Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour la Paix En Haïti (MONUPEH): A UN-Led Peacekeeping Operation for Haiti

Haiti’s multidimensional crisis cannot be resolved through gang suppression alone. While the transition from the Multinational Security Support mission to the Gang Suppression Force addresses urgent security needs, Haiti’s instability is sustained by a deeper political-economic equilibrium linking gangs, predatory elites, weak institutions, and a captured state. The Capstone team was tasked with developing a politically feasible and operationally ready framework for a future UN led peacekeeping operation that could bridge immediate security gains to sustainable, Haitian-led recovery.

The study combined desk research; comparative analysis; more than 30 interviews with Haitian and international practitioners across government, civil society, academia, security, NGOs, and the UN system; and a practical application of analytical frameworks in international development and security. This research informed MONUPEH, a proposed five-year, Chapter VII multidimensional peacekeeping mission designed to integrate security, governance, economic recovery, justice, and political transition within a single phased framework.

The team found that past interventions in Haiti generated temporary security gains but failed to alter the incentives that sustain elite-gang collusion and institutional collapse. MONUPEH uniquely outlined a light-footprint, conditions-based mission that enters with agile presence, sequences security before stabilization and development, and exits when Haitian institutions can credibly hold the line with a functioning economy.

The proposed mission centered on five mutually reinforcing lines of effort: security and rule of law; economic stabilization and development; democratic participation; institutional and anti-corruption reform; and justice, reconciliation, and recovery. Together, these measures aimed to transform Haiti’s gang economy into a self-sustaining formal political-economic order under Haitian ownership.