WORLD BRIDGE BLOG

Saturday May 29th marked the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers, a day to recognize the efforts and the sacrifices made by multinational peacekeepers all over the world. The past 15 years have marked both an exponential increase in the number of missions and peacekeepers deployed, and an overwhelming transformation in the very nature of peacekeeping. It has changed from relatively simple monitoring missions to complex, multidimensional efforts to stabilize conflict, support the implementation of peace agreements, re-build governments and – in the meantime – protect civilians from harm.

Any one of these tasks is easier said than done, particularly in the punishing political and geographical spaces that the largest missions have been deployed to. In many cases peacekeeping, as a tool of international policymakers, has been misused. Mission mandates handed down from headquarters have been crammed full of tasks, typically allocate only a fraction of the resources – troops, staff, vehicles, funds – to do the job, and provide little guidance from their political masters in NY as to what their priorities should be.

For years, Refugees International and peacekeepers in the field have argued that mission mandates need to be clear and achievable. Peacekeepers need to be better trained to carry out the complex tasks they have been given and equipped properly to get the job done. Perhaps most importantly, peacekeeping missions need to be deployed as a means of supporting an ongoing political peacebuilding effort, and not seen as a stand-alone solution to conflict.

Last week, President Obama affirmed his administration’s commitment to filling these gaps. In his National Security Strategy, the President made a commitment to work towards more “robust and credible (Security) Council action,” to contribute to the training and equipping of soldiers from troop contributing countries, and to ensure that “mandates are matched to means, and that their missions are backed by the political action necessary to build and sustain peace.”

It is encouraging that the strategy also commits the Administration to being “proactively engaged in a strategic effort to prevent mass atrocities and genocide,” and to “mobilize diplomatic, humanitarian, financial, and—in certain instances—military means to prevent and respond to genocide and mass atrocities.”

President Obama has made a strong commitment to the protection of civilians, and the strengthening of peacekeeping and peacebuilding institutions. However, we have yet to see real changes on the ground. Today, peacekeepers in Democratic Republic of Congo continue to struggle to protect civilians in harsh territory, with vastly insufficient transport to respond to crises. In Sudan, a mission of just 10,000 soldiers, deployed to support a peace agreement, has been asked to protect civilians in a context where there is an utter lack of law and order, where fighting between armed civilians and security forces is common and where large scale conflict over resources, territory and political control threatens to erupt over the course of the coming months. While asking these peacekeepers to do, and risk, so much more, the Security Council simultaneously refused to discuss the possibility of authorizing additional troops or resources for the mission.

The rhetorical shift in U.S. policy marks an important and refreshing change, but U.S. leadership must also be established by example – through the concrete contribution of staff officers, enabling units and equipment to missions, and through coherent bilateral strategies that maximize U.S. peacebuilding efforts by ensuring that the State Department and Department of Defense are working together and towards a common goal.

Good will is a start, but it is not enough.