UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – US President Barack Obama announced yesterday that more than 50 countries have pledged some 40,000 peacekeepers for possible deployment on United Nations missions, as well as helicopters, medical units and training and equipment to deal with roadside bombs.
Obama chaired a summit of world leaders at the United Nations to garner commitments to boost the capacity and capabilities of UN peacekeeping and to allow the world body to deploy forces more rapidly if a new operation is created.
“Our goal should be to make every new peace operation more efficient and more effective than the last,” Obama said.
“More than 50 countries – from Bangladesh to Colombia, from Finland to China – are making commitments totalling more than [40,000] new troops and police,” he said. “And they’re stepping up with critical contributions like medical units, helicopters, and capabilities to counter IEDs (improvised explosive devices).”
China made one of the biggest commitments. President Xi Jinping pledged to set up a “permanent peacekeeping police squad and build a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops.”
Amid a stream of allegations of misconduct and sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers in Central African Republic, US officials say the surplus troops will also allow the United Nations to exercise more discretion with its 16 current missions.
“The overwhelming number of peacekeepers serve with honor and decency in extraordinarily difficult situations. But we have seen some appalling cases of peacekeepers abusing civilians … and that is totally unacceptable,” Obama said.
According to the UN website, the United States provides 82 of the more than 106,500 people deployed on UN peacekeeping missions: 34 troops, 42 police and six military advisers. But Washington pays for more than 28 per cent of the more than $8.2 billion UN peacekeeping budget.
