Episode 15: The Future of UN Peace Operations, Part 3 – “A New Review, A New Vision?”

UNU-CPR Senior Fellow and RMIT Professor of Global Security Charles Hunt unpacks the Secretary-General’s review on the future of all forms of UN peace operations, requested by Member States in the Pact for the Future. Hunt discusses the review’s main recommendations: more political missions, a renewed emphasis on peacemaking, more networked, agile and adaptive operations, and greater attention to consent and cooperation from host countries. He argues that consent is not a binary condition but must be continually maintained across an “ecosystem” of actors, including civil society and local communities, and that compacts should be a process rather than a product. Looking ahead, Hunt considers whether the era of large multidimensional missions has passed, while cautioning against treating it as a definitive end point. He calls on Member States and the next Secretary-General to treat the review as a floor, not a ceiling. For more: 📌 At the Challenges Annual Forum 2026, Charles Hunt presented his research on host country consent in UN peace operations. Watch the recording on UN WebTV [starting at 1:25:19]: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1e/k1e... 📌 Listen to Multilateralism Unpacked, Episode 12: The Future of UN Peace Operations, Part 1 – Peace Operations at an Inflection Point, which examines the financial and geopolitical pressures challenging the current model: https://unu.edu/cpr/multimedia/episod... 📌 Listen to Multilateralism Unpacked, Episode 14: The Future of UN Peace Operations, Part 2 – Peace Operations Under Pressure in South Sudan, which explores how financial cuts are affecting UN peace operations on the ground: https://unu.edu/cpr/multimedia/episod... Listen to Multilateralism UNpacked on: 🎙️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast... 🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08JS4bC... 🎙️ Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com.br/podcasts/... 🎙️ Podcast Index: https://podcastindex.org/podcast/7378...