United Nations Civil Affairs
The UN uses the term "Civil Affairs" differently from other - mainly military - institutions. Civil affairs officers in UN peace operations are not military officers but are civilian UN staff members who are often at the forefront of a mission’s interaction with local government officials, civil society, and other civilian partners in the international community.
Definition: "UN Civil Affairs components work at the social, administrative and sub-national political levels to facilitate the countrywide implementation of peacekeeping mandates and to support the population and government in strengthening conditions and structures conducive to sustainable peace.",
There are currently around 500 UN Civil Affairs Officers in 13 UN Peacekeeping Operations worldwide. Civil Affairs components perform one or more of three core roles, depending on the UN Security Council mandate given to a particular peacekeeping mission. In each role the work of Civil Affairs intersects with, supports and draws upon the work of a variety of other actors. Depending on the mandate, the three core roles are:
- i. Cross-mission representation, monitoring and facilitation at the local level;
- ii. Confidence-building, conflict management and support to reconciliation;
- iii. Support to the restoration and extension of state authority.
Read more about this topic: Civil Affairs
Famous quotes containing the words united, nations, civil and/or affairs:
“We begin with friendships, and all our youth is a reconnoitering and recruiting of the holy fraternity they shall combine for the salvation of men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of united light, yet there is no group which a telescope will not resolve; and the dearest friends are separated by impassable gulfs.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The UN is not just a product of do-gooders. It is harshly real. The day will come when men will see the UN and what it means clearly. Everything will be all right—you know when? When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction, and see it as a drawing they made themselves.”
—Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961)
“... though mathematics may teach a man how to build a bridge, it is what the Scotch Universities call the humanities, that teach him to be civil and sweet-tempered.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)
“To quarrel with the uncertainty that besets us in intellectual affairs would be about as reasonable as to object to live one’s life with due thought for the morrow because no man can be sure he will alive an hour hence.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)