Are UN Peace Operations Effective?

Most of the peace operations EPON has studied to date have made significant contributions to preventing major civil war and large-scale violence. However, these peace operations are not able to bring an end to these violent conflicts, or to protect civilians at scale on their own. They simply do not have the political leverage and support, requisite mandates, resources and thus capacity to end violent conflict at the scale required. All of the peace operations EPON has studied have been more successful during periods when they enjoyed coherent political support among most of the key stakeholders. The performance of peace operations should not be judged only on the ability of the missions to achieve their own objectives. Effectiveness also depends on the degree to which a peace operation and their strategic headquarters contributes to shape and maintain the strategic political coherence of the larger national and international effort to sustain the peace in a given country or region.