Pull your weight: U.S. urges rest of the world to do more for UN peacekeeping

The United States is urging countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia to commit more to U.N. peacekeeping operations around the world as Washington considers where it might be able to do the same, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Friday. The United Nations has more than 110,000 soldiers and police in 16 peacekeeping operations around the world in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and in Haiti. While Western countries used to routinely offer peackeepers for blue-helmeted U.N. battalions, the United Nations now relies mainly on developing countries. According to Ambassador Samantha Power, this is no longer an appropriate model for the 21st century.

U.N. peacekeeping is increasingly funded by developed countries and manned by developing countries. This is unsustainable and unfair. It will not produce the peacekeeping forces that today’s conflicts and our national security demand.

Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations

She highlighted areas where U.N. peacekeeping operations can and must improve: “Slow troop deployment, limited mobility … and the failure to confront aggressors and protect civilians.” It is necessary for countries to offer more, she said. Power said the United States is encouraging European militaries, many of which are drawing down from Afghanistan, to return to active U.N. peacekeeping roles. She also urged Latin American militaries to deploy outside the Western Hemisphere and asked East Asian militaries to contribute more substantially to peacekeeping.

World peacekeeping