Pakistan on Friday called for matching the mandates of UN peacekeeping missions with adequate resources, including sufficient number of well-trained and equipped troops as well as requisite logical support, to make them more effective.
"Failure is not an option in the domain of international peace and security," Ambassador Amjad Hussain Sial, the acting permanent representative, told the UN Security Council, which met at the initiative of France to discuss transition and exit strategies for UN peacekeeping operations.
The past decade has seen a surge in UN peacekeeping operations, reaching an all-time high with over 96,000 men and women serving across the world, at a cost of $7.8 billion. Ambassador Sial said over 10,000 Pakistani uniformed personnel are working in the UN Peacekeeping Missions, reflecting Pakistan's unflinching commitment to international peace.
"More than one hundred Pakistani peacekeeping troops have sacrificed their lives in the service of the UN." The Pakistan envoy noted that some UN peacekeeping missions had been successful while others have had several shortcomings, which called for a re-evaluation of policy formulation, planning and implementation concepts, processes and parameters.
The fundamental flaw in policy formulation, in his opinion, was that policymakers succumbed to the temptation to create parallel institutions instead of investing in existing national structures. The monopoly on policy formulation and planning was also a huge impediment for success.
Triangular co-operation, involving the Security Council, the Troop Contributing Countries (TCCs) and the UN Secretariat, was often claimed to be all-encompassing, while parties on the ground stayed out of the process, the Pakistan envoy said. A meaningful `quadrangular' engagement at the very beginning would guard against often encountered pitfalls. The mechanics of a peacekeeping operation necessitated the orderly closure of a mission, Sial said.
That required thorough study of the ground realities, engagement with the parties and assessment of resource needs. Peacekeeping, reconciliation and peace building went hand-in-hand and were not mutually exclusive. The integration of peacekeeping and peace building activities through institutional arrangements was more of a managerial question, he said, noting that large and cumbersome administrative structures limited the ability of top management to see through the system. Hence, co-ordination must be strengthened and overlaps eliminated, but that should not happen at the expense of institutional efficiency and transparency.
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