The past two decades have seen a change in conflict patterns around the globe, with new conflict trends increasingly challenging established response systems. In light of these changes the relevance of UN peace operations has been called into question, with the task of ensuring that responses are fit for purpose posing a significant leadership challenge. In Peacekeeping with No Peace to Keep, Abdoulaye Bathily – who served as Deputy Special Representative for the Secretary General (SRSG) for the UN mission in Mali – provides unique insights into the relevance of effective leadership for building peace.
Bathily, with no previous UN experience, accepted the position of SRSG for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), asked to keep the peace in a situation where, as he argues in this book 'there was no peace to keep'.
Drawing on these experiences – as well as those gained from his later role as Special Representative to the Secretary General for the mission in Central Africa – Bathily analyses the problems he faced and sets out the lessons he learned in terms of what effective leadership looks like in peacekeeping situations. In particular, Bathily shares insights on how to build and sustain relations with host governments, as well as how to engage the plethora of actors typically present in peacekeeping situations across Africa.
Chapter One: The problematic of peacekeeping
1.1 The neo-liberal world disorder
1.2 Mali in the shadows of this Global order
Chapter Two: Background of the conflict in Mali
2.1 The Northern Question in Mali, Legacies from pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods
2.2 The Libyan crisis and the Fall of ATT
2.3 The assault of the terrorist coalition and the transition
Chapter Three: MINUSMA to the rescue
3.1 Background of the mission, contrasting views of the AU and UN Security Council
3.2 The mandate
3.3 The question of leadership of the mission
3.4 My emergence as depute SRSG
Chapter Four: Bathily as Deputy Secretary General
4.1 My reading of the situation in Mali
4.2My vision versus the reality on the ground
4.3 Actors hovering in the wings
Chapter Five: Leadership Challenges
5.1 Tensions between mandate and the situation on the ground
5.2 The contradictions within the international community
5.3 Uneasy relationship between the mission and key local actors
5.4 Unexpected outcomes, replication of cycle of violence
Chapter six: Reflections in hindsight
6. 1 A journey to Nowhere: My dilemma
6.2 Resignation as the final option
6.3 Could it have been done differently?
Index
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