Barely a week after the United Nations (UN) supremo said the world was spending more on war than peace, his senior peacekeeping official pointed out last year saw “a record high of 61 conflicts” across the globe.
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under Secretary-General for Peace Operations, was addressing a Security Council (SC) debate on the future of the world body’s peace efforts. The 61 conflicts he referred to are the most recorded since 1946.
“Peacekeeping,” he told the UNSC, “is not a luxury. It is a lifeline for millions who count on it for a future without fear”. Maintaining this lifeline is in the hands of 60 000 plus peacekeepers from 115 UN member countries in 11 missions, mediating conflicts and preventing escalation. The UN, according to Lacroix, continues to advance its Action for Peacekeeping+ (AP+) initiative and efforts toward improved mission planning, gender parity, peacekeeper safety and accountability.
Elaborating, he said peacekeeping must be adaptable but grounded in political solutions, nationally owned but well-coordinated across stakeholders and equipped with emerging technologies to succeed amid global challenges and severe resource constraints.
He urged the UNSC to put “strong and ongoing support” behind efforts to seek “durable political solutions”. This would allow peacekeepers to withdraw without the threat of renewed conflict. Lacroix, noting an increase in available data and sources, said digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) must be harnessed “to assess the effectiveness of our responses”.
Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, told the UNSC for eight decades, peace operations enabled the UN to address peace and security challenges and save lives. Now UN missions operate in an increasingly fragmented geopolitical landscape, marked by internationalised conflicts, non-State armed groups and the weaponisation of technologies like AI and drones.
“To draw lessons for the future, we must learn from the past,” she said, reflecting on historical UN successes in helping end wars and facilitating peace agreements in nearly 100 countries.
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