Situation Centre of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations
The Situation Centre was created in April 1993 as part of the UN Secretariat Information Management System, supporting the decision-making process and connecting civilian, military and police flows of information at the strategic level.
The need for the Situation Centre emerged as a result of the expansion of peacekeeping activities, and the evolution of its scope and goals. The objectives of present-day peacekeeping operations are not limited to monitoring lines of disengagement. They range from monitoring a situation to reviving civil society and re-building the infrastructure of a shattered state. The fact that peacekeeping missions have many elements - political, military, humanitarian, human rights, electoral, etc. - and involve a number of departments and agencies underscores the need for a consolidated flow of information.
Funtions
The Situation Centre has six main functions:
Point-of-Contact services
The Situation Centre acts as a point of contact at UN Headquarters for all DPKO field missions, and provides a 24-hour communication link between senior staff members at UN Headquarters, field missions, humanitarian organizations, and Member States through their diplomatic missions in New York. This is especially important during silent hours.
Monitoring
The Situation Centre monitors events in DPKO field missions and other areas of interest by all available means. In particular, it monitors any situation that is developing in such a way as to pose a potential threat to the security of UN personnel in peacekeeping operations.
Information gathering and reporting
The Situation Centre gathers information from the field, and via other sources of information such as news agencies, UN press releases, specialized periodicals, the Internet, etc. It receives daily reports from all peacekeeping missions and solicits further information when necessary. It provides daily situation reports to senior managers at UN Headquarters on all DPKO and some political and humanitarian missions. It provides senior managers with briefings on a routine and ad-hoc basis.
Notification of Casualty (NOTICAS)
The Situation Centre is responsible for notifying Member States Permanent Mission of casualties or injuries to their nationals.
Crisis management
When there is a crisis in a field mission, the Situation Centre is responsible for initiating the crisis response from Headquarters, at the instruction of the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations. The Situation Centre coordinates the work of a Crisis Response Cell and provides crisis room facilities in its Operations Room for the duration of the emergency.
Security for peacekeeping personnel in the field
The Chief of the Situation Centre is the DPKO Focal Point for Security. The Situation Centre, in cooperation with relevant offices and the field missions, conducts regular reviews of the missions’ security vulnerabilities.
Tasks
The specific tasks of the Situation Centre include the following:
- Provide point-of-contact services;
- Maintain uninterrupted communications with all UN peacekeeping missions and be able to communicate with all other UN missions worldwide;
- Solicit information from the field;
- Collate and disseminate in a timely fashion raw information;
- Develop, in coordination with UN Headquarters services, enhanced communications, data processing and multiple visual display facilities;
- Prepare consolidated summaries;
- Provide daily briefings to senior managers and ad-hoc briefings upon request;
- Maintain constant situation displays and provide continuous event monitoring;
- Provide reference materials (including maps, statistics, and basic political, military and economic information) via access to in-house and public databases;
- Maintain a database for statistics on casualties and fatalities that occur in UN peacekeeping missions;
- Monitor developing regional situations that could affect the security and safety of UN personnel, using all available external sources and UN information channels;
- Provide crisis response capabilities in the event that a peacekeeping mission has to be implemented on short notice or a crisis occurs in the field;
- Produce assessments of political, military and security trends that affect ongoing and potential peacekeeping operations, including research on relevant thematic issues; and
- Prepare weekly briefings to DPKO staff and Member States, as well as weekly updates on selected areas.