Report on Integrated Missions: Practical Perspectives and Recommendations

The nature of the UN involvement in peacekeeping and peacebuilding is rapidly
changing. Peacekeeping is becoming more robust, and the UN is increasingly taking a
stance on on-going conflicts and on the direction of change in post-conflict settings. After
a decline in “blue helmet” peacekeeping around the turn of the century, there is now a
rapid surge in deployment. An increasing number of operations are multifunctional in
nature. Mandates range from immediate stabilisation and protection of civilians to
supporting humanitarian assistance, organising elections, assisting the development of
new political structures, engaging in security sector reform, disarming, demobilising and
reintegrating former combatants and laying the foundations of a lasting peace.

The UN frequently works with other global institutions, regional organisations, donor
countries, NGOs and host governments, in trying to achieve these ends. The Secretary-
General, however, still refers to a “gaping whole” in the UN system’s institutional
machinery when it comes to meeting the challenge of helping countries with the
transition from war to lasting peace effectively.1 While performance is improving, the
success rate in long-term stabilisation is still too low, and many countries relapse into
conflict after an initial period of stabilisation. This conclusion can in part be ascribed to a
lack of strategic, coordinated and sustained international efforts.

An “Integrated Mission” is an instrument with which the UN seeks to help countries in
the transition from war to lasting peace, or to address a similarly complex situation that
requires a system-wide UN response, through subsuming actors and approaches within an
overall political-strategic crisis management framework.