U.N.'s Peacebuilding Commission Off to a Slow Start

By Thalif Deen 
February 10, 2006
Inter Press Service
Original Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32119


UNITED NATIONS, Feb 10 (IPS) - The United Nations is gearing up for its newest global humanitarian assignment: a mercy mission to rebuild societies ravaged by wars and ethnic conflicts. 

The new task will be undertaken by the 31-member Peacebuilding Commission created last December with the blessings of the 191-member U.N. General Assembly and the 15-member Security Council. 

But the work of the Peacebuilding Commission has been delayed due to teething problems: a tussle over its membership and a hunt for long-term financial resources to keep it afloat after it is launched, possibly in March. 

The U.N.'s administrative and budgetary committee has already refused to approve funds from the organisation's regular budget due to financial reasons. The refusal has forced the commission to depend on existing resources and voluntary contributions from member states. 

I certainly hope that the commission won't be grounded before it has a chance to act, said Katherine N. Andrews, a peacekeeping fellow at the Washington-based Refugees International. 

I think there has been enough support for the idea of this commission to sustain the current momentum behind it for a while, she added. 

Asked about the feasibility of running the commission with existing resources, Andrews told IPS: One must remember that pretty much all of U.N. peacekeeping is and has been carried out with insufficient resources. Making do with the resources available is an inherent part of U.N. efforts to resolve and prevent conflict. 

She said that peace operations have thus far contributed to increased security throughout the world. 

But, of course, they would have been able to do a lot more good with effective use of more resources. I can only hope that the commission will also demonstrate some benefit even with its resource limitations, said Andrews, who is also assistant coordinator at Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping (PEP). 

At a press briefing last month, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the issue of funding is, of course, of concern to us because the resolution setting up the commission was adopted without any additional budgetary resources. 

He also said that the General Assembly has asked us to come back, I think in late February or early March, with a report from Secretary-General Kofi Annan to see how we can do it under existing resources and, if we cannot, why not? 

The creation of a commission is being viewed as one of the major achievements of the U.N. summit of world leaders last September. 

The commission will be a turning point in our efforts to help states and societies manage the difficult transition from war to peace, Annan said. 

Of the proposed 31 members, seven of them will come from the Security Council, including the veto-wielding United States, Britain, France, China and Russia; along with five from the top 10 contributors to the world body; five from the 10 nations supplying troops for peacekeeping missions; and seven from the 54-member Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). 

The General Assembly will elect seven additional members to ensure representation from all regional groups and by countries that have experienced post-conflict recovery, bringing the total to 31. 

The five regional groups at the United Nations include the Asian Group, the African Group, the Latin American and Caribbean Group, the East European Group, and the group that comprises Western European and Other States. 

But due to competing claims from several countries for membership in the commission, the ECOSOC has so far failed to come up with its seven candidates. And until and unless all 31 members are aboard, the new body will remain grounded even before it can take off. 

We are still struggling to reach agreement, a member of the ECOSOC told IPS, following several rounds of negotiations last week. 

He said that some members argue that the Western regional group should not be nominated by ECOSOC because it will already be represented either as members of the Security Council or as contributors to the U.N. budget. A compromise, however, is under discussion. 

Writing in the Toronto Star newspaper, former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans says the potential of the commission will be realised only with a lot more effort from key players. 

Some fear that the United Nations has established a new bureaucracy that will add another layer of inertia to the effort, he writes. 

Any body whose core organisational committee involves 31 states is potentially dysfunctional, he warns, adding that the Commission, its country-specific working configurations and its support office will have to agile, flexible and fast-moving. 

Evans also says that the commission's initial candidates could include post-war Iraq, Haiti, Liberia, Burundi, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, among others. 

Andrews of Refugees International says that the commission could be set up and have a chance to undertake a first case (expected to be Haiti) sometime in the next three to five months. 

Granted, impediments to progress on the commission could result from the attention that is now turned to more thorny reforms, the establishment of a new Human Rights Council and management reforms. 

But it is arguable that the existence of these more challenging reforms could increase the motivation to succeed in implementing a relatively easy reform, she said. 

If movement on an agreed-upon, finalised reform gets bogged down in disagreement, it could strike a real blow to confidence (from both inside and outside of the United Nations) in the U.N.'s ability to work out a broadly satisfactory solution to disagreements over the Human Rights Council and management reforms. 

Andrews also said that the performance of the commission in its first year could be important in garnering support for expansion of its budget and of the overall U.N. budget. 

Though the U.S. Congress is focusing more on the Human Rights Council and management reforms, I imagine that many on Capitol Hill would pay attention to inaction in the peacebuilding commission and be happy to tuck it inside their bag of complaints about the United Nations. 

Also, the level of U.N. member state satisfaction with the commission should influence states' willingness to contribute to the Peacebuilding Fund, a fund lamentably comprised of voluntary contributions, she added. 

One hope for the resource situation of the commission is that streamlining reforms could yield some budgetary savings that could be reprogrammed toward the commission. 

I don't think that anyone is holding their breath for this to happen quickly, and even if it does, it won't be a huge windfall, but there is at least potential for some extra money to be on the horizon, Andrews added. 

She also said that the issue about the Security Council's dominance could be the most immediate roadblock for progress on the commission. 

It isn't so terrible that the Security Council should be a driving force behind the commission, as it is indeed intended to deal with global peace and security concerns. The key question here is whether national leaders and other relevant actors will resist advice and assistance from the commission because of a perceived dominance by the five permanent members of the Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia. 

This question is particularly relevant given the number of countries, and particularly the number of conflict-affected countries, with an aversion to U.S. and British influence, she added.