Department of Peace Operations (DPO)

The Department of Peace Operations (DPO) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat established on 1 January 2019 as part of Secretary-General António Guterres's management and peace-and-security reforms, which dissolved the former Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) and redistributed their functions. DPO derives its authority from Article 97 of the UN Charter, which places the Secretariat under the Secretary-General, and from successive General Assembly resolutions on the support account for peacekeeping operations (notably the annual A/RES/72/289-series reforms that approved the new structure). Its mandates for individual missions flow from Security Council resolutions adopted under Chapters VI, VII, or VIII of the Charter, with DPO acting as the Secretariat's operational arm to translate those mandates into deployable activity.

Procedurally, DPO works through a chain that begins with Security Council mandate authorization and proceeds through the Secretary-General's appointment of a Special Representative (SRSG) or Head of Mission, who reports to the Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations. The USG-DPO submits the Secretary-General's periodic reports to the Council — typically every 90 or 180 days depending on the mission — and presents them in person during briefings. Force generation, the process of soliciting troop and police contributions from Member States, is conducted by DPO's Office of Military Affairs and Police Division in coordination with the Department of Operational Support (DOS); pledges are formalized through Memoranda of Understanding governed by the Contingent-Owned Equipment (COE) Manual, which sets reimbursement rates currently anchored at roughly US$1,448 per soldier per month as established by General Assembly resolution 68/281.

Beyond force generation, DPO houses the Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions (OROLSI), which manages police, justice and corrections, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), mine action, and security sector reform components; the Policy, Evaluation and Training Division; and regional divisions shared with the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) under a "single political-operational backbone" arrangement. Special political missions — such as UNAMA in Afghanistan or UNAMI in Iraq — that have a significant operational footprint are jointly supervised by DPO and DPPA, with lead-department designations made case by case. DPO also operates the Integrated Operational Teams, desk-level structures that combine political, military, police, and support officers covering each mission.

Contemporary DPO-led operations include MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which began drawdown under Security Council resolution 2717 (2023) at the request of the Kinshasa government; UNFICYP in Cyprus, deployed since 1964; UNIFIL in southern Lebanon, operating under the framework of resolution 1701 (2006); UNDOF on the Golan Heights; UNMISS in South Sudan; MINURSO in Western Sahara; and UNISFA in Abyei. The closure of MINUSMA in Mali, completed on 31 December 2023 following the Bamako transitional authorities' demand for withdrawal in June 2023, was managed by DPO under resolution 2690 and represented one of the largest and most politically contested liquidations in recent UN history. The current Under-Secretary-General, Jean-Pierre Lacroix of France, has held the post since April 2017, predating the 2019 restructuring.

DPO is distinct from the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), which leads on conflict prevention, mediation support, electoral assistance, and most special political missions without a large uniformed component; the two departments share regional divisions but have separate Under-Secretaries-General. It is also distinct from the Department of Operational Support (DOS), created in the same 2019 reform, which provides supply chain, human resources, and administrative services to all Secretariat entities including DPO missions — a separation of "operational" command from "support" services designed to clarify accountability. Finally, DPO should not be confused with the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), which services the Peacebuilding Commission and administers the Peacebuilding Fund under DPPA.

Edge cases and controversies recur around three issues. First, the persistent caveats and national restrictions that troop-contributing countries impose on their contingents constrain DPO commanders' operational flexibility, as documented in the 2015 HIPPO report (the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations chaired by José Ramos-Horta) and the subsequent Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative launched by Guterres in 2018 and renewed as A4P+ in 2021. Second, the protection-of-civilians mandate, codified since resolution 1894 (2009), has exposed DPO to litigation and reputational damage when missions fail to act — most notably regarding the 2016 attack on the Terrain Hotel in Juba. Third, sexual exploitation and abuse allegations, addressed through the Secretary-General's zero-tolerance policy and Conduct and Discipline Service, remain a continuing source of scrutiny by the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (the C-34).

For the working practitioner, DPO is the indispensable interlocutor for any government, NGO, or analyst dealing with a UN peacekeeping or large field political mission. Permanent missions in New York engage DPO through the C-34, the Fifth Committee (budgetary), and bilateral demarches to the USG and regional directors; troop- and police-contributing capitals interact through the Military and Police Adviser networks and the annual Chiefs of Defence conference. Understanding DPO's internal architecture — which division owns the file, whether a mission is DPO- or DPPA-led, and how DOS support is structured — determines whether a diplomatic démarche reaches the correct desk officer and whether operational requests are actionable within the Secretariat's reformed lines of authority.