United Nations peacekeeping officials informed about 100 attendees of the new challenges the U.N. faces due to shifting world political landscape, and proposed solutions to overcome these difficulties at the Harvard Kennedy School Thursday night.
U.N. peacekeepers monitor and implement the peace process in areas after conflicts. Moderators acknowledged that the U.N. has received a large amount of criticism. Detractors say that the peacekeepers are not sufficiently handling world political issues, especially in Africa. However, Jacqueline Bhabha, director of the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies, said there is an inherent contradiction within this criticism.
‘There is a sense on the one hand that when there are pressing emergencies, we don’t do well as an international community,’ Bhabha said. ‘Yet all the undesirable jobs often end up on the U.N.’s desk.’
‘ Many attendees agreed with the critics, saying that they think U.N. peacekeeping has not done a good job handling the political situations in Darfur and Congo, and that it has failed as a body to solve pressing world issues.
Despite these concerns, U.N. Secretary-General of the Department of Field Support Susana Malcorra said with a changing political landscape and rising demand for complex peace operations, U.N. peacekeeping has been faced with new challenges. Now, not only do Peacekeepers function as cease-fire and border monitors, but also undertake complex political tasks, such as elections and human rights issues, she said.
‘As imperfect as it is, at least the UN is there doing something,’ Malcorra said.
Established in 1948, United Nations peacekeeping is an instrument to create the condition for lasting peace for countries suffered from regional conflicts, she said. There are currently 18 peacekeeping operations and 16 political missions around the world, with over one million deployed staff, Malcorra said.
U.N. Europe and Latin America Division Director David Harland said the record shows that countries that the U.N. has helped are in a better condition than those that have not been assisted.
‘There’s a long record of happy results and successful intervention,’ he said.
Michael Gaouette, team leader of the Darfur Integration Operation, said peacekeepers are a specific tool meant for a specific purpose. Therefore, peacekeeping operations have a negative reputation because member nations misuse the U.N., not because the U.N. itself has failed in its task.
U.N. peacekeeping officials also discussed the criterion for a successful peacekeeping operation such as the support from the local government in conflict zone, Gaouette said U.N. peacekeeping needs more practical plans to work more efficiently when handling complex and tough situations.
Harvard University junior Yuna Han said the panel provided different perspectives than what she expected.
‘They had some very optimistic views of African political issues that many view as [a] failure,’ Han said.
Soham Sen, a graduate student at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, said he attends events like this often because the discussions cover interesting topics and feature experts in international politics.
‘It’s a question that’s on the mind of a lot of Americans,’ Sen said. ‘But I was pleasantly surprised by how frank guests in the panel were about the shortcomings of U.N. peacekeeping.’
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