is to ensure that its work genuinely responds to the priorities and concerns of ordinary citizens within postconflict countries, thereby helping to ensure their consent and to create durable conditions for peace. These evolving roles, and the range of partners working in related fields and capacities, all create the need – and potential – for increased partnership and cooperation, to ensure that mandate aims progress effectively. Similarly, as these complex and multidimensional trends for the UN response to conflict emerge, the identification and provision of appropriate and available resources to respond to them effectively must also evolve. As indicated in the report of the Senior Advisory Group on Civilian capacity in the aftermath of conflict, these challenges will require a nimble, harmonized and, where necessary, specialized civilian response, as well as a focus on partnership across organizations such as the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and regional organizations such as the African Union (AU). One of the major issues identified in the review of civilian capacities is the need to be able to better identify and support national capacities. As the review states: “The United Nations has seen success in humanitarian operations and peacekeeping, built on a strong partnership with Member States. But the international community has had less success in supporting and enabling the national capacities that are essential for an enduring peace.”19 Civil affairs components have a key role to play in identifying and supporting national capacities, within civil society and local government, including through helping to ensure that voices from the local level are heard in nationally led peacebuilding processes. Overall, in the evolving environment of international peace and security, a key asset of civil affairs components is their agility and their capacity to respond flexibly to the wide range of demands and expectations within Security Council mandates. One aspect of this flexibility is their ability to direct their focus depending on the availability and presence of other international partners at the local level, particularly those with expertise in highly specialized areas. Civil affairs can play an important role in mobilizing these partners in places and at times where they are most needed. This is a cost-efficient model, given the prohibitive and unnecessary expense of having a full complement of specialized expertise available in each locality around the country at all times. It also helps to ensure that local-level support is need-driven, rather than simply