UN PEACE KEEPING OPERATIONS

UN Peace Keeping Operations



UN Peace Keeping Operations

To: UN Secretary General

From: Department of Peacekeeping

Subject: UN Peace Keeping Operations

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This is to notify to the UN Secretary General that Peacekeeping by the United Nations is a role held by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations as "a unique and dynamic instrument developed by the Organization as a way to help countries torn by conflict create the conditions for lasting peace".

Restoring some semblance of a functioning state is an increasingly important aspect of complex peacekeeping operations. There is a growing consensus on the need to shore up basic state services, including the judiciary, civil administration and public utilities, in order for post-conflict societies to return to normalcy as quickly as possible. In this regard, the rule of law component has become a critical part of mission planning and considerable progress has been made in establishing capacity to support police, judicial and corrections activities in post-conflict societies. Additionally, in recent years it has become increasingly apparent that elections, which are often identified as the end point of post-conflict transitions, are not a quick fix and can only serve as an exit strategy for the UN if other conditions have been fulfilled.

While long-term peace is difficult to achieve, it is more likely when a peacekeeping mission is part of the picture,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a special General Assembly meeting today, as he emphasized the need to ensure that the United Nations was equipped with the requisite human, material and financial resources, and political backing of its Member States, to deploy successful peace operations.

Successful peacekeeping is a shared responsibility. We must engage those who mandate peacekeeping operations, those who contribute, and those who manage activities on the ground,” the Secretary-General said in his opening remarks to the Assembly's one-day thematic debate on “United Nations Peacekeeping — Looking into the Future”, an event that also marked the tenth anniversary of the release of a landmark report on the issue.

Thanks to the reforms proposed by the panel, [United Nations] peacekeeping has been able to grow, incorporate the lessons learned from those experiences, and continue to serve as a cost-effective and flexible tool — a flagship [United Nations] activity, a mission of hope for people caught in armed conflict. Still, it was necessary to continue strengthening the Organization's peacekeeping machinery and, in that context, he was encouraged that the Assembly's various committees had expressed general support for the proposals included in the New Horizons reform agenda. “The process has helped to reinvigorate the peacekeeping partnership through dialogue between troop- and police-contributing countries, the Security Council and the Secretariat,” he stated. “Today we have reached a better understanding of what [United Nations] peacekeeping should and can do.”

Peacekeeping had been “a unique and uniquely successful experiment,” but there was a perpetual need to sharpen our tools, he added. We can do this, but only with continued engagement from Member States, not only in terms of contributions of personnel and financing, but with strong and consistent political ...