United Nations Secretary-General Appoints
High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations
31 October 2014 - The world is changing
and UN peace operations must change with it if they are to remain an
indispensable and effective tool in promoting international peace and
security.
That is why I am announcing today the
establishment of a High Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations.
I have appointed Mr. Jose Ramos-Horta of Timor-Leste to chair the panel,
which will draw together individuals with a wide range of experience and
expertise.
The Panel will make a comprehensive
assessment of the state of UN peace operations today, and the emerging
needs of the future. It will consider a broad range of issues facing
peace operations, including the changing nature of conflict, evolving
mandates, good offices and peacebuilding challenges, managerial and
administrative arrangements, planning, partnerships, human rights and
protection of civilians, uniformed capabilities for peacekeeping operations
and performance.
The last major external review of peace
operations was undertaken in 2000 and led by Mr. Lahkdar Brahimi. In
addition, this will be the first such panel to examine both peacekeeping
operations and special political missions.
As we approach the 15-year anniversary
of the Brahimi report, we must acknowledge that peace operations today are
increasingly called on to confront politically complex and challenging
conflicts, often in volatile security environments where operations are
directly targeted. We must take stock of evolving expectations and
consider how the Organization can most effectively advance peace, assist
countries caught in conflict and ensure that our peacekeeping operations
and special political missions remain strong and effective in a changing
global context.
The Panel will work closely with the
main UN Departments concerned, as well as with Member States and the UN
system as a whole. The Panel’s recommendations to me will be available for
consideration by the General Assembly at its 2015 General Debate.
LIST
OF MEMBERS
The
Secretary General’s High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations
Jose Ramos-Horta (Timor-Leste)
Chair
A Nobel laureate, journalist and
promoter of independence for Timor-Leste for thirty years, Mr. Ramos-Horta
served as Foreign Minister, Prime Minister and Head of State of a newly
independent Timor-Leste. Upon leaving office, he served as the Secretary-General’s
Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Integrated
Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNIOGBIS).
Jean Arnault (France)
Most recently, Mr. Arnault has been a
professor at Sciences Po Paris focusing on mediation and settlement of civil
wars. He previously served as United Nations Special Adviser to the
Group of Friends of Democratic Pakistan; Special Representative of the
Secretary-General in the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia
(UNOMIG); Special Representative of the Secretary General in the United
Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA); Representative of the
Secretary General for Burundi and Head of the United Nations Office in
Burundi (UNOB); and Special Representative of the Secretary General for
Guatemala and Head of the United Nations verification mission in Guatemala
(MINUGUA).
Abhijit Guha (India)
Lieutenant General Guha is currently a
member of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping
Operations/Department of Field Support Panel of Experts on Technology.
Prior to this, General Guha served as the first interim Director of the
Office for Peacekeeping Strategic Partnerships and, before that, as the
Deputy Military Advisor on the Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
General Guha is retired from the Indian Army.
Ameerah Haq (Bangladesh)
Ms. Haq currently is United Nations
Under-Secretary-General for Field Support. Previously, Ms. Haq was
the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the United Nations
Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT). In the United Nations
Mission in Sudan, she was the Deputy Special Representative of the
Secretary-General as well as United Nations Resident Coordinator and
Humanitarian Coordinator. In Afghanistan, she also served as Deputy
Special Representative of the Secretary-General and United Nations Resident
Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in the United Nations Assistance
Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). She has held senior positions within the
United Nations Development Programme and served as the United Nations
Resident Coordinator in Malaysia and Laos. She has overall 39 years
of United Nations experience, 19 of these in the field.
Andrew Hughes (Australia)
Mr. Hughes served at the United Nations
Police Adviser in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations during
2007-2009. He subsequently lectured in the Centre for Transnational Crime
Prevention at the University of Wollongong, mentored in-coming senior
United Nations leaders and chaired two United Nations Headquarters Boards
of Inquiry into fatal attacks on the United Nations in Afghanistan, and
completed UNDP reviews of the Libyan National Police and the Afghan
National Police. Prior to his United Nations service, Mr. Hughes
served for over 30 years in the Australian Federal Police, rising to the
level of Assistant Commission and serving as Chief Police Officer for the
Australian Capital Territory. He was responsible for the Australian Federal
Police international operations, including contributions to United Nations
missions in East Timor and Cyprus, and led a major reform of the Fiji
Police Force as Fiji Police Commissioner. He chaired the Pacific
Islands Chiefs of Police and was elected to the executive committee of
Interpol. He was appointed as Australia’s Inspector of Transport Security
in 2012.
Alexander Ilitchev (Russia)
A career diplomat, Mr. Ilitchev served
with the United Nations for fifteen years, including as Senior Officer,
Asia and Pacific Division, Team Leader for Northeast Asia, and principal
advisor to the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Korean
Peninsula in 2003-2005. Prior to joining the United Nations, he
served in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs during 1974-1992 with
assignments in New York (Alternate Representative of Russia to the Security
Council and Senior Political Counsellor of the Russian Permanent Mission to
the United Nations); Moscow (Personal Assistant to the Soviet Foreign
Minister and U.S.A. Department of the Foreign Ministry); Washington (USSR
Embassy), and Syria.
Hilde F. Johnson (Norway)
Hilde F. Johnson served as Special
Representative and Head of Mission of the United Nations Mission in South
Sudan (UNMISS) and before that played a key role in the negotiations
between Sudan and the SPLM/A leading to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in
2005. Previously, Ms. Johnson served as the Deputy Executive Director of
the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), leading the agency’s
humanitarian operations, crisis response and post-crisis transition
programmes. Ms. Johnson has crisis and conflict-related experience
in the Horn of Africa, Sudan, Great
Lakes region, Afghanistan, Timor-Leste and Guatemala. Ms. Johnson served as
twice as Minister and member of the Norwegian Government Cabinet from 1997
– 2005 Minister and was a member of the Norwegian Government Cabinet and
was Member of Parliament from 1993 to 2001.
Bruce Jones (Canada)
Bruce Jones is senior fellow and deputy
director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, and a
Consulting Professor at Stanford University. He is the former
Director of New York University’s Center on International
Cooperation. He served in the United Nations Mission in Kosovo
(UNMIK), and with the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle
East peace process. He has also served in advisory positions for the
World Bank on fragile states, including as senior external advisor to the
World Bank’s 2011 World Development Report on Conflict, Security and
Development. He was a senior advisor to Kofi Annan on United
Nations reform and served as deputy research director to the United Nations
High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, as well as lead scholar
for the International Task Force on Global Public Goods.
Youssef Mahmoud (Tunisia)
Mr. Mahmoud is currently a Senior
Adviser at the International Peace Institute, contributing to the Africa,
Middle East, and peace operations programs and acting as focal point on
mediation policies and practices. Before retiring from the United Nations
in January 2011, He was the Special Representative of the Secretary-General
in the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad
(MINURCAT) and, before this, Executive Representative of the
Secretary-General and Head of the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in
Burundi (BINUB). He also assumed the responsibilities of Deputy
Special Representative with the peacekeeping mission that preceded
BINUB. Since joining the United Nations in 1981, Mr. Mahmoud has held
several senior positions, including United Nations Resident Coordinator in
Guyana and Director in the Department of Political Affairs. He has
also held posts with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia
and in the Office of Human Resources Management at New York Headquarters.
Before joining the United Nations in 1981, Mr. Mahmoud was Assistant
Professor at the University of Tunis.
Ian Martin (United Kingdom)
Ian Martin was the former Special
Representative of the Secretary-General in the United Nations Support
Mission in Libya (UNSMIL). Prior to this, he was Special Adviser to the
Secretary-General on Post-Conflict Planning for Libya, a position in which
he led the integrated pre-assessment process, coordinating with the United
Nations system and with the Libyan transitional authorities. He has
appointed to lead Headquarters Board of Inquiry into certain incidents in
the Gaza Strip; Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Nepal;
Special Envoy for Timor-Leste; Representative in Nepal of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; and Deputy Special
Representative of the Secretary-General in the United Nations Mission in
Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Henrietta
Joy Abena Nyarko Mensa-Bonsu (Ghana)
Professor Mensa-Bonsu is the Director of
Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD) and a Full
Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law in the University of Ghana, Legon.
She has served as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General
for Rule of Law in the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). Prior to this,
undertook a number of national assignments and international assignments
for the Organization of African Unity (OAU), African Union and Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS). She was Ghana’s
representative on the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on the
Drafting of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African
Child in 1991, and the OAU’s Committee of Experts on the Lockerbie
Case. She was also a member of the Advisory Panel of the
International Bar Association for the drafting of a Code of Professional
Conduct for Defence Counsel appearing before the International Criminal
Court.
B. Lynn Pascoe (US)
Mr. Pascoe was appointed by
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to serve as Under-Secretary-General for
Political Affairs in 2007-2011. Prior to his UN service, Mr. Pascoe
was the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Indonesia and Malaysia, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs
at the U.S. State Department, as well as U.S. Special Negotiator for
Regional Conflicts in the former Soviet Union. In an almost forty-year
career in the U.S. Foreign Service, Mr. Pascoe also held positions on the
Soviet and China desks and has been posted to Moscow, Hong Kong and
Bangkok, as well as to Beijing twice and to Kuala Lumpur. He speaks mandarin
Chinese.
Floriano Peixoto Vieira Neto (Brazil)
Lieutenant General Floriano served as
Force Commander of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
(MINUSTAH), from 2009 to 2010. Joining the Brazilian Army in 1973, he
graduated as an infantry officer in 1976 and subsequently held a number of
senior command and staff positions, including Command of the twelfth
Infantry Brigade (Air Assault), Command of the second Army Division and
Head of the Brazilian Army Staff’s Fifth Sub-Directorate (International
Matters). In 2004, when Brazil sent its first contingent to MINUSTAH,
he was appointed as the Brigade’s Operations Officer, as a colonel.
Wang Xuexian (China)
Mr. Wang serves on the Executive Board
of the United Nations Association of China. Mr. Wang has had a long
diplomatic career, including serving as Ambassador to South Africa and,
before, that, as Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
Throughout his career, he has held various positions in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China and in embassies or
consulates in the United States, Malaysia, and United Kingdom.
http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=86708d9deb7fbd282b2aaab05&id=920918b346&e=1ce274f267
AIDS-FREE
WORLD CRITICAL ANALYSIS THAT UN HIGH-LEVEL INDEPENDENT PANEL ON PEACE
OPERATIONS DOES NOT REFLECT
GENDER
EQUALITY OF UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1325
Open Letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Dear Mr. Secretary-General,
Today, October 31st, 2014, you threw the struggle for gender equality
into reverse. You established a High-Level Independent Panel on Peace
Operations. You appointed fourteen members: eleven men and three women.
The timing of your announcement is a slap in the face to women working
for peace the world over. Exactly 14 years ago today, on October
31st, 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325, stressing
the importance of women’s “equal participation and full involvement in
all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security”
and urging, first and foremost, “increased representation of women at
all decision-making levels in national, regional and international
institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management, and
resolution of conflict.”
Just three days ago, you described those words as part of “a bold
agenda for achieving gender equality.” You went on to say that “the
United Nations is striving to realize this vision.” Today, your
actions drowned out the sound of your rhetoric.
You have not reflected the significance of Resolution 1325. In one
stroke, you have repudiated the importance of gender equity in the
appointment of high-level panels. You have seemingly declared to the
world there must be no women to be found anywhere–as in politics,
academia, diplomacy, civil society, or among Nobel Laureates—who are
qualified enough to satisfy the requirements of a panel on peace
operations. You seem to have indicated that the panel’s consideration
of a “broad range of issues facing peace operations” is overwhelmingly
the domain of men.
Mr. Secretary-General, we have complained about this insulting and
sexist pattern before. This pattern must be reversed. The gender
equity you profess to espouse can only be achieved by the appointment
of eight additional women to the panel.
If you leave things as they are, this panel will become a testament to
the hypocrisy between UN performance and UN rhetoric.
Let us end by reminding you of your words at the opening of the General
Assembly just over a month ago: “Transformation is our
goal. I can think of no better place to start than with opening doors
and shattering ceilings for women and girls… We cannot fulfill 100 per
cent of the world’s potential by excluding 50 per cent of the world’s
people.”
Sincerely,
Paula Donovan and Stephen Lewis
Co-Directors, AIDS-Free World
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