Cairo, Egypt - In October 2014, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon established the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations to undertake an assessment of the state of UN peace operations and the emerging needs of the future. The review includes both peacekeeping operations and special political missions. It is chaired by Mr. José Ramos-Horta, former President of Timor-Leste, and includes 16 other distinguished members with a wide range of experience and expertise.

The High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations visited Cairo, Egypt on 4-5 March for bilateral meetings with officials of national governments in the MENA region and regional organizations (the League of Arab States, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Gulf Cooperation Council, and the African Union); in addition to engaging Arab think tanks, academics and civil society organizations. This visit came as part of the Panel’s assessment of the state of UN peace operations and the emerging needs of the future.

On  5 March 2015 CCCPA organized a full-day of consultations with Member State officials, regional organizations representatives, think tanks, and civil society. The consultations were co-hosted by the High-Level Independent Panel and the Government of Egypt.

The consultations covered the following issues:

Participating countries included Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.