Brahimi Report

The Brahimi Report (formally the Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN document A/55/305–S/2000/809) was released on 21 August 2000. It was produced by a panel chaired by Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, after Secretary-General Kofi Annan convened the group in March 2000 to address the failures of UN missions in the 1990s, particularly in Rwanda (1994) and Srebrenica (1995).

The report offered a frank diagnosis: UN peacekeeping had been hampered by vague mandates, inadequate troop strength, slow deployment, weak intelligence and analysis, and a culture of consent-based neutrality that left peacekeepers paralysed in the face of spoilers. Its core recommendations included:

• Clear, credible, and achievable mandates, with the Secretariat telling the Security Council what it needs to hear, not what it wants to hear.
• Robust rules of engagement allowing peacekeepers to use force against those who would undermine a peace process or threaten civilians.
• Rapid deployment standards — traditional peacekeeping operations deployable within 30 days of a Security Council resolution, and complex operations within 90 days.
• Strengthened Headquarters capacity, including a new Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat (later not implemented in that form) and an expanded Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
• Integrated mission planning and improved partnerships with troop-contributing countries.

The report reshaped doctrine and resourcing. It influenced the creation of the Peacebuilding Commission in 2005, the eventual split of DPKO into the Department of Peace Operations and the Department of Operational Support in 2019, and the more recent Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative launched by Secretary-General António Guterres in 2018. Many MUN debates on peacekeeping reform — from civilian protection mandates in MONUSCO to rapid deployment in MINUSMA — still draw directly on Brahimi's framing.