Review of UN peace operations support to security sector reform

This report offers an independent review of the extent to which the impressive development of Security Sector Reform (SSR) policy at the United Nations over the past 15 years has shaped SSR interventions supported by peacekeeping operations. The review identifies serious deficiencies in mandates, strategy, organization, implementation and learning in United Nations mission practices regarding SSR. It suggests that the transmission of policy into practice requires substantial improvement.

The independent review team offers five strategic recommendations to improve the SSR practices of United Nations field missions. These are based on an extensive desk review of internal and publicly available documents describing United Nations support to SSR in United Nations Headquarters (UNHQ) and mission contexts; as well as over 131 interviews with senior leaders and key stakeholders across most peace operations currently implementing an SSR mandate, several United Nations entities at UNHQ level, critical multilateral and bilateral partners, as well as host country representatives. The recommendations are summarized in the figure below.

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'The independent review can be found on UN peacekeeping at this hyperlink: Towards Better Security Governance: Learning from the Road Travelled | United Nations Peacekeeping

Find more information about Security Sector Reform (SSR) on the UN Peacekeeping website.

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