A New Partnership Agenda: Charting a New Horizon for UN Peacekeeping is an internal "non-paper" prepared by the by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the Department of Field Support (DFS), which reflects the departments' analysis and outlines a number of crucial recommendations for the future of peacekeeping operations.

The New Horizon non-paper has been circulated to Member States and partners and will form the basis of in-depth consultations in the coming months. DPKO and DFS hope that the initiative will facilitate the development of an agreed forward agenda among stakeholders on the priorities and requirements for UN peacekeeping.

The development of the New Horizon non-paper is part of a process designed to assess the policy and strategy dilemmas facing UN peacekeeping over the coming years and to identify possible approaches that would better position UN peacekeeping to respond to current and future requirements.

In the more than sixty years of its existence, UN peacekeeping has evolved significantly as a tool of international crisis response. UN peacekeepers have served across the globe to prevent the outbreak of conflict, to manage and contain violence and to support national actors in protecting and building peace after conflict. During this period, UN peacekeeping has demonstrated considerable success in helping to maintain and consolidate peace in many areas of the world, but it has also experienced devastating failures to halt horrific violence.

Today, UN peacekeeping is stretched like never before and is increasingly called upon to deploy to remote, uncertain operating environments and into volatile political contexts. It is an enterprise to which Member States have turned time and time again to address an ever wider range of situations. Yet, it is also a tool that faces challenges: challenges to deliver on its largest and most expensive missions, challenges to design viable transition strategies for missions where a degree of stability has been attained and challenges to prepare for an uncertain future.

In this environment, the New Horizon initiative is an effort to begin a dialogue with stakeholders on the conditions under which UN peacekeeping can be most effective and on options to adapt the instrument for success in current and future operations.

New Horizon does not present definitive solutions. Nor does it replace ongoing reform efforts. Rather, it builds on past and ongoing efforts to identify possible approaches that can help to manage the new complexities and growing scale of UN peacekeeping.

As part of the New Horizon process, DPKO and DFS also commissioned an external think-piece by the Center of International Cooperation (CIC), "Building on Brahimi: a Coalition for Peacekeeping in an era of Strategic Uncertainty" to help stimulate discussion on the challenges and opportunities for UN peacekeeping. (The CIC piece is an independent, external input to the process. It does not reflect or prejudice the views of DPKO and DFS.)

For more information on the New Horizon project, please contact e-mail pkreform@un.org