Security Council seeks to strengthen UN peacekeeping capacities

"The Security Council today discussed steps to improve United Nations peacekeeping capacities, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling for greater flexibility and funding to meet the ever more complex needs of missions that currently field some 100,000 blue helmets in hot spots around the world.

“We may be entering a new phase, with diverse and multifaceted situations where peacekeeping may play a role,” he said, noting that the number of uniformed personnel in UN peacekeeping operations has doubled in the past 10 years, reaching a high point of more than 101,000 last year.

“Peacekeeping will need to evolve to meet specific demands in a variety of environments and to flexibly and nimbly bring together multiple capabilities in a coherent and effective manner.”

In convening the session, India, which holds this month’s rotating presidency of the 15-member Council, underscored the “severe mismatch between the resources and the mandates of peacekeeping operations,” noting that total expenditure for UN peacekeeping in the last two decades was under $50 billion, reportedly less than the annual outlay for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan."