[DEBATE] : Economic Impact of Peacekeeping

[Soenke Zehle]

Economic Impact of Peacekeeping
<http://www.stimson.org/pub.cfm?id=277>

FOPO co-director William Durch is the co-author of Economic Impact of 
Peacekeeping, a ground-breaking and detailed study of peacekeeping 
operations’ effects on the war-torn economies into which they deploy. 
The first multi-mission study of its kind and the first effort to 
quantify the economic impact of UN operations since 1993, the study was 
recently released by the Peacekeeping Best Practices Section of the UN 
Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Durch worked in collaboration 
with Scott Gilmore, executive director of the Peace Dividend Trust, 
Ottawa, which managed the Economic Impact of Peacekeeping Project, and 
economist Michael Carnahan, based in Canberra, Australia.

In addition to his work as co-author, Dr. Durch served as political 
adviser to the project and participated in project fieldwork in Sierra 
Leone in July 2005.  The project aimed to generate new policies and 
practical reform measures that would minimize negative economic effects 
on UN peacekeeping mission areas, yet better utilized mission spending 
to help jump-start post-war economic growth. The project began in 
January 2005 and undertook fieldwork in one former and nine current 
missions.

Through 400 interviews in the field and at UN headquarters, plus surveys 
of mission staff and analysis of operational spending, staffing and 
macroeconomic data from each mission area studied, the project has 
produced the first quantitative analysis of the economic impact of UN 
peace operations.

Only about 10 percent of the budget of a UN peacekeeping operation lands 
in the mission area, on average.  The rest pays global vendors, pays 
international staff salaries, and reimburses states for the cost of 
troops and police. Of the 10 percent spent locally, on average about 
half comes from spending of international staff per diems on housing, 
food, and incidentals; one quarter from the mission’s direct procurement 
of local goods and services; and one quarter from salaries of local 
staff hired directly by the mission. The two tables below illustrate 
this spending breakdown.

The report’s thirty-seven recommendations built on the ideas of UN staff 
who have grappled with the problem of economic impact first-hand and in 
some cases developed innovative mechanisms to enhance that impact. They 
address three broad themes:

     * First, the need for greater consciousness within missions of the 
potential economic impact of every policy decision and of the 
relationship between economic recovery and other mission objectives.
     * Second, the need to maximize local procurement, consistent with 
quality and the guiding principle of value for money.
     * Third, in order to avoid serious distortions in local labor 
markets, the need to better adapt UN operating principles to the 
war-torn economies where peacekeepers deploy.

For additional information on the project, including previous reports, 
please visit the Peace Dividend Trust website or the DPKO Best Practices 
Section homepage.