This policy monitoring brief analyzes the process that led to the “Somali New Deal Compact,” the framework’s potential effectiveness as a peacebuilding tool, and potential ways to strengthen it. We find that the New Deal Compact in Somalia appears to have created a paradigm shift in international policy rhetoric around Somali ownership and leadership. However, the process to develop the Compact has also revealed a series of difficult trade-offs (related to process, risk, and implementation) between political and technical imperatives for both Somali and external actors.
On June 15-17, 2014 CIC partnered with Wilton Park, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the French Ministry of Defense to host a discussion on various aspects of peace operations. This conference examined operational planning, capacity and execution of mandated peace operations including partnership arrangements in fluid conflict situations.
The UN is currently in poor health but the severity of its condition is not yet clear, Richard Gowan argues in this paper commissioned by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue for the 2014 Oslo Forum for senior mediators. Gowan assesses the impact of events in South Sudan, Syria and Ukraine for the UN, and warns that the organization's operational and political credibility is weakening.
The United Nations Security Council in the Age of Human Rights is the first comprehensive look at the human-rights dimensions of the work of the only body within the United Nations system capable of compelling action by its member states. Edited by Jared Genser and Bruno Stagno Ugarte, this volume contains a chapter on the Security Council and Syria co-authored by CIC's Richard Gowan with Paulo Sergio Pinheiro (Chairman of the Independent International Committee of Inquiry for Syria).
As the Open Working Group (OWG) on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) nears its conclusion, the question of whether and how to include governance and peace-related goals and targets in the post-2015 framework continues to be debated. This short note briefly analyzes how governance and peace-related objectives are reflected in the first revision of the OWG’s zero draft (dated June 30) and suggests some key considerations as the negotiations enter their final month.
In West Africa, civil wars have receded, democracy has gained ground and economies are growing. But a destructive new threat is jeopardizing this progress: with local collusion, international drug cartels are undermining our countries and communities, and devastating lives.
In this Lowy Institute Analysis, Richard Gowan reviews Australia’s time as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. Gowan argues that while it has not changed the world, Australia has acquitted itself well, bringing extra rigour and professionalism to the Council’s debates. It has carved out a niche on the issue of humanitarian access in the Syrian conflict, and solidified its reputation as a good international citizen and a serious country.
More than 50% of the world’s poor are projected to live in conflict-affected and fragile states by 2015. Country donors and the UN development system have and will continue to increasingly place an imperative on delivering transformative development results in complex post-conflict and fragile contexts. These are risky development situations, where the cost of implementation is high and the potential for project failure and financial losses is significant.
This publication examines the main cooperation fields between China and the US in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the post-NATO period. In doing so, this study looks at the initiation of various bilateral joint projects as a distinctive turning point in China-US relations. It argues that existence of such bilateral projects and cooperation in this region does not only produce added value for the countries in question but also have the potential to enhance the mutual relations between China and US. This study also reveals the main common priorities and practices between China and the US and concludes that they have a partial convergence in their attitude towards the infrastructure projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For the past 20 months, the Congo Research Group has documented the vast and eclectic business portfolio of Joseph Kabila, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and his family. This report presents our conclusions, based almost entirely on legal documents.
You can find the whole report and examine the underlying documents here
The Pathfinders group is convened by the governments of Brazil, Sierra Leone, and Switzerland, with support from the Center on International Cooperation.
The Global Peace Operations Review is a website providing analysis and data on the spectrum of issues surrounding global peace and security, including civilian-led peacemaking and peacebuilding as well as uniformed peacekeeping by the United Nations, regional organizations and ad-hoc coalitions. The site’s objective is to contribute to the effectiveness of all peace operations.
We seek to provide the most comprehensive overview of multilateral contributions to conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and post-conflict peacebuilding. In doing so, we seek to integrate thematic and cross-cutting issues including, but not limited to, the women, peace and security agenda and countering violent extremism.
The India-U.S. relationship is presently stronger than at anytime in their history. The twin summits – less than six months apart – in September 2014 and January 2015 between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have repaired, revived and revitalized the strategic partnership. Yet there remain several hurdles to deepening the relationship, notably, geopolitical differences over Iran, Russia, Syria and India’s membership of various nuclear and missile export control regimes. Perhaps the most formidable of these in terms of immediacy and proximity is the resolution of the Iranian nuclear challenge.
