Member States attach importance to conflict prevention and peacemaking as the most cost-effective ways of preventing disputes from arising, stopping existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and controlling and resolving existing conflicts. The Secretary-General continues to receive mandates from the General Assembly and the Security Council to maintain existing efforts in the area of peacemaking, and to undertake new ones in this field. The Secretary-General, through his special representatives, special envoys and other emissaries on a resident or visiting basis, is actively engaged in implementing these political mandates in several countries.

Conflict Prevention is particularly favoured by Member States as a means of preventing human suffering and as an alternative to costly politico-military operations to resolve conflicts after they have broken out. Although Preventive Diplomacy is a well-tried means of preventing conflict, and is still the primary political measure preventing and resolving conflicts, United Nations’ experience in recent years has shown that there are several other forms of action that can have a useful preventive effect, including: preventive deployment; preventive disarmament; preventive humanitarian action; and peace-building undertaken in preventive context. These can involve, with the consent of the Government or Governments concerned, a wide range of actions in the fields of good governance, human rights and economic and social development. For this reason, the Secretary-General has used the concept preventive action rather than “preventive diplomacy” when addressing the root causes of conflict.

Peace-building refers to activities aimed at assisting nations to cultivate the promotion of peace before, during and after conflict. Structural prevention refers to such activities before the conflict. As experience demonstrates, poverty, socio-economic inequalities, endemic underdevelopment, weak or non-existent institutions, the absence of good governance and gross human rights violations can provide the conditions that lead to conflict. Measures which are taken to address the broad range of long-term political, institutional and development activities, belong to structural prevention and support national efforts in addressing the root causes of potential conflict situations.

Peacemaking (or conflict resolution) refers to the use of diplomatic means to persuade parties in conflict to cease hostilities and to negotiate a peaceful settlement of their dispute. As with preventive action, the United Nations can usually play a role only if the parties to the dispute agree to it. Peacemaking thus excludes the use of force against one of the parties to enforce an end to hostilities, an activity that in United Nations parlance is referred to as "peace enforcement".

The primary responsibility for conflict prevention, peace-building and peacemaking rests with the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) headed by Under-Secretary-General Kieran Prendergast. DPA also organizes annual or biannual meetings of the Secretary-General with Heads of Regional Organizations (recently on conflict prevention and peace-building) and drafts the reports of the Secretary-General on New or Restored Democracies.