UN Peacekeeping

• July 27, 2020

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Fernando Guillén, a 22-year-old gamer and YouTuber, switched on his computer, took a sip of water and a deep breath and thanked God for being alive, before beginning his live stream on video games from his bedroom in San Antonio, Tex. Sitting in a high-backed gaming chair and dressed in …

Covid-19, UN Peacekeeping

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WORLDVIEWS

Peacekeeping Bosses Should Be Chosen by the UN and Not the Paymasters

Kseniya Oksamytna and Vincenzo Bove and Magnus Lundgren

• July 7, 2020

Leaders of United Nations peacekeeping operations comprise an important and unique category of high-level officials in the world body. They have a difficult and often thankless job of trying to manage “Christmas tree” mandates handed down by the Security Council while keeping great powers and national authorities happy. Along the way, these leaders enjoy …

Peace and Security, UN Peacekeeping, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS

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COVID-19

Pulling Peacekeepers From Darfur Will Be a Murderous Mistake

Niemat Ahmadi

• May 27, 2020

The world plans to withdraw peacekeepers from Darfur by the end of this year. Without an alternative in place, this premature departure is a disaster in the making for the millions of Darfuris it will leave behind. While the West weighs the best ways to protect civilians going forward, I and millions of Darfuris …

Africa, Covid-19, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping

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COVID-19

E-Learning Is Nothing New for UN Peacekeepers, but Demand Is Up

Susan Manuel

• May 5, 2020

Covid-19 has forced educators from preschools to universities to create digital classrooms overnight. But at least one global community has been using e-learning for more than a decade. Tens of thousands of United Nations peacekeepers from Chile to Bangladesh to South Africa have long been using online courses to prepare for deployment to the …

Covid-19, UN Peacekeeping

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COVID-19

What the Pandemic Means for UN Peacekeeping Work

Robert Ulrich Nagel and Melanne Verveer

• April 8, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Covid-19 poses major challenges for people and governments around the world and for the United Nations. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for a global cease-fire on March 23 in recognition of the pandemic’s potentially devastating effects on people in conflict-affected nations. Less noticed in the press coverage was the important point …

Covid-19, UN Peacekeeping

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TOPIC: WOMEN

In Haiti, a Result of Peacekeepers Who Abuse Their Power: ‘Petits Minustahs’

Susan A. Bartels

• January 16, 2020

In Haiti, a young woman I’ll call Marie became involved with a United Nations peacekeeper from Brazil when she was 14 years old. She became pregnant. He was sent back to Brazil; she was ostracized by her family. In 2017, when our research team met with Marie, she said that she and her son, …

UN Peacekeeping, Women

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Politics and Understaffing Delay US Funding to the Main UN Budgets

Maurizio Guerrero

• December 3, 2019

Politics and understaffing are the main reasons the United States has still not paid its outstanding dues to the general budget of the United Nations, after much news coverage of the problem in early October. The UN is experiencing an unprecedented financial crisis that threatens its peacekeeping operations globally and severely hampers its work …

UN Peacekeeping, US-UN Relations

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TOPIC: WOMEN

My Year in Africa: Why This Brazilian Woman Peacekeeper Wants to Return

Pérola Abreu Pereira and Giovanna Kuele

• September 10, 2019

In one of the world’s most fragile and violent settings, Lieut. Comdr. Marcia Braga, a 45-year-old Brazilian naval officer, arrived in April 2018 as the third military gender adviser for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic. She ended her yearlong stint there bestowed with the UN’s annual Military Gender Advocate …

Africa, UN Peacekeeping, Women

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WORLDVIEWS

The Future of UN Peacekeeping Will Resemble What It Is Now

Dennis Jett

• July 16, 2019

The United Nations was not even three years old when it launched its first peacekeeping mission in 1948. For the last 70 years, it has been continuously involved in such operations, often with mixed results. Over that time, peacekeeping and the wars to which it has been applied have changed. The challenges peacekeepers face …

Security Council, UN Peacekeeping, WORLDVIEWS

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A Survey on Mali for Malians: What They Want for Their Country

Dulcie Leimbach

• June 24, 2019

Since 2012, a German political think tank has surveyed Malians regularly on their country’s current affairs across a legion of crises. These include the 2013 jihadist incursion in the nation, the French-led militarization to oust the jihadists, the post-conflict stabilization work done by the United Nations and a new cycle of intercommunal violence erupting …

Africa, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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How Uruguayan Peacekeepers Found the Two Dead UN Experts in Congo in 2017

Dulcie Leimbach

• May 29, 2019

Two years have passed since the shooting murders of Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalán, independent experts working for the United Nations Security Council in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in March 2017. Sharp, a 34-year-old American, and Catalán, a 36-year-old Swedish-Chilean, had gone on a mission, without UN escorts, to find information about …

Africa, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping

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Trump’s Strong-Arm Cuts Put UN Peacekeepers Out in the Cold

La Rainne Pasion

• April 29, 2019

The Trump administration’s unilateral decision to stop paying its full United Nations peacekeeping bills is hanging peacekeeping missions out to dry while creating financial woes for the countries that provide the blue-helmeted troops and police officers, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is warning. The UN’s member nations owed the peacekeeping operations just under $2 billion …

UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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WORLDVIEWS

Why Developing Nations Send So Many Troops to UN Peace Ops

Thomas G. Weiss and Giovanna Kuele

• February 12, 2019

Africa, Asia and Latin America provide more than 90 percent of military and police personnel to United Nations peace operations and contribute about 15 percent of the budget. China, hardly a legitimate representative of the Global South as the world’s second-largest economy and a permanent member of the Security Council, inflates the budget number because its …

UN Peacekeeping, WORLDVIEWS

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WORLDVIEWS

When Is an Attack on UN Peacekeepers a War Crime and When Is It Not?

Mona Ali Khalil

• November 30, 2018

The recent attack by a militia on the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in which seven peacekeepers were killed, highlighted a question that the Security Council has hesitated to confront for years. What are the consequences when UN peacekeeping missions become parties to the conflict? The Security Council responded to the latest attacks on Monusco, as …

Africa, UN Peacekeeping, WORLDVIEWS

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The UN’s Combat Troops in the Congo: ‘They Were Not Supposed to Die’

Dulcie Leimbach

• November 29, 2018

United Nations peacekeepers working for the mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were killed by a militia in a jungle in North Kivu Province on Nov. 15, leaving seven soldiers dead: six Malawians and one Tanzanian. Ten were injured. Twelve members of the Congolese armed forces were also killed, as national forces …