Press Briefing on Review of UN Police Division

Hilde Johnson and Abadallah Wafy, Co-Chairs of the External Review of the functions, structure and capacity of the United Nations Police Division, along with Mark Kroeker, member of the review team, brief press.

• Categories: Media / Press Conferences
• Video Length: 00:17:22
• Production Date: 1 June 2016
• Asset Language: English
• Personal Subject: HILDE JOHNSON
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS POLICE – UNPOL
• Subject Topical: POLICE; PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS; FINANCING
• MAMS Id: 1633822
• Parent Id: 1633640

Description

As the United Nations’ role in countries affected by complex conflicts has grown in scale and scope throughout the years, UN Police (UNPOL) have increasingly become the central pillar of the Organization’s peace operations, working both to reinforce the provision of security and also to build or re-build a basic system of policing in countries, and as such, require a new operating model with enhanced capacities, an external review team has found.

According to the findings of the ‘External Review of the Functions, Structure and Capacity of the UN Police Division,’ released today at UN Headquarters in New York, the ability of both the Police Division and police components in the field to fulfil their mandate is limited by the current operating model for UNPOL.

“The current model appears largely supply driven and dependant on the capabilities that Police Contributing Countries provide,” the report found. “It is somewhat rigid and based on ad-hoc, relatively short-term deployments to influence structural changes and to build institutional capacity.”

Specifically, the report found that the current operating model is based on a series of assumptions that directly limit the ability of both the Police Division and police components within missions to fulfil their mandate.

“In short, Member States and the Security Council are left with a stark choice. They can maintain the status quo and authorize more achievable mandates aligned to what police components can actually deliver under the current operating model (limited capacity building and institutional development). Or, they can support a change to the current operating model to enable police components to deliver on tailored mandates, by providing enhanced police capacities that could better meet the challenges of today’s peace operations,” the report said.

The independent review team that undertook the review was appointed by the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hervé Ladsous, in January.

The review was prompted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s report, 'The future of United Nations peace operations: implementation of the recommendations of the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations,' published in September 2015.

The review team is co-chaired by Hilde F. Johnson, former Special Representative of the Secretary-General, and Abdallah Wafy, Permanent Representative of Niger to the UN, as well as former Police Commissioner and subsequently Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General with the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO).

Ms. Johnson underscored that the role of police in peacekeeping operations is not fully recognized in the UN system, as military deployments take precedence.

“The military deployment model has for far too long also influenced the way police officers are deployed. The focus has largely been on numbers and less on the competencies they bring,” Ms. Johnson said.

The review team has proposed a new operating model that would focus on institution building and specialized capacities, rather than on the number of personnel being deployed.

The approach of the review was field-focused, initially concentrating on the needs of host-States of UN peace operations, and subsequently on their police components. The review team then explored the required responsibilities and functions of the Police Division and its needed capacities.

Indeed, the report found that the Police Division and UNPOL processes remain overly influenced by a military culture of peacekeeping, and significant gaps still remain. While UNPOL should not be a development agency, it should take a development approach to the reform and restructuring component of its mandate, if it is to be effective.

In addition, police components in the field have expressed deep concerns about the lack of field orientation of Headquarters, the report found.

“In reality, the Police Division’s current capacity and resourcing is insufficient and has not kept pace with the increased tasks and complexity of police mandates in peace operations,” the report said.