This International Day of Peace, the world is confronting a grim reality: 2 billion people – one-quarter of humanity – live in conflict-affected areas, and these conflicts are on the rise.
UN peacekeeping is the most effective tool that UN Member States have to protect and advance peace, but it is facing unprecedented hurdles. Conflicts and their drivers cross borders. Technology and misinformation are weaponized more easily, increasing threats to civilians and peacekeepers.
Perhaps most significantly, widening geopolitical divides amongst Member States and on the Security Council have meant that the 11 active peacekeeping missions are increasingly unable to count on the international support needed to reach durable peace agreements – support that was critical to the success of operations like those in Timor-Leste, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
Without this support, many peacekeeping missions are limited to containing conflicts rather than sustainably ending them. To collectively advance international peace and security, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix has called for a recommitment of Member States in 5 critical areas in advance of next week’s Summit of the Future:
- Providing unified political support. The goal of peacekeeping missions is to support, or create the space for, peace agreements. Strong leadership from the Security Council and Member States has proven itself to be crucial backing for the political processes that peacekeeping missions work to support. Fractures in the UN membership have put this model at risk. Strong, unified support for peacekeeping is critical to continued success.
- Giving realistic, resourced mandates. Often, broad, ambitious peacekeeping mandates set expectations high, while budgets fall short. This limits peacekeeping missions to addressing the most immediate needs, like protecting civilians. The Security Council and Member States can better empower missions to build a path to lasting peace by providing clear, achievable, and sequenced mandates, along with the resources to deliver them.
- Supporting innovative partnerships. Today’s complex conflicts require a breadth of experts to address their many facets. Networked multilateralism and strong partnerships at local, regional, and global levels are critical to addressing transnational drivers of conflict, like climate change and illegal trade. Member States have an important role to play in enabling these partnerships with appropriate mandates, resources and administrative flexibility.
- Strengthening operations. Peacekeeping is continually working to strengthen its operations, leveraging new approaches and technologies to better protect communities and peacekeepers and advance peace. Member States are key partners in this work, providing peacekeeping missions with specialized skills, equipment, and expertise. Their continued support is needed to ensure peacekeeping stands ready to advance the global community’s security objectives in the face of evolving challenges.
- Promoting an understanding of peacekeeping’s limits. Peacekeepers can act with force to protect civilians and themselves. They are not designed or permitted to fight wars but are increasingly deployed in contexts where there is no peace to keep. Ongoing Member State support is needed to enable missions to work with non-UN partners who can carry out enforcement actions when required.
Member State support has underpinned the success of peacekeeping missions for 77 years. “…Today over 70,000 peacekeepers bravely continue their vital work. Each day, they make a difference in protecting civilians, clearing mines and explosive remnants of war, monitoring fragile ceasefires and preventing escalation of hostilities,” said Mr. Lacroix at a recent briefing to the Security Council. But, he said, “the UN’s peacekeeping operations can only ever be as strong as the collective support of the UN membership.” The Summit of the Future is an opportunity for world leaders to reaffirm their commitment to peacekeeping, and to the promise of peace.
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