Under the Blue Flag: Leadership and Strategic Communications in UN Peace Operations

With peace operations likely to remain an indelible feature of the international system for the foreseeable future, the link between leadership and strategic communications will become even more central to the successful conduct of those operations.
“A mainstreamed, integrated strategic communications approach must be mandatory for UN leadership and that a number of adjustments must be made in terms of mindset, support structures and training to ensure that this becomes a required capacity rather than an aspirational proposal,” writes NICK BIRNBACK in a policy brief for the Challenges Forum.
Strengthening the UN’s efforts to promote effective strategic communications by and from leadership in peace operations will help the system deter spoilers, address its critics, rally its supporters, maximize opportunities and leverage all available resources to help vulnerable populations have a fighting chance for peace, he writes in the brief titled ‘Under the Blue Flag: Leadership and Strategic Communications in UN Peace Operations’.
For leadership to be fully enabled to fulfill these requirements in the field, the headquarters context must shift as well, states BIRNBACK, head of public affairs for peacekeeping at the United Nations. An internal communications focused change management process should be undertaken in the field and at UN Headquarters to socialize the cultural and mind-set shift that successful implementation of these recommendations will require.
In addition to the creation of an oversight body, this author recommends a number of practical steps that can be characterized as the ‘six Ms’ that would help to create an environment that would empower UN leadership to successfully fulfill these critical requirements in today’s complex communications environment. They are:
(1) Mainstream: Strategic Communications considerations—starting with desired outcomes and effects, then creation of an actual plan including identification of target audiences, then master messages and sub-messaging, then identification of channels for distribution, then measurement of effect and evaluation of impact—should from the planning phase be a feature of all aspects of policy decision making.
(2) Modernize: Today’s communications landscape has changed fundamentally from analogue to digital, from one-way/top-down to circular-/dialogue-driven. The UN must pivot to accept these new realities and adjust resources to ensure the required outputs. This will require a bottom-up review of existing communications capabilities and assets to ensure that the UN is fully leveraging all possible capacities in an impactful, deliberate, efficient, effective and quantifiable manner.
(3) Merge: There is undoubtedly duplication in the existing communications architecture at UNHQ. The bottom-up review should identify areas where capacities can be combined and efficiencies realized using existing resources and where outdated assets could be repurposed to fulfill prioritized communications tasks.
(4) Manage: Integrated and coordinated backstopping of field presences will require a clear definition of roles and responsibilities and a willingness to use non-traditional means such as outsourcing and centralization/sharing of technical assets such as FM radio production. This should throughout involve deliberate and contemplative oversight with clear lines of accountability.
(5) Measure: A data-driven, measures of effect-oriented, quantifiable approach will allow a strategic communications approach that demonstrates effective use of scarce resources, value for money and overall impact. Monitoring, through software and other more traditional tools will increase situational awareness and can be a huge asset in this regard.
(6) Message: Leadership-driven, corporate messaging beginning with a core narrative and then flowing into thematic and issue-specific subgroupings will allow the Organization to communicate as one and leverage the diverse resources of the whole UN system to provide a compelling narrative on the intrinsic value of the UN and the multilateral approach it embodies. Specific departments and agencies, funds and programmes will harmonize against these broad themes rather than repeat them, but the diverse voices when properly coordinated and integrated can ensure that the system, and the UN leadership that embodies it, can manage its reputation and communicate effectively and persuasively to a diverse set of target audiences.
To operationalize the recommendations and practical suggestions outlined, the logical next step would be to work directly with the UN’s training teams to translate related principles into the best practices-driven, practical training for UN leadership on peace operations. It will also require the establishment of integrated strategic communications oversight and a bottom-up review of the strategic communications architecture at headquarters and on UN Peace Operations, the provision of the necessary digital resources, and the creation of an accountability framework to ensure compliance and measure success.
“The UN has a remarkable opportunity to raise its voice in the name of those who cannot be heard. It should spare no efforts to make sure the message is loud, clear and effective.”