As 2026 barrels ahead, the world is reeling in the face of sustained high levels of war-related violence and the risks of much more to come. An analysis last year found armed forces were engaged in an unprecedented 61 military conflicts worldwide, including the highest number of state-based armed conflicts since World War II. These conflicts are drawing in more countries, causing widening humanitarian suffering, and becoming more difficult to resolve; limited ceasefires achieved in some conflicts, such as Gaza, appear highly fragile. In this high-stakes moment, the U.N.’s recent completion of a review of its peacebuilding mechanisms –particularly reaffirming its Peacebuilding Commission – could not be more important. The U.N. has an opportunity now to refocus its various platforms and tools on more effectively supporting peace processes, even in these resource-challenged times. Member states that are concerned about expanding international conflicts and want to see the U.N. succeed should promote this opportunity.
Security experts and ordinary citizens alike are worried about the risk of another world war in the coming years. The world surely needs institutions that can help mitigate and defuse tensions and prevent further expansion of these deadly wars. But today, the U.N., formed to maintain international peace and security and prevent future conflicts, appears more like an institution that is itself struggling in crisis. It is constrained by heightened geopolitical rivalries among the veto-wielding “permanent five” (P5) members of the Security Council and by member states that are embracing nationalist agendas and rejecting multilateralism. Whether the U.N. can mobilize itself to meet the moment will depend on the strategic decisions its leaders and members make in the year ahead and beyond as well as the leadership and vision of the new secretary-general in 2027.
The new leadership of the U.N. will need to show they are adapting to the changing world order and not mourning the old order. Notwithstanding the U.S. pledge of $2 billion to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in December, which is heavily conditioned, the overall funding shortage for the organization is grim, with the U.S. still owing the U.N. $1.5 billion in dues. Other influential countries are making similar cuts in funding. As a result, peacekeeping missions are being drawn down, and financing shortfalls have pared organizational staff and institutional capacity to a barely adequate humanitarian response to many major conflicts. Public trust in the U.N.’s ability to manage crises has declined in most countries. In this context, it is unfortunate yet unsurprising that world leaders are not turning to the U.N.’s peace tools as instruments of choice when pursuing deals to stop major wars.
Yet, assigning the U.N. to the trash bin would be a mistake for future peace and security, especially without any viable alternative. President Trump’s “Board of Peace” model should be carefully monitored for the risk of minimizing the role of the U.N., but others have rightly noted that its structure is limited as a coordination platform and an example of “mini-lateralism.”
With the completion of the Peacebuilding Architecture Review and the accompanying renewal of the Peacebuilding Commission, the U.N. is positioned for a more integrated approach in 2026 and beyond to support well-scoped peace process opportunities. (We say “well-scoped opportunities” because the U.N. has limited resources and needs to set clear priorities where it can show impact.) A coalition of like-minded member states that seek to champion the U.N.’s peacebuilding mechanisms should leverage these key openings. After all, the U.N. still enjoys the overall support of 61 percent of adults surveyed across 25 countries, according to a Pew Research Center poll published in September. The U.N.’s planned inaugural “Peacebuilding Week” in June can provide an important milestone for rallying this support and converting it into concrete action.
The Evolution of the U.N.’s Mechanisms to Support Peace Efforts
While the Security Council jealously holds on to its mandate to define, monitor, and respond to threats to international peace and security, there have been important evolutions towards a broader, related U.N. framework for peacemaking and peacebuilding. The current peace structures date back to the “Agenda for Peace” that then-Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali put forward in 1992, as the Cold War was receding. Boutros-Ghali envisioned the U.N. playing greater roles in supporting preventative diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding. The latter was an evolving concept, a field of practice aimed, at the time, at avoiding a relapse into violent conflict. It later evolved to encompass prevention.
More than a decade later, in 2005, world leaders endorsed the creation of the U.N. Peacebuilding Commission, the Peacebuilding Support Office, and the Peacebuilding Fund: all to help countries make the transition from war toward sustainable peace with a range of tools. In their early years, these bodies focused on supporting Burundi and Sierra Leone in their transitions from their civil wars. The commission expanded support to more countries, but struggled to break out of its reputation as a “talk shop” that was limited in its actions by needing the consensus of all commission members.
In more recent years, the U.N. has recognized the need to enhance its peacebuilding focus and operations, including strengthening prevention and fostering more integrated approaches. These were key themes of the landmark Pathways to Peace report that the U.N. produced in partnership with the World Bank in 2018. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres featured prevention prominently in his 2023 “New Agenda for Peace,” and member states the next year supported the development of national prevention strategies in the Pact for the Future. U.N. members also have recognized more clearly the imperative to strengthen coherence across the U.N. system to achieve greater impact. This includes integrating the work of key bodies such as its Mediation Unit, which facilitates mediation at local levels, and surging peacebuilding support to regional bodies and national governments.
The U.N. completed the Peacebuilding Architecture Review at the end of last year, its fourth such review since 2005. Some observers noted that the robust negotiations in the review reflected the heightened importance of peacebuilding in light of global challenges. The final twin resolutions highlighted the need for more robust support so that peacebuilding measures could be expanded to match the scale of the need, including backing for national prevention and peacebuilding strategies. Analysts have highlighted key examples of these strategies such as in the U.K., Norway, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Lebanon, Malawi, and the Solomon Islands. The twin resolutions called for more cooperation between the U.N.’s dedicated peacebuilding bodies and the wider U.N. system, including the Security Council, the General Assembly, and field-based peacekeeping operations, as well as international financial institutions.
Opportunities for the U.N. in 2026 Peace Efforts
The Security Council and General Assembly must now decide where and how to put these new provisions into practice to support some ripe opportunities for peacebuilding in 2026. Three particular cases present themselves for ending and preventing conflicts: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Syria, and West Africa. Concerted, integrated engagement by the U.N.’s peace structures can bolster regional and international efforts. We also assert that it is attainable and in the interest of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council to broadly support the U.N.’s role in these cases; these are not cases where great powers are firmly caught up in support to opposing sides of the conflict.
- DRC: The Washington Accords signed by the DRC’s and Rwanda’s leaders in late 2025 provide a significant, if flawed, opportunity to end one of the world’s most destructive conflicts. The Security Council showed its willingness to engage to support the deal when it convened in December 2025, right after the M23 expanded its territory and exerted pressure on the rebels to push back. In tandem with sustained Security Council engagement, U.N. leaders now must work to ensure its stabilization mission on the ground in DRC (MONUSCO) and other entities are fully engaged in monitoring the agreement, as mandated last December, and quickly elevating violations and obstacles as they continue to emerge. This also includes developing mechanisms in the region, especially with local stakeholders, to promote agreement implementation and to develop plans for transitional governance arrangements. The U.N. can also play important roles in facilitating needed financing by bilateral and multilateral development bodies to reinforce the agreement and create economic peace dividends.
- Syria: The Security Council’s visit to Damascus last December, for the first time, shows the opportunities for support to the new government, while pressing for inclusion, transitional justice, and security. The work of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria and the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria advance investigations and accountability for human rights violations. Fighting between the Syrian government and Kurdish forces this month tragically underlined the fragility of the country’s transition. In a recent Just Security article, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin and Anne Charbord underscored the urgency of lawful status determinations and repatriations of families from al Hawl and al Roj camps and detainees in prisons in northeast Syria since the fall of ISIS in 2017, instead of a mass transfer to Iraq. The U.N. has an important role to play in this regard. Further, the U.N. Security Council has rightly emphasized the need to implement agreed benchmarks across the country for full integration of populations and areas, including in the south. Sustained political pressure and engagement with all parties will be needed to solidify the ceasefire in the northeast and prevent a resumption of violence.
- West Africa: The Sahel region of Africa continues to suffer the highest levels of terrorism and terrorism-related deaths than anywhere in the world, and international actors cannot afford to ignore the mounting threats. Neighboring coastal countries such as Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana are actively working to prevent the spillover of this violence. The Peacebuilding Commission has been actively engaged in Sahel since 2017. Although its level of resourcing and programming has paled in comparison to the scale of the threats, the commission has relationships with key governments and has advised on strategies to address drivers of conflict across the region. (In 2024, Mauritania presented to the commission on its holistic violence-prevention efforts.) Looking forward, the U.N. can help promote more political and security cooperation between Sahelian and coastal countries, while mobilizing needed international support and resources for prevention efforts — including to address gaps created by U.S. aid cuts and uncertainty about the future of the Global Fragility Act. U.N. engagement can expand law enforcement cooperation and information-sharing facilitated by INTERPOL, including to address the movement of foreign terrorist fighters. It can also help renew and bolster the Coastal States Stability Mechanism and/or Integrated Border Stability Mechanism for West Africa, implemented by U.N. agencies.
Crucial Support of Member States and Questions About the United States
It is a serious concern that the United States is now voluntarily retreating from influence in the Peacebuilding Commission and 65 other multilateral bodies. Other states must now champion the message that the vast majority of member states see peacebuilding as a top U.N. priority. As one of our colleagues wrote about the Trump administration’s Jan. 7 withdrawal announcement, “the rest of the world will be forced to move on” and, in many cases, “it is the United States that will be weakened in the long term.”
Indeed, there is the dissonance that the United States is withdrawing from the Peacebuilding Commission just as that body implements new tools to increase its impact. Member states tasked the commission to partner with the private sector and international financial institutions to promote investments in conflict-affected countries, which is a theme of the Trump administration’s strategy of deal-making for peace.
The U.N. will need strong support from an assertive coalition of like-minded, peace-oriented states to be able to deliver on these opportunities and the commitments of the Peacebuilding Architecture Review, especially amid the current waves of resource cuts. New members of the Security Council this year – Bahrain, Colombia, the DRC, Latvia, and Liberia – have a unique opportunity to press for maximizing the use of the U.N.’s tools. Some of those members can give testimony about the positive impact from peace operations and U.N. support for political transition. Scandinavian countries that traditionally have supported multilateralism have generally also championed the U.N.’s peacebuilding systems, even if those countries, too, are reducing foreign aid. To expand the tent, the U.N. could coordinate more with Persian Gulf states for investment, particularly those showing leadership in mediation such as Qatar. This is not a new proposal, it has been recommended in recent years, and would be consistent with Gulf states’ desire to be seen as leaders in humanitarian and development affairs.
U.N. leaders should work with this coalition of states to create excitement about the possibilities for enhancing the U.N.’s peace mechanisms to support peace efforts. The first Peacebuilding Week in June should focus attention on sustaining agreements beyond the signing of high-level elite deals and on marshalling resources from supportive member states for such work. Champions of this theme could include Qatar, speaking to its recent successes such as working with Norway, Spain, and Switzerland to facilitate an agreement between the Colombian government and the Clan de Golfo gang. The focus on quick deal-making to reduce violence, while necessary, also needs to be paired with comprehensive efforts to reach genuinely lasting peace agreements.
Finally, maximizing and further refining the U.N.’s peace mandate must be high on the agenda as countries consider candidates in the race for the next U.N. secretary-general. To reassert relevance, the U.N. needs a future secretary-general who communicates and promotes a determined vision for peace, security, and a pragmatic multilateralism. Capitalizing on the focus by Trump, Gulf leaders, and others to advance elite ceasefire deals in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and elsewhere, the new secretary-general should lean into the U.N.’s mandate to provide critical functions for making those deals stick over time. This includes the secretary-general personally engaging and assigning top U.N. leaders with monitoring and reporting, ensuring sustained political attention, and calling out parties for not implementing their commitments. The U.N. can and should exercise both moral leadership and political legitimacy on behalf of peace.
