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Over the last decade and a half, Africa’s peace operations capacity has significantly increased. African states have deployed operations of their own and they now contribute half of all UN peacekeepers. The African Union (AU) and the UN have developed a strategic partnership that plays out at the political, policy, and operational levels, and reflects the reality that neither will deploy peace operations in Africa without close consultations and some form of cooperation with the other. While the UN peacekeeping model is not found to be well-suited to enforcement, counter-terrorism or trans-national operations, the AU, sub-regional organisations and ad hoc regional coalitions have developed capabilities designed to address these challenges. These African capabilities help relieve the pressure on the UN to conduct such operations.

Over the last twenty years, the EU has become a prominent crisis management actor. This chapter aims to locate the EU’s crisis management role in the UN mandate of “maintaining international peace and security”. What is the EU’s approach to managing crises? Does this approach converge with and support the UN peacekeeping agenda? What do EU member states’ institutional choices tell us about the UN–EU global–regional peace and security partnership? Tardy provides an overview of EU crisis management operations, compares EU and UN operations, and sheds light on the causes of this cooperation and its consequences for their relationship. Finally, the chapter assesses the European participation in Mali and suggests how EU member states’ institutional preferences may evolve in the coming years.

Changes in China’s national identity lead to changes in the country’s foreign policy, including that on UN peacekeeping. Since China’s return to the UN in 1971, China’s national identity has undergone a considerable transformation, from a semi-revolutionary state in the 1970s and an integrated member of the international community in the 1980s and 1990s, to a rising power in the twenty-first century. The country’s policy on UN peacekeeping has changed from opposition in the 1970s, to gradually expanded and reactive participation in the 1980s and 1990s, and finally to an increasingly active participation in the new millennium. China’s ambition is to contribute more than personnel and finances to UN peace operations, with this rising power wanting to also shape governance of UN operations.

This chapter highlights practices that seek similar outcomes as UN peace operations or otherwise affect the background conditions necessary for their success. Treating South Sudan as an illustrative case study, it demonstrates how the incorporation of religious institutions into global and regional aid-based governance networks enables church-based actors to pursue political, social, and structural interventions critical to UN peace operations. In doing so, this chapter emphasises the impact of religion, aid, and governance on peacebuilding in Africa, with a view toward contributing to discussions about holistic, integrated, and people-centered approaches to sustainable peace.

Changes in the global order are contributing to a more pragmatic era of UN peace operations. Peace operations are likely to become less intrusive and more supportive of locally-led solutions. Three overarching themes are identified. First, the degree to which a peace operation contributes to strategic political coherence will become a key measure of its effectiveness. Second, the principle of minimum use of force is likely to remain a defining feature of peace operations. Third, the scope of peace operations mandates may be trimmed down to focus on protection, stability, and politics. Whilst UN peace operations have shown a capacity to continuously adapt to new challenges, they will also remain resiliently identifiable by their enduring principles of peacekeeping.