Security, Development and UN Coordination

Abstract

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has made it a key objective to reform the United Nations (UN) from a “culture of reaction to a culture of prevention” (Annan 1997). Annan’s reform-initiative is based upon the idea that there is an inherent relationship between development and security, and that investment in development efforts is the most effective way for the UN to fulfil its goal, as stated in the Charter, of “saving coming generations from the scourge of war” (Annan 2001). The question of the prospects for conflict prevention and on the more general relationship between development and security currently receives intense scholarly and political attention.¹ Indeed, an international consensus has emerged on an inherent relationship between development and security, as has been mentioned in the final document of the 2005 World Summit in September 2005, which states that “we recognize that development, peace and security and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing” (UN 2005).²

Influential think tanks and research institutes, such as the International Peace Academy, the Center on International Cooperation, NYU and the Social Science Research Council in New York with close links to policy debates within the UN, have research programmes on peacebuilding and conflict prevention.

See the Report of the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (UN 2004); Annan (2005); United Nations (2005): para 9: 2.