Pundits who urge the US to stay in Afghanistan argue national security interests and point out to threats emanating from Afghanistan. Indeed, 17 years ago, it was national security that took the US military to Afghanistan. To date, the presence of more than 20 transnational terrorist groups in the region continues to justify the American military involvement in the country. However, a broader question that is rarely asked is whether counterterrorism is the only issue that brings the two nations together?
The infrastructure, technology, and resources that a United Nations peacekeeping operation brings can open up new opportunities in key conflict-affected areas of the world. This finding is the subject of an ongoing, multidisciplinary project spearheaded by Malkit Shoshan of the Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory, with Leah Zamore at the NYU Center on International Cooperation (CIC). The project has thus far focused on the evolution and drawdown of the UN Mission in Liberia. On November 30, 2018, the Missions of Australia, Liberia, and the United Kingdom co-hosted a launch event to discuss these findings in Peacekeeping MIssions in Urban Environments: The Legacy of UNMIL.
The Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies are motivated by the centrality of justice and inclusion to all aspects of sustainable development. Senior Advisor Karina Gerlach, who played a crucial role in the process of adopting the sustainable development goals (SDGs), contextualizes SDG16 with regards to this process and justifies its importance to critical topics such as crisis prevention and social development. This paper is based on Ms. Gerlach's lecture at the "Violencias, víctimas y sociedades justas" conference in Buenos Aires in
UN Secretary-General António Guterres was appointed in 2016 on an explicit reform platform. In 2017, we published commentaries on his reform proposals. Now that those reforms that have been approved are moving into implementation, we publish this simple guide to what has been achieved and the potential potholes still ahead.
Launched today by the World Refugee Council (WRC), A Call to Action: Transforming the Global Refugee System is a compendium of evidence and ideas that converge in a series of recommendations, which, taken together, comprise a plan of action for the next decade and can bring about a refugee regime that is fair, properly funded and capable of managing a system in an orderly way. CIC Director Sarah Cliffe has been a councillor on the WRC since 2017.
