 General Alida, thank you for your time. Can we start with your background, a bit about what you've done and your current role? Well, I'm presently engaged with the UN initiative in Sudan. I'm military. I spent about 40 years of military service back in the Indian Army. And I was earlier with the UN in Mozambique as the chief of staff. So I joined the UN as a force commander in Sudan in January 06. I did about two and a half years tenure there. Then I reverted back to the army and I retired from there. And I was then nominated as the deputy special representative political for the mission in Sudan. And I oversaw the elections in Sudan, which were very historical even. And more importantly, the South Sudan referendum, which was a very critical landmark in January this year. Post-9 July, the government of Sudan did not agree to the extension of the UN engagement in North Sudan, although we have a mission in New South Sudan. And I'm presently in Khartoum, winding up UNMISS, which should finish on about the end of December. Peacebuilding missions are very large, complex projects. How do you go about setting priorities? Well, you're very right, you know. And I had to experience this because I was in charge of the planning process for the new mission in South Sudan. I think the biggest challenges that post-conflict situations, the state that emerges, is lack of structures. That is the first and foremost thing in a war-ravaged country. There are no structures place. And in South Sudan, especially we say, we've stopped using the word reconstruction, there was nothing, it's construction from a scratch. Countries which have been in over decades in conflict, there are no structures in place, and the whole psych is very conflict thing. So first and foremost, of course, is that develop and consolidate peace and stability, so that the countries don't recoil back to war. Because our experience has been, in majority of the cases, if you don't handle those sensitive years, which are just post-conflict, there is a great danger of countries going back to conflict. And we've seen that repeatedly happening in Africa. So the first and the foremost duty is to consolidate peace. General, there is a tendency in certain quarters to quickly talk about development and quickly move ahead. Yes, development and security go hand in glove. So I think the first and foremost thing is that you consolidate peace and stability, get a sense of confidence in the people who have aspirations for a new state, and then alongside start building the development along with it. Now this is easier said than done because they're competing resources and competing capacities required out here. The second, I think, most important factor is bring in a synergy in the number of initiatives coming in. The international community wants to come in, but there are a number of organizations other than the UN already in play. There are regional players in play who have a lot of things at stake. There are neighboring countries who have stake. There are other powers today, and the world is changing. There are energy resources like in Sudan, where not only the West, but even the Asian countries are coming in, etc. So how do you fine tune the international aspirations related to individual countries or related to the regional or at the international role to combine that? So security stability and development going hand in glove, synergy of resources coming in out here. And at the operational level also I must say more synergy into various players that are coming in, which includes NGOs, which includes local communities, etc., etc. It has to be, and I must also pay a lot of attention to national ownership. That is, again, a very, very important facet of it. Because if you do not build up national structures and you can't stay there endlessly again, what I was talking to earlier, the danger of relapse to conflict. And I would imagine the objectives are not always constant. They change over time or the initiatives change over time. So how do you go about integrating new requirements, new objectives, into such a complex environment? Well, you see, when we talk about integration, we talk about multi-dimensionality. There is this broad framework which must incorporate everything. Yet I think the bottom line is keeping flexibility and dynamism always in mind. A lot of times, a templation could be very, very dangerous. So it is a big challenge that initially you do little scenario building and have a framework here, but you should constantly monitor the situation, try and go in for mid-course connections based on the developing situation. That is a must out here. And more often than not, we have seen that we plan a particular thing, but then there are new requirements which always come in. Because as I keep saying, you're dealing with a highly sensitive conflict prone situation. So this is a constant challenge not only for the UN but for the complete international community. How do you fine-tune dynamism and flexibility? Yet have some sort of a planning in place on which to proceed very deliberately. Now I would imagine that some of the humanitarian aspects that you would come across in the course of such a project that may be unexpected might also divert some of your resources. Absolutely, absolutely. And you see the three basic pillars on which the UN peacekeeping system is based on is political, security and humanitarian. And very much, although each of them have space and expertise within it, but there's a fair amount of overlap where particular resources may be required to do that, depending on what I call the mission rhythm and the activities that come in out here. Sure enough, if there is a humanitarian crisis on out here, I think everybody has to gear up both the political process as well as the security elements to support that. And vice-versa, a lot of time, like for example, referendum, it was by and large a political process. So everybody geared up to support that political process. And after the political process, suddenly again there was conflict, maybe the security elements have to move and then they take the lead agency and the humanitarian support. So the whole idea of integration is that various players understand the basic framework of integration and overall goal objectives of peacekeeping and of peace and stability, yet have sufficient space for expertise in their respective fields. What are some of the lessons you've learned from your experience in the Sudan that you think could be used in future similar situations? Well, since I have been very fortunate that I was both in the military side and then I came on to the political side. And also when I shifted to Juba in South Sudan, I was made in charge of coordinating even the humanitarian functions with the country team. So I think one has been singularly lucky to face a lot of challenges and a lot of ground realities on it. I think the first and foremost is the concept of multidimensionality and integration with still I think people find challenges there. There is this concept and this is world over nothing new of what I call turf protection where people tend to see particular areas out here. I think that is the first thing and that is up to the senior leadership and I find once the senior leadership gets it in place, it filters down very quickly down to the field. Otherwise, I'm afraid there is a tend to stove pipe information and stove pipe responses which is not only non-cost effective but also non-productive. So I think that's the first requirement. How do you get the strategic framework of the UN correct? Developing from a higher leadership and then filtering down to the lower levels. That's the first lesson I have learned out here in which I harp on it. And number two is that I think joint structures which we have brought in to get more integration are inclusively more productive out here within the UN, whether they're on the operations, whether they're on information management, whether it's a humanitarian crisis, et cetera and all that. Structures at the operational level, structures at the strategic level, information sharing, information management, information flow. And third, of course, is that regional coordination is very important, especially in Sudan we have seen the UN has been operating very collaboratively with the African Union. And we have an African in high implementation panel which is led by Dr. Mbeki. So on the political side, there's been a good interface between the African Union and the UN. There are various other countries who have special envoys for Sudan. So they're even at the international level, especially the Troika, the Americans, the European Union, nor Vigions, and the Brits. We have been trying to correlate with them and see that we have complimentary initiatives for overall goals. So I think regional coordination and international coordination is again one of the major things that we have. Of course, I'm not going to various operational things. I'm only talking about the large level, the macro level thing. But I think so far we in any area can get our international complementarity starting with the Security Council and the regional organizations. In the mission, we can get our senior leadership in one grid which understands the multi-dimensionality and the concept of integration. And we, national ownership, again I keep harping a lot of times because that's one thing we actually do, build up more national ownership, get more national staff into the mission, get more national players into everything and slowly construct the whole framework with the national ownership. General Lida, thank you for your time today. Thank you very much. Pleasure always to visit. I must say that I started off here with the Asia Pacific Centre of Excellence two years back. And I feel very proud to be part of it in whatever way I can and really see the centre go places and wish all the very best in the centre. Thank you very much.