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UN / PEACEKEEPERS SAFETY AND SECURITY
STORY: UN / PEACEKEEPERS SAFETY AND SECURITY
TRT: 02:39
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 24 MAY 2021, NEW YORK CITY
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UN flag outside United Nations Headquarters
24 MAY 2021, NEW YORK CITY
2. Multiple screens
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General, Peace Operations:
“Peacekeeping operations continue to operate in complex environments, where they face an increasing number of attacks against their personnel by hostile actors. Since the 1st of January of this year alone, 15 peacekeepers lost their lives due to malicious acts. I want to express my deepest gratitude for the service and sacrifice of all peacekeepers, and of course, honour the memory of those who lost their lives in the pursuit of peace. One peacekeeper lost continues to be one too many.”
4. Multiple screens
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General, Peace Operations:
“Safety, security and performance are mutually reinforcing and go hand in hand. Ensuring the safety and security of peacekeepers is key to enabling them to perform. Conversely, good performance from all mission components, including through a proactive and robust posture, has the potential to enhance the safety and security of peacekeepers.”
6. Multiple screens
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General, Peace Operations:
“Avoiding unnecessary cuts to the budgets of Headquarters and missions will help us to ensure continuity of our efforts to strengthen the safety and security of UN Peacekeepers. We are, of course, committed to the prudent and conservative use of the financial resources put at our disposal by the member states, but at the same time, I think we all understand that peacekeeping needs adequate resources, particularly in this challenging and dangerous environment.”
8. Multiple screens
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Atul Khare, Under-Secretary-General, Operational Support:
“We are continuing to develop a safety capability in the department and extending support for occupational safety and health from Secretariat while keeping the responsibility with the contingents themselves to help us to meet our responsibility for providing our peacekeepers with reasonable safety as they go about their important work.”
10. Multiple screens
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Gilles Michaud, Under-Secretary-General, Safety and Security:
“My strategic vision is to develop a more agile and diverse security workforce. We need to embed a people and community- centred approach to security risk management and ensure that our workforce can apply an approach based not just on physical security measures – but on forward-looking threat and risk analysis, data-based security management, access negotiation, engagement with non-state armed actors, and acceptance by the communities we serve, among others.”
12. Multiple screens
Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix today (24 May) told the Security Council that “peacekeeping operations continue to operate in complex environments, where they face an increasing number of attacks against their personnel by hostile actors” and said, “one peacekeeper lost continues to be one too many.”
Lacroix noted that since the start of the year, 15 peacekeepers “have lost their lives due to malicious acts.”
Addressing an open videoconference (VTC) debate on “United Nations peacekeeping operations: Improving safety and security of peacekeepers,” he said, “safety, security and performance are mutually reinforcing and go hand in hand. Ensuring the safety and security of peacekeepers is key to enabling them to perform. Conversely, good performance from all mission components, including through a proactive and robust posture, has the potential to enhance the safety and security of peacekeepers.”
The peacekeeping chief told Council members “avoiding unnecessary cuts to the budgets of Headquarters and missions will help us to ensure continuity of our efforts to strengthen the safety and security of UN Peacekeepers.”
He said, “we are, of course, committed to the prudent and conservative use of the financial resources put at our disposal by the member states, but at the same time, I think we all understand that peacekeeping needs adequate resources, particularly in this challenging and dangerous environment.”
Under-Secretary-General for Operational Support Atul Khare, told the Council that his department continues developing a safety capability “and extending support for occupational safety and health from Secretariat while keeping the responsibility with the contingents themselves to help us to meet our responsibility for providing our peacekeepers with reasonable safety as they go about their important work.”
For his part, Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security Gilles Michaud said, “my strategic vision is to develop a more agile and diverse security workforce. We need to embed a people and community- centred approach to security risk management and ensure that our workforce can apply an approach based not just on physical security measures – but on forward-looking threat and risk analysis, data-based security management, access negotiation, engagement with non-state armed actors, and acceptance by the communities we serve, among others.”
Today’s meeting aims to provide a platform for dialogue on the safety and security of peacekeepers and serve as an opportunity to mobilise efforts to address the security risks and challenges they face. In addition to determining ways to better implement resolution 2518 of 30 March 2020, which addresses capacity-building and safety and security of peacekeepers, the meeting focused on steps that can be taken to improve areas such as training, equipment quality, medical care, and the use of new technologies in peace operations.
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