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29th Plenary Meeting of General Assembly 70th Session
Seventieth Session, 29th and 30th Meetings (AM and PM)
The United Nations should be realistic about future challenges, and ambitious in its responses, speakers told the General Assembly today, as it took up the Secretary-General’s report on the future of the Organization’s peace operations.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in opening remarks, said his report had set out an agenda for action, translating priorities into concrete steps over the next 18 months. There was a need to bring prevention and mediation to the centre of international peace and security, as early action saved lives and money.
He called for a concerted prevention agenda that made greater use of the full range of tools, including his good offices. Peace operations needed to move away from “template” approaches towards more targeted efforts, with mandates tailored to specific demands on the ground. Capabilities that could deploy quickly, and administrative procedures that supported “dynamic” field environments, were needed.
Indeed, the current dramatic global refugee crisis and other crises demonstrated the complexity of present conflicts, said Mogens Lykketoft (Denmark), President of the General Assembly. In light of those new realities, practices and instruments must be reviewed along with how the Organization approached operational questions, including budgetary and management issues.
He said the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations had been consulted and Member States had received the Secretary-General’s implementation report. It was now up to them to consider ways to transform that blueprint into steps to ensure the Organization’s adequate response in a changing world.
Throughout the day, many of the 42 speakers taking the floor stressed the need for United Nations cooperation with regional organizations, with the representative of Sierra Leone, on behalf of the African Group, noting that the strategic partnership with the African Union could be a template in that regard.
In addition to increased coordination with regional organizations, said China’s delegate, greater synergy with institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank should be sought.
Several delegations took care to note that United Nations peacekeepers should never be used for combating terrorism or violent extremism, among them, the delegations of the Russian Federation and India. Picking up on a nuance, Brazil’s delegate said the United Nations should not deviate from its central role of promoting peace through diplomacy. Peacekeeping operations could perform counter-terrorism operations, but, their militarization should be avoided.
Other political matters were a concern to delegations from a wide geographical range. Supporting the concept framework for peace operations proposed by the Secretary-General, the representative of France said priority must be given to seeking political solutions to crises. It was a point echoed by Pakistan’s delegate, who stated that political processes should take pre-eminence in conflict prevention. Peacekeeping must be accompanied by a clear political track, he stressed.
The issue of accountability among peacekeepers also featured prominently in the day’s debate, with the representative of Bangladesh, a major troop-contributing country, expressing full support for the zero-tolerance policy for sexual misconduct in peacekeepers’ ranks. The point was driven home by the representative of the United States, who urged the Secretary-General to continue his efforts towards prevention, enforcement of the zero-tolerance policy, transparency and accountability.
The representative of the United Kingdom focused on effectiveness, stressing that while his country was prepared to pay more for better peacekeeping, mandates had to be sharpened.
Indeed, the international community should ensure that mandates were elaborated based on the field reality and responded to changing ground conditions, Japan’s representative said. Recalling the Brahimi Report on peacekeeping operations, he also noted that report’s insight that military force alone could not create peace, but rather, could create only the space in which peace might be built. The primary role of military operations was to create space for the political process to achieve a viable peace.
In other matters, the General Assembly today appointed the new head of the Officer of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), Ms. Heidi Mendoza, and also approved a report of the Fifth Committee on the scale of assessments.
Also speaking on the matter of peacekeeping were the representatives of Sweden, Philippines, United States, Morocco (on behalf of Non-Aligned Movement), Australia (also on behalf of Canada and New Zealand), Egypt, United Republic of Tanzania, Norway, Italy, Guatemala, Croatia, Cyprus, Venezuela, Mexico, Iran, Switzerland, Turkey, Finland, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Argentina, United Kingdom, Republic of Korea, Denmark, Georgia, Uruguay, Netherlands, Chile and Indonesia, as well as a representative of the European Union.
