Standby Arrangement System: enhancing rapid deployment capacity.

• Position: Peacewatch

"The planning of peacekeeping operations is the ultimate challenge", Major-General Franklin van Kappen, Military Adviser to the Secretary-General, told the UN Chronicle in March. "Because you never know where you have to operate; you never know what they want you to do, you don't know the mandate in advance; you don't have forces, you don't have transport, and you don't have money."

As of 1997, the United Nations has mounted 43 peacekeeping operations. Fifteen were established in the 40 years, between 1948 and 1988; the other 28 since 1989. Missions have multiplied in number and in complexity. "Most early peacekeeping missions responded to interState conflicts, but in recent years peacekeeping has more often addressed conflicts within States, sometimes where Governments no longer function. Soldiers serving under United Nations command as peacekeeping observers or troops have been confronted with more and more challenging mandates. They are involved in a wider spectrum of operations, ranging from traditional ceasefire monitoring to the task of armed protection of humanitarian convoys," General van Kappen said.

At the beginning of 1993, the Secretariat decided to establish a special planning team to develop the Standby Arrangement System (SAS), to have a precise understanding of the forces and other capabilities a Member State would have available, should it agree to contribute to a peacekeeping operation, General van Kappen said. The key element is the exchange of detailed information to facilitate planning and preparation for both the participating Member States and the United Nations. As of now, 62 Member States have agreed to provide standby resources, 40 per cent of which can be ready for use in the mission area within 30 days or less.

Response time

The first aspect that can speed up the deployment of peacekeeping operations is the reduction of the response time between a decision by the Security Council to establish an operation, and the arrival of troops and equipment in the mission area.

This is dependent on national approval. "In some Member States, it goes rather quickly, but in other States it takes a long time, because the several procedures they have to go through are often very complicated", the Military Adviser said. "I would like to speed up the process of decision-making. Even when the answer is no, you would rather have that answer quickly, because then you know that you have to ask another Member State to participate", he...