Recommendation Briefs: Designing Mandates and Capabilities for Future Peace Operations

The Challenges Forum Report Launch and High-Level Seminar was held in New York, 27-28 January 2015, co-hosted and sponsored by the Permanent Missions to the United Nations of Japan, Nigeria and Sweden. It was designed as an opportunity for the Challenges Forum Partners to present to the United Nations Secretary-General their Report: ‘Designing Mandates and Capabilities for Future Peace Operations’, and for the Recommendations Brief to be discussed by key stakeholders convening at United Nations headquarters.

The presented Report and the Recommendations Brief are the product of a two-year project focusing on addressing key challenges to current and future peace operations. The themes of the four underpinning work strands were: ‘Peace Operations Under New Conditions’ co-led by the Center for International Peace Operations of Germany, and the United Service Institution of India; ‘Policies, Principles and Guidelines’ co-led by the National Defence University of Pakistan and the United States Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute; ‘Authority, Command and Control’ co-led by the Ministry of Defence of France and the National Defence College of Nigeria; and finally ‘Impact Assessment and Evaluation’ co-led by the Pearson Centre of Canada and the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria. The Challenges Forum Report synthesizes the results of these four working groups that carried out extensive research around the world including supporting workshops, field studies and structured interviews to distill the findings.