International Day of UN Peacekeepers will be observed on Monday (today) across the globe with the theme – Investing in peace around the world.
The day would offer a chance to pay tribute to the uniformed and civilians personnel’s invaluable contribution to the work of the organisation and to honour more than 3,500 peacekeepers who have lost their lives serving under the UN flag since 1948, including 117 last year. Peacekeeping an investment in global peace, security, and prosperity. It is a flagship enterprise of the United Nations.
Today, it deploys more than 113,000 military, police and civilian personnel in 16 peacekeeping operations on four continents. It is a flexible, evolving instrument that brings together political, security and technical tools to assist countries make the difficult transition from conflict to peace. Over time, peacekeeping has grown from simply monitoring ceasefires to protecting civilians, disarming ex-combatants, protecting human rights, promoting the rule of law, supporting free and fair elections, minimizing the risk of land-mines and so much more.
They have also worked to ensure that women were represented in peace processes, political life, and in branches of government including in uniformed services. All of these efforts were fundamental investments in building lasting peace. Despite breadth of its operations, peacekeeping’s budget less than one half of one percent of global military spending.
Every mission aims to save lives, prevent mass atrocities, set the stage for peace and then close. The United Nations will complete the peacekeeping phase of its engagement with the country at the end of June after successfully assisting the country in restoring peace and stability following the post-2010 election crisis.
The peacekeeping mission focusing on the rule of law will begin. Currently, UN peacekeeping operations receive contributions of military and police personnel from 124 member states. This impressive number reflects strong global confidence in the value of UN peacekeeping.