a guide to peace support operations - The Watson Institute for ...

Part II, Section 1, paragraph 5
to fill gaps in mandates when they appear. It involves the process by which contingency
plans are made and interagency appeal documents are produced. Each agency knows its
role, therefore directing that agency to fulfill its responsibilities is not a useful task for a
coordinator. Light coordination does not determine how individual agencies’ resources
can be utilized. There is little alternative to a system of “light coordination.” UN agencies
are virtually semiautonomous, and NGOs are subject to no in-country authority other
than that of the host government. Nor has the United Nations committed itself to improve
coordination by gaining a degree of clarity on central in-country UN functions. In dealing
with humanitarian affairs in an emergency-affected country, the relationship between the
special representative of the UN secretary-general and the UN humanitarian coordinator
remains ambiguous. Similarly, the roles of the UN resident coordinator and of the UN
humanitarian coordinator not only are often unclear but also duplicate on many functions.
In Part II of the guide, many models and organizational descriptions uncritically
reflect the best case scenarios. In reality, there are many factors that can upset these
perfect models, some of which have been described above, others that will be part of the
experience of each individual reader.
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