Feed aggregator

“What turned it into a disaster wasn’t just nature - it was the result of decades of unsustainable construction,” according to former Greek MEP Kriton Arsenis.

No technology currently exists that enables access to encrypted data without undermining the privacy and security guaranteed by encryption.

Over the past eighty years, the evolution of UN peace operations has encountered several critical junctures. Now, UN peace operations have arguably reached another turning point with the decline in the number of UN-led multidimensional missions and a growing role for partners, including regional and subregional organizations. This has led to calls to examine how peace operations are conceived, mandated, structured, and led, and several review processes are ongoing. It is important that these processes consider not only the supply side of peace operations but also the demand side—in other words, to take conflict settings as the starting point and work backward to determine the type of intervention needed.

Within this context, IPI organized a series of scenario-based workshops to brainstorm potential responses to a mix of real and hypothetical scenarios. The first workshop was held over two days in Addis Ababa in January 2025 in partnership with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). A second workshop was held in New York in March 2025. The workshops brought together civilian, military, and police representatives of the UN, African Union (AU), subregional organizations, and member states, as well as independent experts.

This paper reflects on several key considerations that emerged from these workshops:

• The UN Security Council and UN Secretariat should work together to ensure that mandates and mission activities are driven by clear political strategies that address politics at the local, national, regional, and international levels.
• The Secretariat should establish a standing and integrated operational planning team in the shared regional divisions to facilitate a shift from templated approaches to context-specific, demand-driven approaches.
• Field missions should have enhanced capacity to develop operational responses to scenarios based on their current mandate or possible changes to their mandate.
• Member states and the Secretariat should explore how to operationalize modular approaches to mission configurations to foster more flexible and targeted mission mandates.
• Troop- and police-contributing countries (T/PCCs) should provide more specialized and targeted contributions to match missions’ capabilities to new mission approaches and current demands.
• Building on their commitments in the Pact for the Future, member states should demonstrate leadership by actively contributing to the ongoing reviews of peace operations and by providing a clear political direction to the work of the Secretariat.

These lessons can feed into several ongoing and upcoming policy processes, including the UN peacekeeping ministerial, the review on the future of peace operations, the ten-year review of the report of the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO), and the review of the UN peacebuilding architecture.

Download

The post Scenario-Based Planning and the Future of Peace Operations appeared first on International Peace Institute.

Without the protective "umbrella" of Marine Le Pen, does Bardella have the political weight to prevent factional infighting within the party?

A total of 95 people are charged with promoting "public violence" and for "breaches of peace".

The vote could solve a difficult situation where whoever backs down stands to lose both a privacy watchdog and institutional prestige.

"We are ready to support any country that requires an increase in Brazilian exports - even for geopolitical considerations," said Luis Rua, trade secretary at Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture.

A temporary ban of a social media platform can be carried out by the French authorities, but the ruling says that the ban has to be of a fixed duration, and the TikTok ban was indefinite.

South Africa white-ball coach Rob Walter, who took over in March 2023, resigns citing "personal reasons".

Under this “targeted amendment” over-polluting EU carmakers will have three years instead of one to meet stricter emissions limits on new car sales.

In an era dominated by digital monopolies and the rapid spread of disinformation, what does the future hold for independent news outlets? European Parliament President Roberta Metsola shares her insights on the challenges and opportunities facing journalism today.

Donald Trump devrait annoncer des droits de douane demain, le 2 avril, à 21 h 00 CET.

The annual number of asylum applications dropped by a third in 2024 to 213,000 compared to the year before, she said.

Les petites entreprises des régions moins favorisées devraient être négligées au profit des grands groupes, partout en Europe, et de préférence dans le secteur de la défense, selon un projet de texte consulté par Euractiv.

The head of Germany's UBA environmental agency urged the country's next government to keep its "eyes on the prize" in regulating PFAS chemicals.

The costs of climate policy could weigh most heavily on those down the income brackets. The head of Germany's UBA environmental agency urges policymakers to ease that burden.

Too early to anticipate the content or scope of the next omnibus packages, a Commission spokesperson said.

Nicknamed the 'Snowbok', South African cross-country skier Matt Smith is set to compete at the 2026 Winter Olympics despite only taking up the sport two years ago.

Nicknamed the 'Snowbok', South African cross-country skier Matt Smith is set to compete at the 2026 Winter Olympics despite only taking up the sport two years ago.

Hakainde Hichilema says some are dozing off because of "indulgence" and a lack of self-control.