Chennai: Making its stand clear, India has told the UN Security Council that peacekeeping currently is in a ‘no-man’s land’ and called for next generation of reforms in peacekeeping based on incentivisation, innovation and institutionalisation.
India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin, speaking at a Security Council debate on UN peacekeeping operations Monday, said UN peacekeeping is a unique innovation of multi-lateralism to respond to threats to international peace and security. However, at the current stage, peacekeeping is in a ‘no-man’s land’, between trying to keep the peace in fragile environments and trying to enforce the maintenance of peace, where there is none to keep.
“Responses to new security environments require a willingness to adapt abilities to meet emerging realities,” he said. Akbaruddin said institutionalisation of an approach where all key actors, especially Troop Contributing Countries (TCCs), are associated in a ‘consistent and predictable’ manner in the decision-making matrix has been now discussed for decades. However, in practice, there is not effective improvement of the cooperation between TCCs, the Security Council and the Secretariat.
“It is time to move from pursuit of activism of individual member states to collective action by this Council to institutionalise this effort,” he said. He also called for further incentivising women peacekeepers. “In 26 years, we have increased the share of women by 5 per cent. At this rate, it may not be possible to meet even minimum targets. There need to be special incentives for women peacekeepers and priority deployment of all women – unit pledges. Otherwise, the targets will remain just targets,” he said. As of 31 July, women peacekeepers constituted 6 per cent. There are 5,243 female peacekeepers, out of a total of 86,687 peacekeepers. It is time for the United Nations to seriously consider the changes proposed by India and to implement them.