Council members may share differing perspectives on the challenges confronting UN peacekeeping operations during the meeting.
On Monday (9 September), the Security Council will hold its annual meeting on UN peacekeeping pursuant to resolution 2378 of 20 September 2017. This resolution requested the Secretary-General to provide a comprehensive briefing on peacekeeping reform every 12 months. This year, Slovenia has chosen to convene a meeting with a focus on “Strengthening Peacekeeping: Reflections for the Future”.
It will be held in an open debate format to allow the wider UN membership to provide their views. Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix; Comfort Ero, the President and CEO of the International Crisis Group (ICG); and Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the President and CEO of the International Peace Institute (IPI), are expected to brief.
Prior to the open debate, Council members that are supporters of the joint pledges on climate change, peace and security—France, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland, the UK, and the US—plan to hold a stakeout on this issue in the context of UN peacekeeping.
In preparation for the open debate, Slovenia has circulated a concept note, which acknowledges the new and emerging challenges facing UN peace operations and underscores the need for these operations to adapt to evolving security dynamics to effectively fulfill their mandates.
It also highlights ongoing reform efforts through the Secretary-General’s Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative, launched in 2018 to mobilise collective action among member states, the Security Council, financial contributors, and troop and police-contributing countries in support of strengthening UN peace operations.
The concept note refers to the Secretary-General’s A New Agenda for Peace (NAfP), a policy brief that serves as the main input for the peace and security section of the draft Pact for the Future. The NAfP, among other things, calls for “a serious and broad-based reflection” on the future of peacekeeping. The concept note situates the open debate in the context of the Summit of the Future (SoF), to be held on 22 and 23 September, and the ongoing negotiations by UN member states on the draft Pact for the Future, the envisioned outcome document of the SoF.
By convening Monday’s open debate, Slovenia aims to explore how the Security Council can foster trust and unified support for UN peace operations. In recent years, the Security Council has shown less unanimity in renewing the mandates of UN peace operations. For instance, the Council renewed the mandates of nine peacekeeping missions last year, including four—in the Central African Republic (CAR), Western Sahara, Lebanon, and South Sudan—non-unanimously.
In light of these dynamics, the concept note stresses the need for the Security Council to ensure full and consistent political support to peace operations, in order to enable them to deliver on their mandates more effectively and create favourable conditions for finding durable solutions to conflicts.
Slovenia has proposed several questions to help guide the discussion, including:
- How can the Security Council make UN peace operations more effective and fit for purpose?
- How can the Security Council more effectively engage member states, including host countries, neighbouring countries, and troop- and police-contributing countries, to systematically rally behind UN peacekeeping efforts and the political solutions they are designed to support?
- What role can regional organisations play in fostering a conducive political environment for peace operations?
- What concrete steps can be taken to strengthen political unity within the Security Council, providing a solid foundation for consistent support of peace operations?
In Monday’s briefing, Lacroix may stress the significance of peacekeeping as a political tool by describing the ongoing efforts to advance political solutions in UN peacekeeping missions. This is a point that he emphasised in a 2 September article in Foreign Affairs, in which he also acknowledged the challenges that UN peacekeeping missions currently face in accomplishing this objective, including insufficient political support from UN member states and stretched resources due to multiple crises.
In this regard, Lacroix may stress the need to build trust and secure greater political support for UN peacekeeping from all UN member states, the Security Council, and other relevant stakeholders. He may recall the outcome of the 2023 UN Peacekeeping Ministerial in Accra—which saw 60 UN member states make new pledges of peacekeepers, equipment, training and funds in support of UN peacekeeping—and look forward to the next UN Peacekeeping Ministerial in Berlin in May 2025. He may further highlight the significance of the SoF as an opportunity to reaffirm global commitment to UN peacekeeping.
As has been the case since A4P was launched in 2018, Lacroix is expected to use Monday’s open debate to update Council members on the progress and challenges in implementing the priorities of this initiative, namely: collective coherence behind a political strategy, strategic and operational integration, capabilities and mindsets, accountability to peacekeepers, accountability of peacekeepers, strategic communications, and cooperation with host countries. The Department of Peace Operations (DPO) has been producing biannual reports to document progress in the A4P’s implementation, the latest of which was recently released and covers the period from November 2023 to April.
In this regard, Lacroix may focus on the ongoing efforts to strengthen peacekeeping, including by:
- enhancing peacekeepers’ performance and capabilities to ensure effective mandate implementation;
- improving the safety and security of peacekeepers in response to the rising number of fatalities;
- promoting the participation of women in peacekeeping through the Uniformed Gender Parity Strategy; and
- bolstering strategic and operational integration within missions and with partners to support smooth peacekeeping transition processes.
He may also shine a spotlight on the issue of partnerships for peacekeeping and describe the work that has been done jointly with the African Union (AU) in operationalising resolution 2719 of 21 December 2023 on financing AU-led peace support operations.
Ero may offer insights drawn from the ICG’s in-depth research and fieldwork in countries hosting UN peacekeeping missions. Drawing on his experiences as a peacekeeper in the former Yugoslavia and Jordan’s permanent representative when it was on the Security Council, Hussein may reflect on how the UN can enhance its effectiveness in addressing contemporary global challenges, underscoring the need for strong leadership in this regard.
At Monday’s meeting, some members may refer to the ongoing negotiations on the draft Pact and the upcoming SoF. The former Special Representative and Head of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) El-Ghassim Wane is leading a team to review various models for the future of UN peacekeeping in the context of the next Peacekeeping Ministerial to be hosted by Germany in May 2025.
Council members may share differing perspectives on the challenges confronting UN peacekeeping operations during the meeting. In last year’s briefing on peacekeeping reform, the UK pointed to restrictions on freedom of movement and violations of Status of Forces Agreements, while France emphasised the responsibility of host governments in facilitating mandate implementation.
The US focused on improving peacekeeping performance, stressing the need for accountability in cases of underperformance. China and Russia underscored the importance of building trust with host governments and local communities to ensure smooth mission operations. Russia, in particular, argued that peacekeeping operations should prioritise their core tasks, contending that expanding their focus to issues such as human rights, gender, and climate change has become a distraction from their primary objectives.
Nevertheless, there was a broad consensus in last year’s meeting on several issues, which may be reflected again at Monday’s meeting. Last year, many members underscored peacekeeping’s importance as a tool to address international peace and security challenges.
There was also agreement on the need for peacekeeping to evolve and adapt to changing security environments. Council members stressed the primacy of politics in peacekeeping—a phrase used in the 2015 report of the High-Level Panel on Peace Operations—to emphasise that political solutions are essential for the success of peacekeeping missions. They also underlined the need to address the gap between peacekeeping mandates and what missions can realistically achieve in fulfilling their mandates, as pointed out in the NAfP.
Several Council members focused on the growing issue of disinformation targeting UN peacekeeping missions, underscoring the importance of strengthening strategic communications to better engage host governments and local communities. Several raised concerns about the escalating violence against peacekeepers, while emphasising the need to enhance their safety and security.
Additionally, there was strong support for partnerships, with some members underscoring the importance of bolstering cooperation with the AU.
