationen immer ambitioniertere Aufgaben der Konfliktnachsorge ; der Demokratisierung und des Wiederaufbaus in Krisenregionen übernehmen ; wird der Ruf nach einem koordinierten Vorgehen immer lauter – denn keine einzelne VN Unterorganisation kann die Fülle der Aufgaben allein bewältigen. Trotzdem haben die Bemühungen der letzten Jahre hin zu mehr Koordination und Integration bisher nicht die erhofften Ergebnisse gezeigt. Dieses Papier möchte zur aktuellen Debatte beisteuern ; indem es zuerst das Thema "Koordination" von einem theoretischen Blickwinkel aus beleuchtet. Basierend auf den Erkenntnissen der Organisationslehre wird ein theoretisches Modell der Koordination entwickelt – dieses wird dann auf die Vereinten Nationen als Unternehmer von Friedensmissionen angewandt. Haupterkenntnis ist hierbei ; dass ; um interorganisationelle Koordination innerhalb der Vereinten Nationen zu verbessern ; die sozialen und strukturellen Koordinationsmechanismen gestärkt werden sollten ; die dem netzwerkartigen Charakter des Systems entsprechen – anstatt weiterhin zu versuchen ; über das ganze System hinweg eine straffe Hierarchie durchzusetzen.

The expectations about UN reforms in the wake of the end of the Cold War are dampened due to the strongly held divergent viewpoints among various groups of governments. In contrast to the euphoria generated by official and non-official panels churning out scores of ideas and proposals, the reforms actually carried out have remained cosmetic and minimal. The exception to this dismal trend is the establishment of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and the Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2005 that provide the first exercise of reforms of an inter-governmental nature. There are several unique and innovative features associated with both these newly created bodies—their ambitious mandate, varied ways of composition, parallel structural supervision and so forth. The Asian and European regional groups have espoused often contrasting perspectives in negotiations on the creation of PBC and HRC, while the outcome of the bargaining showcases an interesting balance sheet of the gains and losses of principal organs of the UN, especially the General Assembly and the Security Council. Start-up and follow-up issues like sufficient funding of peacebuilding operations, efficacious coordination with an array of agencies and the independent and impartial scrutiny of human rights track record of countries are substantive and could stand between the success and failure of these innovations. Either way, the actual performance of these bodies may significantly influence the later stages of UN reforms.

Deep within the religious-political context of India is the Hindu-Muslim conflict. This tension continues with ever-increasing violent acts being carried out in the name of religion. As recently as February 2002, violence erupted between Hindus and Muslims in the state of Gujarat. Gujarati citizens remain concerned about the reemergence of such violence. As a result, in this pilot, qualitative study, we investigated Hindu and Muslim perceptions about the causes of violence in Gujarat, and individuals' beliefs about solutions for peacebuilding between these two groups. Thirteen main themes emerged from the semistructured interviews (e.g., prior and present Hindu-Muslim relationships, perpetrators of violence, kinds of violence, consequences of violence, hopes for future, solutions for peace). Given these themes, we present preliminary recommendations for peacebuilding between Hindus and Muslims, along with suggestions for future research on this topic. Adapted from the source document.