Driving the System Apart? A Study of United Nations Integration and Integrated Strategic Planning

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Driving the System Apart?

A Study of United Nations Integration and Integrated Strategic Planning

ARTHUR BOUTELLIS

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Nations Secretariat Building in New York City. UN Photo/M. Design by Thong Nguyen.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper represent those of the author and not necessarily those of IPI. IPI welcomes consideration of a wide range of perspectives in the pursuit of a well-informed debate on critical policies and issues in international affairs.

IPI Publications

Adam Lupel, Editor and Senior Fellow Marie O’Reilly, Associate Editor Thong Nguyen, Editorial Assistant Suggested Citation:

Arthur Boutellis, “Driving the System Apart? A Study of United Nations Integration and Integrated Strategic Planning,” New York: International Peace Institute, August 2013.

www.ipinst.org

the Peace Operations and Africa Programs at the International Peace Institute.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

IPI is grateful to Norway and the other generous donors to its Coping with Crisis program, whose support makes publications like this one possible.

The author would like to thank Marc Jacquand, who offered analytical and drafting support, and Ian Martin, Youssef Mahmoud, Michael v.d. Schulenburg, and Oliver Ulrich, who were interviewed for this report. The author is also grateful to Sophie Broennimann, Charles Hunt, Carole Magnaschi, Tuesday Reitano, and IPI colleagues Francesco Mancini, Adam Smith, and Fiona Blyth, who provided feedback on earlier drafts, as well as Adam Lupel and Marie O’Reilly, who edited this report.

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Abbreviations . . . iii

Executive Summary . . . 1

Introduction . . . 3

UN Integration and Integrated Strategic

Planning: Evolution and Current Status . . . 4

DPKO LEADS INTEGRATION WITHIN THE UN SECRETARIAT

BEYOND THE SECRETARIAT: FROM STRUCTURAL TO STRATEGIC INTEGRATION

INTEGRATED STRATEGIC PLANNING:

FROM HEADQUARTERS TO FIELD MISSIONS

Hitting the Wall? Current Obstacles to

Integrated Strategic Planning in the UN. . . 9

THE GAP BETWEEN ACTUAL COSTS AND PERCEIVED BENEFITS

TOO MUCH COORDINATION, TOO FEW PLANNING SKILLS

FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS AND LIMITED INCENTIVES EXTERNAL PRESSURES

Advancing the Integrated Planning Agenda . . . 14

QUICK FIXES

THE “MISSING WHOLE”

Conclusion . . . 23

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Abbreviations

AFPs Agencies, Funds, and Programs

BINUB United Nations Integrated Office in Burundi CIVCAP Civilian Capacities

DDR Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration

DFS Department of Field Support

DPA Department of Political Affairs

DPKO Department of Peacekeeping Operations

DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo

DSRSG Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General ERSG Executive Representative of the Secretary-General

HC Humanitarian Coordinator

IAP Integrated Assessment and Planning

IMPP Integrated Mission Planning Process

IMTF Integrated Mission Task Force

ISF Integrated Strategic Framework

ITAPT Integrated Technical Assessment and Planning Team JMAC Joint Mission Analysis Centre

JOC Joint Operations Command

OCHA Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs OROLSI Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions

PBC Peacebuilding Commission

PBF Peacebuilding Fund

PBSO Peacebuilding Support Office

RC Resident Coordinator

SRSG Special Representative of the Secretary-General

SSR Security Sector Reform

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UN United Nations

UNDAF United Nations Development Assistance Framework

UNDG United Nations Development Group

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

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Executive Summary

Over the last two decades, the United Nations (UN) has undertaken a series of institutional innovations to promote greater coherence in the organization’s conflict and postconflict engagements across its political, security, development, and humanitarian pillars. The UN has taken the integration agenda further than many other organizations and “whole- of-government” approaches. It has developed a comprehensive body of integration-related policies and planning tools, and draws from a wide range of experiences with many forms and levels of integration. Earlier this year, the UN secretary-general reaffirmed the UN’s commitment to integration through the endorsement of a new policy on integrated assessment and planning (IAP).

Yet, this report argues that the UN integration agenda faces a number of obstacles that threaten to erase some of the hard-won gains. There are signs of integration fatigue from various corners of the organization, due in part to higher-than-expected transaction costs, the lack of incentives and rewards for integration, the difficulty of demonstrating and communicating the outcomes and impacts of integrated planning processes, and continuing structural impediments to fully realizing the

“integration promise.”

Despite a shift away from a focus on structures to an increasing emphasis on strategy, some nominally integrated UN field operations continue to experience institutional and funding turf battles.

This is rendered all the more complex in countries such as Mali, Somalia, and Syria, and in regions like the Sahel, where UN engagement has taken on multiple forms. In such contexts, peacekeeping operations, special political missions, and agencies, funds, and programs (AFPs) plan and operate alongside one another, requiring significant efforts to maintain coherence. It also remains unclear how changes in the broader international landscape and in some of the paradigms that initially set the context for UN integration will affect the agenda today.

As a result, the sentiment that efforts at integration are in fact driving the UN system apart is gaining currency. If integration is confirmed as the way forward at the policy level, how can the UN overcome these obstacles, incorporate these paradigm shifts, and revive momentum for integra-

tion in practice? This report seeks to capture the evolution of integrated planning efforts at the UN and to identify the next steps for a realistic integration agenda. It is based on a review of progress made, an assessment of the current state of integrated planning efforts, and an analysis of related policy developments.

RECOMMENDATIONS

This report argues that future UN action on integration should combine small but painstaking internal efforts to strengthen planning capacities (“quick fixes”) with more systemic improvements designed to sustain these by bringing greater coherence to the UN response in the field of peace and security (the “missing whole”). Among the main recommendations are the following:

Quick Fixes

Integrate Where It Matters

• Jointly identify areas where it makes sense for UN missions and AFPs to come together and agree on the right form and depth of integration required in each area.

• Do not restrict integration to programmatic interventions. In certain contexts, a UN mission and the UN country team may increase their impact by creating more coherence in areas such as public information and messaging, fundraising, stakeholder engagement, and operations.

Analyze as One

• Systematically carry out joint analytical exercises (now common practice across the UN system) throughout the mission life cycle, even if they do not lead to integrated responses.

• Establish joint analysis units (bringing together mission and AFP staff) to assess country trends and risks, and leverage the mission’s political access while drawing on the AFPs’ field networks.

• Continue to develop system-wide policies across a range of postconflict areas.

• Encourage and reward staff mobility across the UN Secretariat and AFPs throughout employees’

careers (rather than only at high levels), as well as staff collocation in field missions in some cases.

Upgrade the Capacity of System-Wide Planners

• Promote joint training for staff in the UN Development Group and Department of

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Peacekeeping Operations and capacity development for UN planners.

• Establish dedicated integrated planning capacities at headquarters.

Remove Managerial and Administrative Impediments

• Develop standard approaches, templates, and procedures for sharing of assets, staff interoperability, and transfer of resources, and delegate authority to missions and agencies in the field when choosing the right integration modus and tools.

• Increase awareness of both the “delivering-as- one” and the integration agendas, as well as other UN processes, such as the civilian capacity initiative and trust fund operations.

Provide Incentives and Leadership

• Create incentives for integration as part of staff performance evaluations and through greater recognition of the value of integration in senior leadership messaging and discourse.

• Develop a more robust body of evidence regarding the value of integration as it relates to UN performance in the field, and explain why it matters—clearly and credibly.

The “Missing Whole”

Peacebuilding: One UN Definition, Different Approaches

• The UN Secretariat should lead the way with some of the below systemic reforms, to ensure that different parts of the UN system complement rather than compete with one another in post - conflict peacebuilding.

• Donors should support and demand integrated approaches and joint UN initiatives and projects, and create incentives for different UN entities to further cooperate in a country or a region.

A Client-Oriented UN Headquarters

• Bring teams from the Departments of Peacekeeping Operations and Political Affairs together in the same regional groupings, with a unified interface to the “clients”—the host countries and the UN field missions (whether a peacekeeping or special political mission, or a UN country team).

• Adopt a client-oriented or service provider approach consisting of peace and security

“products,” which could be based on the existing models for electoral assistance or mediation support, and “enablers,” such as system-wide lessons learned, policies, and planning.

• Encourage “learning as one” through frequent cross-cutting lessons learned to build a common repository of institutional knowledge about integration across UN entities.

• All field missions should operate under one budget, and allow more flexibility and interoperability between the regular (assessed) budget and voluntary contributions.

Building on Partnerships

• Partner with the World Bank and the private sector for stronger integration of economic analysis into UN postconflict assessments—as was done in Libya and Yemen, for instance.

• For parallel deployments of a UN field mission and a non-UN force, develop effective coordination mechanisms and interoperability “where it matters” early during the planning processes.

• Develop more formal guidance for joint strategic assessments (UN-AU, UN-EU, UN–World Bank, etc.) to allow for a clearer division of labor from the outset while maintaining flexibility, as each organization may end up planning its own mode of engagement.

The Need for a New Integration Consensus?

• Rethink UN integration in light of the changing nature of crises, some of which go beyond traditional UN peace and security expertise and challenge state-centric paradigms.

• A second integration movement should put greater emphasis on building a political consensus that includes host countries and a broader member state constituency, and that extends to regional organizations and countries from the Global South. The New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States and the post-2015 development agenda could serve as catalysts.

The report concludes that if the integration agenda is to reclaim adherents, it is important for the UN to combine a series of practical fixes to its integrated planning practices with broader, systemic changes. At the same time, the UN also needs to build a more compelling narrative concerning the value of integration, reduce costs for its implementation, and clearly demonstrate its

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1 United Nations Secretary-General, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-Keeping, UN Doc. A/47/277-S/24111, June 17, 1992.

relevance to the evolving parameters of international engagement in crisis settings and to shifting operational requirements. To support and sustain these efforts, a rekindling of the UN leadership’s enthusiasm for integration and a renewed and broader member state consensus will be required.

Introduction

The United Nations (UN) has come a long way since Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s Agenda for Peacein 1992, introduced as one of the first attempts to instill greater unity of purpose in the organization’s conflict and postconflict engagement.¹ Over the last two decades, despite strong countercurrents, the UN has undertaken a series of institutional innovations to promote greater coherence across its political, security, development, and humanitarian pillars.

Efforts to better integrate different elements of the UN’s work first began within the UN Secretariat, to get the various departments adminis- tering and coordinating the UN’s activities to combine efforts in support of multidimensional field operations. “Integration” would thus bring together civilian, military, and police components under one senior UN official on the ground, supported by one budget. Integration then extended beyond the Secretariat to strengthen the partnership between peacekeeping and political missions on the one hand and UN agencies, funds, and programs on the other. It sought to ensure that, at the very least, the various UN entities deployed in conflict and postconflict contexts would not work at cross-purposes. Throughout, significant investments have also been made to strengthen the planning culture and capacities of various UN entities, with a focus on interdepartmental and interagency processes.

While these efforts have been developed through trial and error, and have at times been forced by failures in the field, it is evident that the UN has taken the integration agenda further than many other multilateral and bilateral organizations, and has achieved greater coherence than many “whole- of-government” approaches. The organization can now boast of a fairly comprehensive body of

integration-related policies, a range of technical planning tools, and a wide compilation of accumu- lated experiences with many forms and depths of integration.

Yet, the integration agenda seems to be facing a number of obstacles that threaten its momentum and even threaten to erase some of the hard-won gains. There are signs of integration fatigue from various corners of the organization, due in part to higher-than-expected transaction costs, the lack of incentives and rewards for integration, and continuing structural impediments to fully realizing the

“integration promise.” Efforts to measure the results of integration have been discussed but have so far been restricted to achievements in processes rather than outcomes or impact, further undermining efforts to calibrate expectations and communicate the costs and benefits of integration effectively.

With obstacles and costs often more visible than benefits, it is not surprising that the principle of integration—which should underpin UN responses in all crisis situations—continues to trigger unease and fatigue. Despite a shift away from an exclusive focus on structures to an increasing emphasis on strategy, some nominally integrated UN field operations also continue to experience institutional and funding turf battles, and resistance from humanitarian agencies. These divisions have at times been exploited by various external actors to their advantage. In addition, UN engagement in countries such as Mali, Somalia, and Syria, and in regions like the Sahel, has taken on multiple forms:

peacekeeping operations, special political missions (including regional offices and special envoys), and agencies, funds, and programs all plan and operate alongside one another, requiring significant efforts to maintain coherence.

Moreover, beyond the organization itself, the broader international landscape and some of the paradigms that set the context for UN integration and informed its parameters have changed.

Integration now needs to be pursued in a political and financial climate in which the UN is being asked to do more with less, increasing emphasis is placed on flexibility, and the trend toward hybrid and parallel operations with other organizations is multiplying coordination challenges.

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At the same time, demands on the UN have increased and shifted in nature. Host countries are asserting themselves and resisting the presence of foreign uniformed personnel while calling for greater UN support for economic development.

The Arab Spring and subsequent transitions have challenged traditional UN state-centric paradigms, and the UN integration model—with its in-built assumptions about capacity building and other modes of intervention—remains designed for postconflict and low-income countries rather than middle-income, fragile contexts. Some of these changes have been captured, in part, at the policy level and in strategic documents such as the World Development Report 2011, Civilian Capacity in the Aftermath of Conflict, or the “New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States,” and they have been part of the global debate surrounding the post-2015 development agenda.²Yet, it remains unclear what they mean for the future of UN integration and how integrated planning approaches reflect and account for some of their implications.

Finally, the promise of integration and support for it are further constrained by a perceived discon- nect between the results of integrated assessment and planning processes, and the decisions on mission mandates and resources that are ultimately made by the Executive Office of the Secretary- General, Security Council, and General Assembly, which often use a different set of considerations.

As a result, the sentiment that efforts at integration are driving the UN system apart rather than bringing it together is gaining currency at the same time that the secretary-general has re-affirmed the organization’s commitment to integration through the endorsement of a new policy on integrated assessment and planning.³ If integration is confirmed as the way forward at the policy level, how can the UN overcome these obstacles, incorporate these paradigm shifts, and revive momentum for integration in practice?

This report seeks to capture the evolution of integrated planning efforts at the UN and to identify the next steps for a realistic integration agenda. It is based on a review of progress made

and an assessment of the current state of integrated planning efforts, and includes an analysis of related policy developments. It argues that future action should combine small, painstaking internal efforts to strengthen planning capacities with more systemic improvements designed to demonstrate value for transaction costs and efforts. This will require rekindling the UN leadership’s enthusiasm for integration and ensuring that integrated mission planning processes strengthen the UN’s response to shifting operational requirements. A renewed consensus on integration, within and beyond the UN, will also be needed to support and sustain these efforts.

UN Integration and Integrated Strategic Planning: Evolution and Current Status

Over the past two decades, the UN has undertaken a series of institutional innovations to promote greater coherence across its political, security, development, and humanitarian pillars. While the terms “integration” and “integrated strategic planning” are frequently discussed and used as guiding principles throughout the UN community, they encompass both different processes (intra- Secretariat versus Secretariat together with UN agencies, funds, and programs) and outcomes at different levels (structural, strategic, operational, etc.).

DPKO LEADS INTEGRATION WITHIN THE UN SECRETARIAT

Integration first began as an intra–UN Secretariat affair, with the creation of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the Depart - ment of Political Affairs (DPA) in 1992. DPKO was created in response to the need to run increasingly large and complex multidimensional peace operations mandated by the Security Council.

These brought together civilian, military, and police components under the single leadership of the special representative of the secretary-general

2 World Bank, World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development(Washington, DC, 2011); UN Secretary-General, Civilian Capacity in the Aftermath of Conflict, UN Doc. A/67/312–S/2012/645, August 15, 2012; International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding, “A New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States,” 2011.

3 The UN “Policy on Integrated Assessment and Planning” (IAP) was approved by the secretary-general on April 9, 2013, following endorsement by the Integration Steering Group on March 15, 2013, and by the UN Development Group on March 13th.

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(SRSG) and under one budget (the “peacekeeping assessed budget”). This merger, and the fact that the individual heading the field operation carries an equivalent level of seniority as the under-secretary- general that leads DPKO at headquarters (or one level below), are unique features of UN missions.

At field level, the establishment of a joint operations command (JOC) and a joint mission analysis center (JMAC) composed of civilian, police, and military in missions further contributed to greater information sharing and joint analysis between the civilian and uniformed components of missions.⁴ The need for such integrated structures to support planning and decision making by a mission’s civilian and military leadership grew out of increasingly multidimensional missions and crises, such as the failure of UN peacekeepers to protect the city of Bukavu in eastern Congo in 2004.⁵

At headquarters level, the Department of Field Support (DFS) was created in 2007 to provide a more integrated logistical and administrative support system to peacekeeping missions, a function previously housed under DPKO. However, this also produced coordination challenges. The

“integrated operational teams” (IOTs), envisaged as a single point of contact at headquarters for field missions and partners, therefore became the tool to bring the various civil and uniformed components of DPKO in UN headquarters together with their DFS counterparts.⁶Headed by a director, integrated operational teams serve as information and liaison hubs in New York and provide integrated support for each peace operation managed by DPKO.

BEYOND THE SECRETARIAT: FROM STRUCTURAL TO STRATEGIC INTEGRATION

In parallel with these intra-Secretariat integration efforts, a broader integration drive incorporating UN agencies, funds, and programs operating in a given country started in the late 1990s and early

2000s under the leadership of then UN secretary- general Kofi Annan. As the researchers Kathleen Jennings and Anja Kaspersen put it, “The impulse to integrate grew out of a conviction that the peacekeeping failures of the 1990s were at least partly attributable to the various elements of the UN acting separately, and occasionally at cross- purposes.”⁷This integration drive had the support of several heads of agencies, including Mark Malloch Brown (administrator of the United Nations Development Programme from 1999 to 2005) and later Jan Egeland (emergency relief coordinator from 2003 to 2006).

Two seminal reports also provided impetus for these efforts. The 1997 report Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reformcommissioned by Kofi Annan noted that “separate UN entities…pursue their activities separately, without regard to or benefiting from each other’s presence,”

and it promoted the idea that “all UN entities…at country level…operate in common premises under a single UN flag.”⁸The 2000 Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, known as the Brahimi Report, emphasized the need to

“contribute to peace-building…in a genuinely integrated manner.”⁹

Initial steps toward UN integration were focused on field missions and included both structural and strategic dimensions. Notably, this included the creation of a “triple-hatted” deputy SRSG (DSRSG), in whom the authority of both the resident coordinator (RC) and humanitarian coordinator (HC) would reside, where feasible. The DSRSG/RC/HC is tasked with ensuring coordination across mission activities set by the mandate and the UN country team’s long-term development and humanitarian initiatives. A further “Note of Guidance” in 2006 specified that the DSRSG reports primarily to the SRSG, and through him or her to the under- secretary-general of DPKO or DPA (in the case of special political missions). However, there would also be a secondary reporting line to the chair of the

4 The first DPKO policy directive on JOC and JMAC was released in 2006 and states that all missions shall establish a JOC and JMAC at mission headquarters. See UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, “DPKO Policy Directive: Joint Operations Centres and Joint Mission Analysis Centres,” July 1, 2006.

5 See Thorsten Benner, Stephan Mergenthaler, and Philipp Rotmann, The New World of UN Peace Operations: Learning to Build Peace?(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 197–208.

6 See United Nations Secretary-General, “Overview of the Financing of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Budget Performance for the Period from 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005 and Budget for the Period from 1 July 2006 to 30 June 2007,” Part II, UN Doc. A/60/696, February 24, 2006.

7 Kathleen M. Jennings and Anja T. Kaspersen, “Introduction: Integration Revisited,” International Peacekeeping15, No.4, August 2008, p. 445.

8 United Nations Secretary-General, Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reform, UN Doc. A/51/950, July 14, 1997.

9 Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, August 21, 2000, UN Doc. A/55/305-S/2000/809.

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10 United Nations Secretary-General, “Note of Guidance on Integrated Missions,” January 17, 2006, available at www.regjeringen.no/upload/UD/Vedlegg/missions/sgnote.pdf .

11 Espen Barth Eide et al., “Report on Integrated Missions: Practical Perspectives and Recommendations,” Independent Study for the Expanded UN ECHA Core Group, May 2005.

12 The governments of eight countries—Albania, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uruguay, and Viet Nam—volunteered to take part in the

“Delivering as One” pilot initiative in 2007.

13 United Nations Secretary-General, “Decision No. 2008/24 – Integration,” in Decision of the Secretary-General – 25 June Meeting of the Policy Committee, June 26, 2008, available at www.undg.org/docs/9898/Integration-decision-SG-25-jun-08.pdf .

14 United Nations Secretary-General, No Exit Without Strategy: Security Council Decision-Making and the Closure or Transition of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, UN Doc. S/2001/394, April 20, 2001.

UN Development Group (as RC) and to the Emergency Relief Coordinator (as HC), where applicable.¹⁰

The first major independent study on integration in 2005 found that there was little specific agreement about what an integrated mission comprised or what integration meant in practice, and it argued for “strategic integration” over

“structural integration.”¹¹ It recognized that overly formal structural tools could be counterproductive, arguing instead that “form must follow function”

and that integration should only be pursued in areas where the approach adds value. This recommendation was largely captured in subsequent guidance and led to the emergence of a variety of organizational structures in the field, including several explicitly designed to be more conscious of the need to preserve the “humanitarian space.” Indeed, the discussions on the integration of UN conflict and postconflict presences were consistent with a broader push for system coherence, expressed in the “Delivery as One” initiative in the development arena and the cluster approach in the humanitarian field.¹² However, these initiatives have proceeded mostly in parallel, with attempts at convergence emerging only very recently.

The shift toward strategic integration was confirmed by a June 2008 decision by the UN secretary-general’s Policy Committee, the highest decision-making body within the UN Secretariat.¹³ Following wide-ranging consultations with the main parts of the UN, the committee reaffirmed integration as the guiding principle for engagement in conflict and postconflict situations. The decision clearly stated that the principle of integration should be applied wherever the UN has a country team and a multidimensional peacekeeping operation or a special political mission or office. It also clarified that integration does not only apply to missions that are “structurally integrated” (with a

triple-hatted DSRSG/RC/HC) and that it can take different structural forms reflecting needs and circumstances. The discourse on integration thus began to focus more on the need for an effective strategic partnership and shared vision between the UN mission or office and the country team, under the overall leadership of the SRSG.

INTEGRATED STRATEGIC PLANNING:

FROM HEADQUARTERS TO FIELD MISSIONS

Throughout this process, significant investments have been made to strengthen the planning culture and capacities of various UN entities, with a focus on interdepartmental and interagency processes.

One of the recommendations of the independent

“Report on Integrated Missions” in 2005 was that planning for integrated missions should be an interorganizational process, both at headquarters and in the field, and should involve UN country teams and other relevant actors present in the area.

The Brahimi Report had already recommended the creation of “integrated mission taskforces”

bringing together the Secretariat and agencies, funds, and programs at headquarters for mission- specific planning and support. But written guidance on integrated planning only appeared much later. Building on member states’ support for integrated and strategic planning following the 2001 secretary-general’s report No Exit Without Strategy, DPKO head Jean-Marie Guéhenno launched a review of DPKO’s planning process.¹⁴In 2004, this resulted in an initial doctrine known as the 2004 Integrated Mission Planning Process, which incorporated inputs from UN agencies into DPKO’s internal planning procedures.

In their initial forms, both the integrated mission taskforces (IMTFs) and Integrated Mission Planning Process (IMPP) faced strong opposition from agencies, funds, and programs, largely because “unlike day-to-day management in the field, planning is tightly controlled in every UN

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agency by strict procedures that reflect the politics among member states in oversight bodies rather than the needs of the mandate or people on the ground.”¹⁵ Nonetheless, the guidelines for the Integrated Mission Planning Process—for headquarters and field missions—were formally approved by Secretary-General Annan in 2006 as the “authoritative basis for the planning of all new integrated missions, as well as the revision of existing integration mission plans for all UN departments, agencies, funds and programs.” They also kept the idea of integrated mission taskforces.

In practice, it was not until the June 2008 Policy Committee decision, which reaffirmed that “form must follow function,” that the integrated mission planning guidelines started getting some traction on the ground, and much of it followed existing practice and innovations in the field. By that time, various UN field offices—such as those in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Burundi—had already experi- mented with a variety of integration models while struggling with support issues (including asset sharing and different cost recovery rates between DPKO and agencies), and an “integration steering group” had been created to start looking into these issues. Meanwhile, what had started as a top-down headquarters/DPKO-led effort toward UN integrated strategic planning evolved into different country-specific planning processes and experiments.

To further strengthen the strategic focus of integrated approaches, the Integrated Strategic Framework (ISF) was introduced and made into a requirement in 2008 for countries or circumstances where there was a multidimensional peacekeeping operation or special political mission or office, and a UN country team. The purpose of the framework was to bring together the mandates and resources of the mission and country team, and to reflect “a shared vision of the UN’s strategic objectives” and

“a set of agreed results, timelines, and responsibili- ties for the delivery of tasks critical to consolidating peace.”¹⁶

The Integrated Strategic Framework was thus designed to capture the context-specific nature and

depth of the partnership between a mission and a country team in support of peace-consolidation objectives. As such, it was not meant to replace or duplicate entity-specific planning tools, such as the Results-Based Budgeting tool for missions or the UN Development Assistance Framework, country program documents, and common humanitarian action plans for UN agencies. However, despite real evidence of its value in a number of integrated settings, lingering confusion regarding the Integrated Strategic Framework’s purpose has also contributed to integration fatigue.

15 See Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann, The New World, pp. 190–191.

16 United Nations Secretary-General, “Decision No. 2008/24.”

17 Special political missions include regional political missions, special envoys/advisers of the secretary-general, and country-specific political and peacebuilding offices.

Special Political Missions¹⁷

In a context of financial austerity and renewed focus on conflict prevention and mediation, the UN and member states have often presented special political missions as a cost-effective alternative to larger peacekeeping missions.

Their value also comes from their comparatively

“light footprint,” at a time when many host governments resist the presence of foreign troops on their territory, and from their adaptability to circumstances. The recent trend of special political missions taking up more operational mandates has led DPA to develop its own guidance on planning—namely, the Special Political Missions Start-Up Guide 2012.

However, special political missions have also created new challenges—not just for DPA but for the UN system as a whole. Special political missions have been linked to parallel and competing DPA and DPKO planning processes in several cases (Libya, Syria, Central African Republic, and Mali being the most recent examples), in which each UN entity attempts to dictate how peace should be supported through its own norms and departments rather than a dispassionate, historically anchored assessment or conflict analysis.

The UN’s ability to plan for and deploy such special political missions in a timely manner is limited by the fact that DPA-led missions are currently funded through the regular budget

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18 The UN “Policy on Integrated Assessment and Planning” (IAP) was approved by the secretary-general on April 9, 2013, following endorsement by the Integration Steering Group on March 15, 2013, and by the UN Development Group on March 13th. It was also referred to in Security Council Resolution 2086 (2013) on multidimensional peacekeeping (para 4).

In spite of controversies, failures, and confusion, the integration agenda has steadily evolved over the last two decades, sometimes driven by headquarters and other times by experiments in the field, with one source of innovation informing the other. In this respect, the UN has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for perseverance, course correction, and self-reflection, even if such qualities may trigger derision and evoke unpleasant memories for those mired in the day-to-day workings of integrated planning, whether at the policy level or in the field.

The most significant evolution relates to the shift from a narrow focus on structure to an emphasis on strategy.

This shift is now clearly articulated in the 2013 Policy on Integrated Assessment and Planning (IAP),¹⁸ which supersedes the prior Integrated Mission Planning Policy and sets out minimum requirements for joint analysis (through the joint

conduct of strategic assessments), common priorities, integrated mechanisms, and integrated monitoring. The objective of integrated strategic planning is to agree on where it makes sense to work jointly and to define the depth and structural form of such work together, on the basis of a common understanding of the situation and the most appropriate UN responses. The integrated assessment and planning policy therefore introduces nuance and diversity where past policy had been (mis)interpreted, and at times applied, in monolithic terms. It is hoped that it will help the system overcome the wall into which the UN integrated strategic planning agenda seems to have run.

Hitting the Wall? Current Obstacles to Integrated

Strategic Planning in the UN

THE GAP BETWEEN ACTUAL COSTS AND PERCEIVED BENEFITS

After all these efforts, many within and beyond the UN have now begun to ask, “So what has all this led to?” Unfortunately, the institution has not so far been able to demonstrate a consistent causal link between integrated planning approaches and meaningful impact on the ground. As with other functions and interventions, it is technically difficult to establish attribution, and the counter- factual (“what if the UN had not planned together?”) is subject to claims that belong more in the realm of philosophy than science. Furthermore,

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(rather than the peacekeeping budget, which funds DPKO-led missions), and to a lesser degree by the absence of dedicated DPA strategic planning capacity (with only a modest planning capacity within the Guidance and Learning Unit of DPA’s Policy and Mediation Division).

Although initially developed by DPKO, the same integrated strategic planning instruments (the Integrated Mission Planning Process and Integrated Strategic Framework) also apply to DPA-led special political missions, which have integrated task forces at headquarters that are similar to the integrated mission task forces.

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concrete examples of integration’s added value in areas such as electoral assistance may be either too few or insufficiently commensurate with the associ- ated transaction costs to counter suspicion that, ultimately, there may be less than meets the eye to the integration agenda.

However, if real results on the ground—beyond changes in process—are difficult to measure, few would disagree that the more visible transaction costs are now undermining support for integration.

These costs, and the absence of consistent and reliable answers to the “so what?” question, have spawned a sense of integration fatigue across the UN system, with complaints about the time spent on coordination processes, information-sharing processes, and consensus-building efforts to agree on analytical findings, recommendations to senior leadership, or even entity-specific staffing tables.

Although the facilitation over formalization approach would suggest that this interaction and periodic feedback between elements of the mission is essential to system-level coordination and effective outcomes, many bemoan the delays in decision making and the dilution of authority and content that result from “integrated processes” that seek to placate everyone without fully satisfying anyone. These burdens were vividly illustrated in the integrated peacebuilding frameworks used in the early days of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. This period spawned serious reform of the commission’s engagement strategies, but internal UN planning processes, such as the Integrated Strategic Framework or Development Assistance Framework, continue to be plagued by high-level coordination requirements.

19 The paragraphs on the peacebuilding office in Burundi are adapted from Adam C. Smith and Arthur Boutellis, eds., The Management Handbook for UN Field Missions(New York: International Peace Institute, June 2012).

focused engagement by the UN country team.

BINUB was replaced by a small political office in January 2011, whereas the Security Council decided that UNIPSIL will close and hand over to the country team in March 2014.

After they were set up, BINUB and UNIPSIL became the most advanced examples of both strategic and structural integration of the UN system at the time. Both were led by an executive representative of the secretary-general (ERSG), who also wore the hats of resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator, and who was assisted by a deputy ERSG. This allowed development-oriented funds to be used for peace - building, despite initial resistance from UN agencies, funds, and programs that had been on the ground prior to the peacebuilding offices. The Peacebuilidng Fund’s (PBF) $35 million envelope for each country (with additional funding granted later) played a catalytic role for integration, since the ERSG could leverage it via the agencies, funds, and programs that would implement the PBF projects jointly with the UN peacebuilding mission in-country and combine overheads.

These projects also promoted integration within the host government as their implementation often involved various ministries.

In Burundi, the ERSG co-chaired a weekly UN Integrated Management Team meeting with heads of agencies, funds, and programs, as well as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The UN Integrated Management Team served as a structure for joint decision making and for reducing the compartmentalization of the UN’s work in Burundi. It further allowed the head of mission to provide strategic guidance on all critical aspects of peace consolidation and define a joint UN position with the government and international development partners.

UNIPSIL and the UN agencies, funds, and programs in Sierra Leone agreed to combine their efforts and resources behind a “joint vision” in support of the government of Sierra Leone and its people, which was adopted in December 2008 to cover the initial period from Peacebuilding as a Driver for Integration: UN

Offices in Burundi and Sierra Leone¹⁹

The UN’s integrated peacebuilding offices in Burundi (BINUB) and Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL) were both conceived as follow-on presences to peacekeeping operations, to coordinate the response of the UN to the peace-consolidation priorities identified with the host government.

This arrangement allowed for a smooth transition from peacekeeping to a more development-