Peacekeeping_2.final.qxd 1/28/08 10:03 AM Page 21 Peace Operation Partnerships: Lessons and 2 Issues from Coordination to Hybrid Arrangements A. Sarjoh Bah and Bruce D. Jones 21 Peacekeeping_2.final.qxd 1/28/08 10:03 AM Page 22 If a central preoccupation for peace opera- Despite their frequency, these partnerships tions in 2007 was managing the interplay be- continue to be primarily driven by operational tween political processes and security opera- exigencies, and have been managed through tions, that challenge was exacerbated when ad hoc mechanisms. Although there have been two or more institutions were jointly respon- calls for more formalized partnerships, little sible for the overall peacekeeping response. progress in this direction has occurred. The difficulties of inter-institutional arrange- This chapter explores the contours of these ments were most visible in Darfur, where the partnerships, and elucidates some of the associ- United Nations and the African Union negoti- ated problems, benefits, and lessons learned. ated both over arrangements for a “hybrid” While there was some evidence over the past operation and over co-management of the two years of the emergence of a rational sys- Darfur peace process. But during 2007, inter- tem for these partnerships based on compara- institutional arrangements complicated efforts tive advantage or division of labor, the reality in Kosovo and Afghanistan as well, and in a of international and regional politics is push- host of other settings. ing global peacekeeping toward a different fu- While public debate over the UN-AU op- ture, one in which several different organiza- eration in Darfur proceeded as if it was the tions—principally, the UN, NATO, the EU, first time such arrangements had been used, and the AU—each develop a fuller range of the hybrid operation there should more cor- multifaceted capabilities, ranging from rapid, rectly be understood as the latest development robust response to longer-term, civilian peace- on a continuum, as a continuation of a trend building functions. that has increasingly characterized peace oper- There are benefits to this model, but also ations over the past decade. Indeed, of the costs. It will also take years to develop, even if more than fifty peace operations covered in trends continue on their present course. In the this volume, nearly forty involved some form long interim, it looks likely that inter-institu- of inter-institutional partnership. tional arrangements, in a variety of forms, will This trend has taken multiple forms of continue to dominate the peacekeeping land- joint or joined-up action by the UN, regional scape. The lessons learned suggest that these organizations, the North Atlantic Treaty Orga- actors will have to overcome issues of politics, nization (NATO), the Organization for Secu- planning, personnel, and predictable funding. rity Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and UN- mandated multinational forces. A combination of the multidimensional mandates of contem- Background: Evolving Partnerships porary peace operations, the resurgence of re- Inter-institutional partnerships have evolved dra- gional and subregional organizations, legiti- matically over the past decade. Some of the ear- macy and capacity considerations, and the liest experiments occurred in West Africa, where exponential growth of peace operations pre- the Economic Community of West African States cipitated this wave of institutional partner- (ECOWAS) and the UN were both involved in ships. peacekeeping operations in Liberia (1993–1998) 22 Peacekeeping_2.final.qxd 1/28/08 10:03 AM Page 23 PEACE OPERATION PARTNERSHIPS: LESSONS AND ISSUES • 23 and Sierra Leone (1997–2005).1 The relationship the early 1990s, have taken place—in Somalia, between the two organizations at the time was at Kosovo, Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, and Burundi. best testy, sometimes downright antagonistic. Most of these sequential operations have ECOWAS claimed both a more immediate abil- been from a regional or multinational organi- ity to respond, and a greater legitimacy that zation to the UN. However, we are now wit- arose from the regional character of its opera- nessing another generation of sequencing. The tions. The UN, by contrast, claimed that the handover from NATO to the EU in Bosnia Charter gave it primacy of response, notwith- (and potentially from the UN to the EU in standing the recognition in Chapter VIII of the Kosovo), and the handover from the UN to an role that regional organizations can play in AU special task force in Burundi,5 mark a new helping to maintain international peace and se- phenomenon of regional organizations mount- curity.2 These early partnerships were not lim- ing longer-term stabilization missions in the ited to West Africa, as the UN entered into sim- wake of robust international peacekeeping. ilar arrangements elsewhere, most notably in the Balkans. Parallel Operations Over time, however, the UN has come to Increasingly common are parallel operations— see the value of regional action,3 especially in where the UN and other entities operate in the immediate response to breaking crises, while same theater, under different command, but to regional and subregional organizations have achieve the same broad goals. In the 1990s increasingly recognized the merit—even the there were several such parallel deployments— requirement—for Security Council authoriza- in Liberia, Bosnia, Georgia, Tajikistan, Ethio- tion or at least support for their actions. More- pia and Eritrea, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire. over, the simple reality of rising operational There have been several variants. demands and the political requirements of dif- One version is short-term military support ferent regions gave rise to a whole range of op- from one organization to another. These oper- erational and political partnerships between ations are well illustrated by two different EU organizations. Although each has been sui deployments to the Democratic Republic of generis, they have broadly conformed to one of Congo (DRC)—the International Emergency three types: sequential, parallel, or integrated Multinational Force, codenamed Operation operations.4 Artemis, and the EU Force Democratic Re- public of Congo (EUFOR RD Congo), in 2003 Sequential Operations and 2006 respectively.6 National variants on In the first type of partnership, different peace- this model include the UK deployment to keeping organizations undertook sequential Sierra Leone in 1999 in short-term support to operations at various stages of a response. For the UN Assistance Mission in Sierra Leone instance, in East Timor in 1999, Australia led (UNAMSIL), and France’s (longer-term) de- the deployment of a mandated multinational ployment of Operation Licorne alongside the force, the International Force for East Timor UN mission in Côte d’Ivoire. (INTERFET), which created the security frame- A further variant is found in linked mili- work for the subsequent deployment of the tary-observer operations. The first such de- UN Transitional Administration in East Timor ployments were the joint UN and Common- (UNTAET). Similarly in Liberia in 2003, wealth of Independent States (CIS) operations ECOWAS deployed temporarily to create the in Georgia and Tajikistan. Here we see one or- conditions for the longer-term presence of the ganization (the CIS) providing the military UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL)—a far hap- backbone of the operation, with a second (the pier collaboration than in the first UN- UN) undertaking military observation, with ECOWAS experience in Liberia in the 1990s. the UN Mission of Observers to Tajikistan Several sequential operations, dating back to (UNMOT) and the UN Observer Mission in Peacekeeping_2.final.qxd 1/28/08 10:03 AM Page 24 24 • ANNUAL REVIEW OF GLOBAL PEACE OPERATIONS Georgia (UNOMIG) mandated to ensure in- Representative who had full command over ternational oversight and add Security Coun- both organizations’ capabilities. cil legitimacy to the CIS operations. Similarly, A second, partially integrated operation the UN-AU linked deployments along the Er- was in Kosovo. We have already noted the par- itrea-Ethiopia border combined capability and allel military and civilian deployment of legitimacy, though in that context the AU and KFOR and UNMIK respectively. However, the UN helped legitimate each other’s presence. within UNMIK four different organizations— A final variant is found in parallel civilian- the UN Secretariat, the UN High Commis- military operations. Undertaken by NATO and sioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the European the UN in Bosnia, this model has also been Union, and the Organization for Security and replicated in Kosovo (Kosovo Force [KFOR] Cooperation in Europe—fused their civilian and the UN Interim Administration Mission in capabilities into a single operational structure Kosovo [UNMIK]) and Afghanistan (Opera- under the command of a UN Special Represen- tion Enduring Freedom, the International Secu- tative. This arrangement was first mandated by rity Assistance Force [ISAF], and the UN As- UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999), sistance Mission in Afghanistan [UNAMA]). and then negotiated and confirmed by the gov- In all of these cases, the UN provides both a erning councils of the separate organizations. political framework for the military operation, Perhaps the financial and logistical sup- bolstering its legitimacy, and the core political port to the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) and civilian support to the national authorities. should be listed under this type of partnership