Poorly planned and poorly integrated IT can pose obstacles to such cooperation. The irony of distributed and decentralized data systems is that they need such common standards to function. Headquarters lacks a sufficiently strong responsibility center for user-level IT strategy and policy in peace operations, in particular. Mission counterparts to that responsibility centre should also be appointed to serve in the offices of the SRSGs in complex peace operations to oversee the implementation of that strategy. B. Tools for knowledge management 252.
Technology can help to capture as well as disseminate information and experience.
It could be much better utilized to help a wide variety of actors working in a United Nations mission's area of operation to acquire and share data in a systematic and mutually supportive manner. United Nations development and humanitarian relief communities, for example, work in most of the places where the United Nations has deployed peace operations. These United Nations country teams, plus the NGOs that do complementary work at the grass-roots level, will have been in the region long before a complex peace operation arrives and will remain after it has left. Together, they hold a wealth of local knowledge and experience that could be helpful to peace operations planning and implementation. GIS specialists should be assigned to every mission team, together with GIS training resources.