New York – United Nations peacekeeping mission need flexibility and increased co-ordination among international actors to ensure such missions address the needs of the countries they operate in, within the context of financial restraint, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hervé Ladsous, told a news briefing at UN headquarters here yesterday.

“We are a global partnership. In order to achieve our mandates, we need support and strong cooperation between the Security Council, Member States and the Secretariat, so that we collectively focus on meeting the demands and addressing the needs of the countries in which we are deployed,” he said.

“This requires also us to be increasingly flexible and increasingly nimble, especially in the context of financial restraint.”

Currently, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) – headed by Mr. Ladsous – leads 16 peace operations around the world.

In accordance with the UN Charter, every UN member state is legally obligated to pay its respective share towards peacekeeping, based on a special scale of assessments.

In addition troops that can serve as ‘blue helmets’ are also sought from member states.

The budget for UN peacekeeping operations for the fiscal year 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013 is about $7.23 billion – this is less than half of one per cent of world military expenditures in 2010, according to the DPKO.

In his remarks, the UN peacekeeping chief noted that the world body would be resizing various missions, as part of a continuous process of review, “to ensure that we are configured in the right way to meet the needs on the ground”.

These include the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), the United Nations-African Union operation in Darfur (UNAMID), pictured above, the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT), the last of which is expected to close at the end of this year.

“On balance, we are seeing modest overall reduction which gives us a strategic opportunity to focus on the quality and capabilities of peacekeeping,” Mr. Ladsous said, adding that financial constraints require peace missions to be versatile and creative in the implementation of their mandates from the Security Council.

Mali figured prominently in the UN official’s remarks.

He stated that the two main priorities there remained restoring constitutional order and helping the country regain its sovereignty.

Currently led by Interim President Dioncounda Traoré, Mali has been dealing with a range of security, political and humanitarian problems since the start of the year.

Fighting between government forces and Tuareg rebels broke out in the country’s north in January.

Since then, radical Islamists have seized control of the north, where they have imposed an extremist version of Muslim Sharia law as well as restrictions that target women in particular.

Mr. Ladsous stressed that during a meeting of the international community last week in Bamako, the country’s capital, there had been consensus among the UN, the Malian authorities, the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that the two priorities should be achieved through political solutions.

“The United Nations stands ready to assist the Malian authorities towards a credible political process that addresses the underlying causes of the crisis in order to find a sustainable solution,” Mr. Ladsous said.

However, he added that the possibility of a military element as part of a solution has not been ruled out.

The DPKO, he noted, had started to work with the Malian authorities, ECOWAS and the AU to plan the international military force that may ultimately be required for the recovery of the country’s north.

He added that there would be another meeting in Bamako early next week to refine the concept of operations with all parties that were willing to contribute.

At a meeting last week, citing the threat to regional peace from terrorists and Islamic militants in the rebel-held north, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution, which held out the possibility of endorsing, within 45 days, an international military force to restore the unity of the West African nation.

The 15-member body also called on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to support the Malian political process and provide, at once, military and security planners to ECOWAS, the AU and other partners, to help frame a response to a request by Mali’s Transitional Authorities for such a force, and to report back within 45 days.

Regarding the ongoing crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mr. Ladsous said the UN Stabilisation Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) was taking a robust position in view of its mandate to support DRC forces and protect civilians, but emphasised that wider political action is needed to find a lasting solution.

“They do not hesitate using all equipment including attack helicopters to deter unspeakable acts committed against civilians,” he said of the efforts of UN peacekeepers to support DRC troops against the M23.

“They are as proactive as they can be.”

The DRC’s eastern provinces of North and South Kivu have witnessed increased fighting between government troops and the so-called March 23 Movement (M23), which is composed of renegade soldiers who mutinied in April.

The fighting has displaced more than 300,000 people, including many who have fled to neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda, as well as within DRC. MONUSCO has clashed with members of M23 on several occasions.

“It is very important that all external support to the M23 cease and that a regional dialogue can develop,” Mr. Ladsous said, noting that two solutions have been put forward at meetings of the International Conference on the Region of the Great Lakes (ICGLR).

One of these is the establishment of an international force to work alongside MONUSCO to pacify the Kivus, and the other, the so-called Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism (EJVM), was launched in September, in the eastern DRC town of Goma.

First discussed in June, the mechanism is a technical body, comprising experts from both DRC and Rwanda and those of the UN and AU, to address DRC-Rwanda border security issues.

During the range of topics covered in his news briefing, Mr. Ladsous also spoke of the general work of UN peacekeepers, to whom he paid tribute for their efforts and sacrifices.

“Let us never forget the sacrifices made by our peacekeepers,” he said. “This year alone, a total of 73 peacekeepers have died serving in the cause of peace.”

Just last week, six MONUSCO peacekeepers and a local interpreter were wounded in an overnight ambush while returning from a patrol in the DRC’s North Kivu province, while a UNMAID peacekeeper was killed and three others wounded in an ambush in the state of North Darfur. In early October, another four UNAMID peacekeepers were killed and eight wounded in an ambush in West Darfur state.
DD