Pakistan calls for equipping peacekeepers

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has underscored the need for adequately equipping UN peacekeepers operating in hot spots around the world with all critical enablers, including air assets and hospitals, to help them better achieve their mandates.

Speaking at a meeting of the Group of Friends of Troop and Police Contributing Countries that Pakistan co-chairs with Morocco, Pakistani Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said that better equipping and training of "blue helmets" had become a matter of extreme importance, especially in life and death situations, given the complex environments that the peacekeepers operate in these days.

The group was established in 2017 at the initiative of Ambassador Lodhi to maintain Pakistan's leadership on this issue. It facilitates an open and frank exchange of views on issues of concern to the countries contributing troops to UN peacekeeping and to brainstorm responses to the new challenges facing world peace and security.

Ambassador Lodhi outlined the current challenges faced by UN Peacekeeping and said that inputs from Troop Contributing Countries (TCCs) were critical in formulating effective peacekeeping strategies. In this regard, she stressed the need for all stakeholders to act together to reduce reimbursement gaps currently faced by TCCs.

Calling for reduction of deployment time, the Pakistani envoy said that delays in deployment of troops cause major challenges and incur heavy costs for the TCCs as they could no longer use and deploy those assets for other national needs.

“The time lag”, Ambassador Lodhi pointed out, “between a country’s offer to contribute an asset and actual deployment can range from a few months to even a year at times”.

She said that as these assets and capabilities were recognized as critical, there was need to work together to ensure that minimum time is wasted in deployment.

"We owe this to the peacekeepers and those they are mandated to protect”, she added.

Ambassador Lodhi said that as one of the world’s top troop and police contributors to UN Peacekeeping, Pakistan had important experiences to share on generating critical capabilities.

Calling for the need to streamline the process of transportation of assets, she said that damages during transportation and unforeseen delays in processing the necessary port clearances created situations where TCCs suffered through no fault of their own.

"While assets are rendered undeployable, compensation processes linger on”, she added.

This was the first meeting of the Group of Top Troop and Police contributing countries this year and it was largely attended. Among others, the meeting was attended by the Ambassadors of Ethiopia, which is currently the largest troop contributor, Morocco, Egypt, China, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Indonesia, Jordan and Brazil. The Under-Secretary General of the UN Department of Operational Support, Atul Khare, who attended the meeting on special invitation, briefed the members of the Group about recent steps taken by the UN Secretariat to generate critical capabilities including training of officials and other key partnership programmes.