146.      UN organizations have made considerable strides in adopting multidimensional, country-based approaches to conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction. Yet, the challenges posed remain daunting and require intensified efforts by the UN system, as well as greater support from Member States. These challenges include:

•  a reinforcement of the UN system’s capacity to act as a “mobilizer,” helping to coordinate the efforts of all actors in developing and implementing comprehensive prevention and peace-building strategies;

•  a more strategic response to the economic dimensions of conflict;

•  greater attention to environmental threats and building additional capacity to analyse and address those threats;

•  enhancing the UN system’s ability to understand better the local context of armed conflict;

•  greater attention and a sharper focus on the immediate post-conflict period, when many of the conditions are set for either sustained recovery or the recurrence of conflict and possibly civil war; and

•  a stronger focus by the UN system on helping countries to develop their own institutions and processes for conflict prevention and peace-building.

147.      For the UN system to build these capacities and effectively engage partners in proactively preventing and managing armed conflicts, it needs to:

•  develop, based on a deeper appreciation of the different priorities that countries and peoples have, a better understanding of the nature of the threats to peace, the factors that contribute to violence and the interlinkages among them;

•  further enhance inter-agency cooperation at both the analytical and operational levels; and

•  identify innovative, mutually reinforcing responses to emerging threats to peace and help build stronger coalitions for action, engaging Member States, multilateral agencies and civil society.

148.      A major system-wide effort will continue to be required to keep the issue of the protection of civilians in situations of conflict and displacement as a high priority for Member States and the international community. And the UN system will need to step up further its advocacy for the ratification and observance of treaties and conventions relating to the protection of civilians, including the Genocide Convention, the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and all refugee conventions.

149.      Devising a comprehensive approach to countering terrorism poses a major, growing challenge for the UN system. In his report to the 2005 World Summit, the Secretary-General suggests the elements of such a strategy, as well as an array of proposals to strengthen the UN framework for and contribution to collective security. The UN system’s future work in peace and security will be guided by the consensus reached at the Summit, by the directives of the governing bodies of its constituent members and by the ongoing evolution of the international legal framework.

150.      The effort to build a fully integrated system response capacity for peace-building, armed conflict prevention and humanitarian interventions will ultimately succeed only if supported by adequate resources. Existing modalities for financing critical operations during the period of transition from humanitarian assistance to peacekeeping and peacebuilding support and to long-term development programming require urgent review.