The concept of preventive diplomacy has captivated the United Nations since it was first articulated by Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld a half-century ago. Successive generations of diplomats and statesmen have invested in the idea that diplomatic efforts might be able to head off international conflicts and disasters. Dramatic successes, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, contrast with dramatic failures, such as the inability of UN efforts to halt the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In this careful study, distinguished former UN civil servant Bertrand G. Ramcharan traces the history of the practice of preventive diplomacy by UN Secretaries-General, the Security Council, and other UN organizations, and assesses the record of preventive diplomacy and examines its prospects in an age of genocide and terrorism.

This book argues that the most sustainable means of promoting peace within states is the development of good governance, which can address the root causes of conflict and meet basic human security needs. Good governance offers groups a 'voice' in resolving grievances at an early stage before they grow into major problems, safeguards human rights, and promotes a fairer distribution of resources.

Violent conflicts today are complex and increasingly protracted, involving more nonstate groups and regional and international actors. It is estimated that by 2030—the horizon set by the international community for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals—more than half of the world’s poor will be living in countries affected by high levels of violence. Information and communication technology, population movements, and climate change are also creating shared risks that must be managed at both national and international levels. Pathways for Peace is a joint United Nations†“World Bank Group study that originates from the conviction that the international community’s attention must urgently be refocused on prevention. A scaled-up system for preventive action would save between US$5 billion and US$70 billion per year, which could be reinvested in reducing poverty and improving the well-being of populations. The study aims to improve the way in which domestic development processes interact with security, diplomacy, mediation, and other efforts to prevent conflicts from becoming violent. It stresses the importance of grievances related to exclusion—from access to power, natural resources, security and justice, for example—that are at the root of many violent conflicts today. Based on a review of cases in which prevention has been successful, the study makes recommendations for countries facing emerging risks of violent conflict as well as for the international community. Development policies and programs must be a core part of preventive efforts; when risks are high or building up, inclusive solutions through dialogue, adapted macroeconomic policies, institutional reform, and redistributive policies are required. Inclusion is key, and preventive action needs to adopt a more people-centered approach that includes mainstreaming citizen engagement. Enhancing the participation of women and youth in decision making is fundamental to sustaining peace, as well as long-term policies to address the aspirations of women and young people.

The suppression of war has been the primary objective of the United Nations for almost fifty years, and stopping a war before it starts is easier than ending a war already underway. History, however, has shown that military interventions and economic sanctions often do more harm than good. In Preventive Diplomacy, Nobel prize winners, top officials, and revered thinkers tackle these issues and explore the process of conflict prevention from humanitarian, economic, and political perspectives. This cross-disciplinary reader on global politics demonstrates that when new insights and methodologies on public health are applied to the handling of international disasters, the change in policy perspective is intriguing--even hopeful.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been one of the world's most dynamic and fastest-growing regions over the years. Its average combined GDP growth rate is more than 6% and the total combined GDP was valued at US$3.0 trillion in 2018. ASEAN countries have managed to significantly reduce their national poverty over the last few decades. Although a correlation exists between economic growth and poverty reduction, millions of people in ASEAN countries still do not have sufficient incomes to fulfill their basic needs including food, shelter, clothes and sanitation. This book is a collection of working group papers contributed by members of Network of ASEAN-China Think-tanks (NACT) and covers best practices on poverty alleviation in ASEAN member states as well as in China, and ASEAN-China cooperation. It discusses experiences of ASEAN member states and China such as with regard to national policies, principles, definitions, approaches, progress, and challenges in poverty reduction. It reviews and evaluates the way forward including existing joint projects, opportunities, and challenges in the future cooperation and offers policy recommendations from both national and regional perspectives to help policymakers better cope with the daunting poverty challenges.

Dangerous Diplomacy reassesses the role of the UN Secretariat during the Rwandan genocide. With the help of new sources, including the personal diaries and private papers of the late Sir Marrack Goulding--an Under-Secretary-General from 1988 to 1997 and the second highest-ranking UN official during the genocide--the book situates the Rwanda operation within the context of bureaucratic and power-political friction existing at UN Headquarters in the early 1990s. The book shows how this confrontation led to a lack of coordination between key UN departments on issues as diverse as reconnaissance, intelligence, and crisis management. Yet Dangerous Diplomacy goes beyond these institutional pathologies and identifies the conceptual origins of the Rwanda failure in the gray area that separates peacebuilding and peacekeeping. The difficulty of separating these two UN functions explains why six decades after the birth of the UN, it has still not been possible to demarcate the precise roles of some key UN departments.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been one of the world's most dynamic and fastest-growing regions over the years. Its average combined GDP growth rate is more than 6% and the total combined GDP was valued at US$3.0 trillion in 2018. ASEAN countries have managed to significantly reduce their national poverty over the last few decades. Although a correlation exists between economic growth and poverty reduction, millions of people in ASEAN countries still do not have sufficient incomes to fulfill their basic needs including food, shelter, clothes and sanitation. This book is a collection of working group papers contributed by members of Network of ASEAN-China Think-tanks (NACT) and covers best practices on poverty alleviation in ASEAN member states as well as in China, and ASEAN-China cooperation. It discusses experiences of ASEAN member states and China such as with regard to national policies, principles, definitions, approaches, progress, and challenges in poverty reduction. It reviews and evaluates the way forward including existing joint projects, opportunities, and challenges in the future cooperation and offers policy recommendations from both national and regional perspectives to help policymakers better cope with the daunting poverty challenges.

This edited volume focuses on the development and conflict prevention mechanism of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS. The contributors discuss complex socio-political and economic issues and use a cross disciplinary approach to treat most of the dominant research questions in the field. The chapters come nicely together in a kaleidoscope of knowledge deriving from scholarly investigative traditions in political science, anthropology, economics, law, and sociology. The book is conceived as a source of reference and for graduate courses in African politics, development, human rights, transnational law, and international public policy.

This book analyses the UN’s Agenda 2030 and reveals that progress is lagging on all five interlocking and interdependent themes that are discussed: conflict prevention, development, peace, justice and human rights. Many voices have already been raised, including that of the UN Secretary-General that the Sustainable Development Goals will not be met by 2030 unless there is a re-doubling of efforts. Still, on development as such, there is much striving. The book puts the concept of preventive diplomacy into all of the issues of modern international relations, from the US/China confrontation to the various conflicts bedeviling Africa. It bridges the two worlds of the international relations specialist on the one hand and that of the academic interested in UN affairs on the other hand. There is normally little contact between those two specializations. The authors have taken several current issues to show how the millennium debates and the SDG targets are relevant to "realist school" conflicts, and that there is work under way to operationalize ideas and theories in this respect. This is the first ever discussion of the conflict prevention dimension in the UN’s Agenda 2030 which seeks to advance sustainable development with a view to reinforcing peace and justice on the foundations of respect for universal human rights.