24 June 2025, NIICE Commentary 11346
Sharon Bhattarai
Peacebuilding refers to a complete process that revolves around the institution of a mechanism that functions toward the elimination of the root causes of the conflicts, rebuilding the fragmented societies, and making conditions for peace to be sustained. Such a process not only covers handling of conflicts but also gaining a new understanding among people, providing justice, and implementing stability of the society through its social, political, and economic changes. Peacebuilding means significantly more than just resolving conflicts temporarily or organizing military operations. The nature of the operation being involved is primarily comprehensive and for a long period of time, thus incorporating all parts of society, be it local, national, and international, and attracting various actors, among those being governments, civil society, and international organizations. The concept of peacebuilding has at its core an understanding of inclusiveness, which, among other things, highlights the importance of all the stakeholders having a voice, including marginalized groups such as women, minorities, and former combatants.
The United Nations, founded in 1945 for global peace, plays a very important role in solving problems via the use of peacekeeping, preventive diplomacy, and peacebuilding. The main way of implementing peacebuilding, which represents one of the most significant fields of work of the given organization, is the promotion of long-lasting peace outcomes of countries that are moving away from war to peace, by enforcing national resources within the area of conflict management, through which sustainable development is enhanced. Among others, they include activities ranging from overseeing suspensions of hostilities, decommissioning and integrating the militia, advocating the reform of the justice and security sectors, promoting, and also realizing the return of refugees, as well as peaceful coexistence between previously antagonistic groups. UN peacebuilding, in most cases, gets support from organizations like the World Bank, regional commissions, NGOs, and local groups. The outstanding examples are the missions in Bosnia, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and Timor-Leste. The United Nations, on the other hand, addressed the issue of the multifaceted nature of modern conflicts by creating the Peacebuilding Commission in 2005 to facilitate global coordination in relation to activities aimed at resolving conflicts, funding recovery schemes, and technology transfer. These, alongside the Peacebuilding Fund and Peacebuilding Support Office, place their emphasis on the provision of continuous financial support and attention to the reconstruction of the war-torn societies.
UN peacebuilding is a really complex and time-consuming process that mainly concentrates on settling the deepest reasons of conflicts, restoring the broken communities, and making sure that the peace is kept through the participation of all and transformational activities. There has been a change in the peacebuilding process. It is not just a need for crisis management and military interventions, but also has a broader scope that includes political reconciliation, economic development, social justice, and trust-building among the parties who were previously in conflict. The Peace Building Commission (PBC), Peace Building Fund, and Peace Building Support Office are the main vehicles through which the UN is engaging in and managing the cooperation with the World Bank, regional organizations, NGOs, and local actors throughout the peacebuilding process. The UN is committed to also reconstructing the post-conflict areas, reintegrating the combatants, judicial and security reforms, and helping the return of the refugees; hence, they are ensuring that the new governance structures are legitimate and representative. Despite the drawbacks, UN peacebuilding is still the main supplier of the assets that allow the communities to put an end to the vicious circle of violence and to create a new future of peace, resiliency, and inclusiveness.
Many United Nations peacekeeping missions have not been able to secure long-term peace and stability, and have repeatedly disintegrated after the withdrawals. The civil wars in South Sudan broke out again after the presence of UNMISS. The two draft resolutions aimed at Renewing Cross-Border Humanitarian Operations in Syria's North-West have been rejected by the Security Council; the major powers have completely blocked the peace efforts. Apart from that, missions often ignore local actors, for instance, in Haiti, where MINUSTAH has never been able to go beyond merely issuing and actually building institutions. The lack of proper coordination, as in the case of DRC, makes the impact lighter, and civilian protection is still very spotty, especially in the Central African Republic. Besides that, inefficiency in terms of finance, as in Kosovo, and the lack of a strong Peacebuilding Commission further limit the success of the missions. These troubles bring forward the idea of urgent reforms required in the approach of the UN peacekeeping. The UN has also faced major peacebuilding failures in Iran, Israel, and Palestine, among others. In Iran, UNIIMOG had no power to enforce its decisions, and it was only able to achieve minimal success after the Iran-Iraq War. In addition, in the Israel-Palestine region, attempts such as UNTSO, UNIFIL, and UNCCP did not succeed in stopping the continuation of wars, ensuring the safety of the civilians, or finding solutions to the refugee problems. UNRWA is only a provider of aid; it is not a political actor in the peace process. Similar failures occurred in Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, and Angola due to weak mandates, lack of enforcement, and political gridlock. The UN often acts as an observer without real leverage, making lasting peace difficult. Structural limitations and global power politics have severely constrained its effectiveness.
The United Nations, the organisation that is dedicated to the promotion of world peace and security, is now going through a number of issues that are negatively affecting the peace-building efforts. The main among these is the “veto power” situation that the five permanent members of the Security Council have, and that is frequently the cause of the lack of decision-making. The reason is that they cannot find the same interests for their countries, and thus they end up blocking each other’s way to solving a crisis. Just to give an example, the situation in Syria, Palestine, or Ukraine. The UN is regularly subjected to a lot of negative publicity for bureaucratic inefficiency, no coordination between agencies, and the excessive role of donors in the formation of mandates that may result in the compromise of neutrality and the loss of responsiveness. It seems that the “League of Nations” has also suffered from similar problems with its institutions as the absence of an enforcement mechanism and the lack of participation from the main powers, such as the United States, that caused its downfall. The “UN differs structurally” by being more realistic and integrating power politics into its structure, especially through the Security Council; however, this very issue still repeats the same power inequities. The argument here is that it is U.S. hegemony, particularly its dominance in the military, economy, and ideology in the world after 1945, that has kept the UN alive and at the centre of world affairs. The USA not only is the home to the UN headquarters and provides the largest part of its budget, but it also employs the UN in a selective manner to get support for its interventions or pursue its foreign policy. This hegemonic dominance has, in a paradoxical way, been the main factor in the UN's survival. It has, however, often rendered it incapable of being a genuinely democratic global peace maker.
The UN has still come through while the League of Nations no longer exists; however, it is still confronting the same main problem that it has been dealing with for a long time: seeking to harmonize power politics with the tenets of multilateralism.
