Civilian Peacekeeping Capacity: Mobilizing Partners to Match Supply and Demand

The timely deployment of suitably qualified civilian personnel is a challenge that none of the organizations that deploy peacekeepers has yet addressed. This challenge has floundered on the periphery of the peacekeeping debate for many years, but a 2010-11 UN civilian capacity review provides a unique opportunity to focus attention on the problem. This article proposes the formation of a global civilian capacity partnership that brings together the training and roster community, the UN Secretariat and a grouping of interested states, with the aim of significantly improving the UN Secretariat's ability to identify, recruit and deploy suitably qualified civilian personnel in a reasonable time, and without adverse side effects for the local community or the mission mandate.