Unintended Consequences of Peacekeeping Operations

The Employment of National Staff

Lino Sciarra
Sciarra, United Nations Dialogue with the Global South Fellow
Friday 3 October 2008
Dedicated to the memory of
2,400 United Nations
peacekeepers from some
118 countries
ti th
thatt di
died
d
while serving under the UN
flag during the past 60 years
Disclaimer

Aim
illustrate the complexity of UN peace
operations, their evolution, and their impact
Introduction
60 Years of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations

• UN peacekeeping began in 1948 with the deployment of unarmed

military observers to the Middle East in a mission to monitor the
armistice agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors

• Since 1948, 63 UN peacekeeping operations have been deployed,

17 of them in the past decade alone (27%)

• During this period there has been a extraordinary evolution in the

way the operations are conducted and organized

• Women are increasingly performing key leadership functions in

peacekeeping. Currently, one woman leads a peace operation as a
Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG),
Ellen Margrethe Løj (Denmark) in Liberia, and three women as
Deputy SRSGs, among them Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu (Ghana) in
Liberia
UNMIL SRSG Ellen Margrethe Løj UNMIL Chief Civil Affairs Francis Kai-Kai
• The UN does not have its own military force; it depends on
contributions from Member States. As of 31 August 2008, 119
countries contributed military and police personnel to UN peacekeeping

• The UN is the largest multilateral contributor to post-conflict

stabilization worldwide. Only y the United States deploys
p y more military
y
personnel to the field than the United Nations

• There are 19 peace operations managed by the UN Departments of

P
Peacekeeping
k i O Operations
ti (DPKO) on four
f continents
ti t directly
di tl
impacting the lives of hundreds of millions of people. This represents a
seven-fold increase in UN peacekeepers since 1992

• In addition, another 12 special political and/or peacebuilding field

missions are led by the Department of Political Affairs (DPA)

Sources of slides No.5 and 7: http://www.un.org/events/peacekeeping60/factsheet.shtml

United Nations Peacekeeping Operations Background Note – 31 Aug. 2008
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/bnote.htm
Personnel in DPKO led UN Peacekeeping Operations
as 30 June 2008

Uniformed personnel 82,230

Including 74,295 troops; 11,503 police; and 2,432 military observers
International civilian staff 5,188
National civilian staff 12,477
UN Volunteers ((Internationals and Nationals)) 1,981
,
Total number of personnel serving in 16 peacekeeping operations * 107,876

* Numbers include 16 DPKO mandated peacekeeping operations only

Statistics for the 2,000 staff serving in three special political and/or
peacebuilding missions – UNAMA, UNIOSIL and BINUB – directed and
s pported b
supported by DPKO can be fo found
nd at
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/ppbm.pdf
The Asian Contribution to UN Uniformed Personnel

Source: http://www.un.org/events/peacekeeping60/PDF/personnel.pdf
In summary:

• UN peace operations
ti have
h a llong hi
history.
t In
I sixty
i t years there
th
has been a remarkable evolution due to the changing
international situation and the nature of warfare
• This speed of change became more evident in the post-Cold
War era when peace operations moved away from traditional
peacekeeping, which was mainly intended to separate the
conflicting
fli ti parties
ti and
d maintain
i t i th
the ceasefire
fi
• Today, UN intervene in a growing number of civil conflicts and
peace operations have become larger in size, more complex in
nature, and deeper in scope, going beyond peacekeeping to
peacebuilding, which aim to address directly the causes of the
conflict
• To reach these new goals contemporary UN peace operations
are usually composed by three main components:
– The military
– The police
– The civilians
• Among the UN civilian component, the national staff are the
largest
g element ((about 60%))
• Besides that, in any peace operation UN peacekeepers are not
alone to operate. Along them there are international and
national staff of an increasing number of other actors
– UN family members
– international organizations and donors
– non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
– private security companies and private contractors
Unintended Consequences
Unintended Consequences
“No intervention in a complex system such as a human
society
i t can have
h only
l one effect.
ff t Whenever
Wh there
th is
i an attempt
tt t to
t
bring about change in a complex system, the system reacts in a variety of
ways. Some of these reactions are intended, in the sense that the
intervention was designed to bring about these changes
changes. Others are
unintended, in that those planning the intervention did not mean for
these reactions to come about at all.
As peace operation activities have grown in complexity
complexity, so
have their side-effects. Traditional peacekeeping rested on the
assumption that it had no impact on the future direction of the peace
process other than to offer a neutral third-party
third party service that would
objectively monitor a ceasefire […]. In the post–Cold War era, however,
the focus of international conflict management has increasingly shifted
from ppeacekeeping
p g [[…]] to p
peace operations,
p which are intended to
manage change.”
Source:
Aoi, de Coning, and Thakur (eds), Unintended Consequences of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations University Press, 2007, p. 3-5
 What are the unintended consequences
of a UN peace operation?

• In the UN peace operations the intended consequences are defined in the

Security Council Resolutions, which formulate the mission mandates
• q
Unintended consequences are different from a failure to achieve the
intended consequences (such as the inability of the peacekeepers to
maintain peace)
• Not all side-effects are negative; some are neutral and others are positive
• Some unintended consequences could be anticipated, if they have
occurred in similar circumstances in the past, while others might be totally
unexpected
• Despite some unintended results are harmful
harmful, their overall impact should
not be overemphasized
• Research on the topic is limited and recent, but this should not surprise
due to tthe
e recent
ece t eevolution
o ut o oof peace ope
operations.
at o s CoConsequently,
seque t y, many
a y
effects are not fully understood, particularly the long term ones
We May Act to Produce Short-term Benefits and Long-term Costs
The Employment of National Staff
Rationale of employing national staff in the civilian component

The bulk
Th b lk off the
th civilian
i ili componentt is
i constituted
tit t d by
b national
ti l staff
t ff for
f the
th
following reasons:
1.Skill scarcity: some jobs can be performed almost exclusively by
national staff (such as interpreting and translating in local languages or
driving in local areas and conditions)
2.Legitimacy: a mission entirely composed by internationals would pose
great challenges in dealing with local leadership and population.
National staff increase the local acceptance and facilitate the
understanding g of the local context
3.Cost: per capita international staff cost between 10 and 50 times as
much as national staff. This is due to higher salaries, but also
allowances (accommodation,
(accommodation hazard,
hazard hardship),
hardship) travel cost
cost, and specific
additional security measures for expatriates
National Staff Categories
• Regular positions (Fixed term and ongoing contracts)
Mostly administrative, clerical, and supporting roles; at the top of the
echelon you have national officers

• C
Casual
l llabor
b
Essentially daily recruited unskilled workers

• Outsourcing
For labour intensive functions as unarmed security and cleaning
In this cases this is a preferred formula for three reasons:
1 reduce the overall staff cost
1.
2. facilitate mission downsizing
3. help in creating local enterprises
Occasionally,
O i ll these
th diff
differentt contractual
t t l status
t t create
t tensions
t i
among national staff
The Solution to One Problem May Cause Another Problem:
Unintended Negative Consequences
Unintended Negative Consequences

• Lamented brain-drain due to UN higher salaries and benefits that

draws scarce skilled staff away from national public and private
sectors

• Setting high wage floor for other external recruiters as NGOs and
international organizations that are arriving afterwards

• Upward pressure on local wages, generating salary expectations

that cannot be matched by the national civil service or the local
private sector

• Possible waste of scarce human resources when overqualified

candidates go for junior UN posts that offer higher salaries
– This is a reality
reality, but normally the opposite is true: it is difficult to find
qualified applicants, particularly for the top positions
Comparison Between Government and UN Monthly Wages

Mission UN national staff Government Government

mid level (equivalent) (senior)
Timor-Leste (2001) 210 123 360
Kosovo (2004) € 790 145 667
Liberia 578 25 1,400
DRC (2005) 763 25 75
Haiti 626 238 952
All figures in USD, apart in Kosovo where wages are paid in Euros
Comparative advantages with national civil services:
1.Salaries paid regularly
2.Benefits such as access to UN medical services

Source: Carnahan M. et alt. (2006), Economic Impact of Peacekeeping, Peacekeeping Best Practices
Section DPKO Report, p. 32
Why UN salaries for national staff are so high?

Main
M i reasons:
• need to recruit the best possible employees
(competition with other actors in a restricted labour market)

• need to ensure the integrity of the staff

(salaries of national civil servants can be below the poverty line)

Secondary reasons:
• Continuity with previous salary scales (UN agencies and NGOs
are active during the conflict)
conflict), while the national economy
rapidly deteriorated

• Difficulty
y in wage
g setting
g in a disrupted
p labour market,, typical
yp of
a post-conflict environment
National Human Resource Deployment (Peak Year)

Mi i
Mission All Ci
Civilian
ili Staff
St ff N ti
National
l Staff
St ff P
Percentage
t
Timor-Leste (2001-02) 2,963 1,656 55.9 %
Kosovo (2001-02) 4,925 3,533 71.7 %
Liberia (2004-05) 1,864 798 43.1 %
DRC (2004-05) 2,821 1,355 48.0 %
Haiti (2004
(2004-05)
05) 1 180
1,180 548 46 4 %
46.4

• The overall figure of the national staff remains small compared to the
size of the population of each country
• National recruitment is higher where UN have been in charge of
transitional administration (Timor-Leste and Kosovo)

Source: Carnahan M. et alt. (2006), Economic Impact of Peacekeeping, Peacekeeping Best Practices
Section DPKO Report, p. 29
Sometimes We Find Unexpected “Leverage Points”:
Unintended Positive Consequences
Positive unintended effects – the economic impact

• Hiring national staff provides a direct injection of money into the

local economy and one salary usually supports an extended
family

• Their aggregate salaries constitute on average 20% of the

economic footprint of a mission

• This is happening in a critical phase of the economic recovery

when the private sector is still extremely weak
Positive unintended effects – the social impact
• A large number of women are usually recruited, following UN
gender balance rules
– Even if women are normally recruited by UN as administrative staff,
this is not necessarily a disadvantage, since they might be more
i fl
influential
ti l and
d paid
id b
better
tt ththen as d
drivers
i or security
it guards
d
• Younger generations have more probabilities to be recruited due to
linguistic and IT skills and more transparent recruitment processes
• Comparatively, both these groups have less probabilities of being
recruited in the national civil services; so the brain-drain effect
might
g be less than lamented
• Normally women and youth are more prone to advocate positive
change within their societies and supported by higher salaries and
in-house
in house training opportunities
opportunities, they become more influential
• For a few, this is the first step in an international career
People
Kosovo, Gjilani / Gnjilane - 2000

Sefedin
Kosovo, Gjilani / Gnjilane - 2000

Ibadete Milena
Liberia, Fishtown - Present George
Liberia, Buchanan - Present Danietta
Questions?
 Bibliography

• Aoi, de Coning, and Thakur (eds), Unintended Consequences of

Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations University Press, 2007

• Carnahan M. et alt., Economic Impact of Peacekeeping,

Peacekeeping Best Practices Section DPKO Report, 2006

• Schaefer B
B., Time for a New United Nations Peacekeeping
Organization, The Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder No. 2006,
13 February 2007
Credits

• Slide N
Slid No. 2
2: processed
d ffrom: Honouring
H i 60 Y
Years off
Peacekeeping Operations , UN DFS, DPKO, and DPI Poster
• Slides No. 9, 10, 12: graphs taken from: Schaefer B., Time for a
New United Nations Peacekeeping Organization, The Heritage
Foundation, Backgrounder No. 2006, 13 February 2007
• Slide No. 6: UNMIL Photo/Christopher Herwig, 9-11June
9 11June 2008,
Monrovia, Liberia - Civil Affairs Retreat at SKD stadium
• Slides No. 19, 23, 28: taken from Dennis Meadows presentation
on “Systems
Systems Thinking for Transformational Change”
Change , during the
course on “Nonprofit Leadership”, University for Peace
(UPEACE), Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica, January 2006
• Slid N
Slides No. 32
32, 33,
33 34,
34 35:
35 personall pictures,
i t allll rights
i ht reserved
d
• Other sources quoted on the slides