Inter-agency coordination in United Nations peacebuilding : practical implications from a micro-level analysis of the United Nations family in Liberia

Abstract

This paper addresses inter‐agency coordination (IAC) among United Nations organizations (agencies, funds, programs and peacekeeping mission) in post‐conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding. Taking a management and organization theory perspective on the subject matter, the paper investigates which factors drive or impede the ability of the different branches of the United Nations system to work together as one and to deliver results to its beneficiaries in a more coordinated and coherent fashion. Building on evidence from field research in Liberia, the paper develops a preliminary model of inter‐agency coordination in UN peacebuilding and identifies nine particularly important success factors that bear special relevance for the development of effective IAC. As one of the most important results, the paper highlights the potential of a shared organizational culture as driver for inter‐agency coordination and presents structural and managerial levers that can be applied to foster a shared culture within the UN family. On the theoretical level, the study presents micro‐level evidence in support of some recent considerations of peacebuilding systems as network organizations. The paper furthermore corroborates these works' skepticisms towards top‐down approaches to organizing UN peace operations and displays some of the disfuctionalities of hierarchical systems in this context.