Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2009

The New York University Center on International Cooperation's (CIC) Annual Review of Global Peace Operations is the most comprehensive report of its kind, examining more than fifty United Nations (UN) and non-UN peace operations. It aims to inform policy-makers, media outlets, academics and peacekeepers as the international community debates the prominent role of peace operations in conflict management. The report draws on data previously unavailable outside of the UN and other non-UN peacekeeping platforms. CIC prepared the Annual Review with the support of the Peacekeeping Best Practices Section of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the African Union Peace and Security Department.

After several years of continuous expansion, reform and resiliency, in 2008 global peacekeeping was pushed to the brink. This publication warned in 2006 that peacekeeping faced a risk of overstretch. In 2007 it highlighted the mounting pressures on peacekeeping organizations, while stressing that peace operations had shown surprising resilience. By 2008 peacekeeping was spread increasingly thin, in many respects the victim of its own success.