Remarks at a UN Safety Council Open Debate on the Way forward for Peace Operations

AS DELIVERED

Thank you, Mr. President, and let me congratulate you on assuming the presidency. I’d additionally wish to thank Under-Secretary-General Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General DiCarlo, Ambassador Zahneisen as PBC Chair, and Jenna Russo from IPI to your briefings and insights right now.

The United Nations has a singular function in addressing lots of right now’s most troublesome and delicate conflicts, however UN peace operations right now wrestle with a system that’s in want of reform and reprioritization.

The United States due to this fact continues to advocate UN return to its foundational goal of sustaining worldwide peace and safety. In different phrases, we have to go “back to basics.”

As a part of these bigger UN reform efforts, UN peacekeeping specifically should be extra accountable, adaptable, and clear.

In doing so, the UN will probably be higher in a position to train its comparative benefits, together with by deploying multinational, tailor-made, focused options to deal with peace and safety issues.

First, to enhance accountability, excellence in efficiency should be higher rewarded and incentivized. At the identical time, expedient and consistently-applied penalties should even be imposed, together with for efficiency failures, conduct and self-discipline points, useful resource mismanagement, inaction within the face of impediments to missions’ mandates, and non-intervention when imminent menace of bodily violence towards civilians come up.

Reform ought to make sure the UN has clear and constant efficiency requirements for each uniformed and civilian personnel and clear accountability mechanisms which can be used to deal with underperformance within the environment friendly execution of mandates. Similarly, each particular person perpetrators in addition to TCCs and PCCs should be held to account for situations of sexual exploitation and abuse, as acceptable, with out political consideration.

Second, to extend transparency, UN headquarters, in cooperation with peace operations on the mission-level, should have interaction in built-in planning. This consists of each headquarters-level situation planning in addition to built-in navy and civilian mission-planning.

These efforts will guarantee UN peace operations have actionable finish states and timelines, clear and demonstrable metrics to attain these end-states, and a streamlined assist construction that each fosters innovation and responsibly allocates shared assets.

Missions should be capable to showcase their progress and actively – collectively – work themselves out of a job.

To assist transparency, reforms are wanted to make sure clear mandates articulate a desired purpose or finish state, prioritize obtainable assets, and supply the pliability for mission leaders to find out how greatest to attain these targets primarily based on dynamics on the bottom.

Reforms are additionally wanted to make sure the Council is supplied with common, frank assessments and reasonable suggestions – not simply what it desires to listen to.

These efforts to extend transparency are mandatory so all members can see a concrete, measurable return on our funding.

Third, to empower adaptability, peace operations have to replicate the political and operational realities of the second. These embody the necessity for clear and targeted mandates, duties, and assist buildings, which can assist achieve buy-in and make important contributions to defusing and resolving battle via peace operations.

Targeted and achievable mandates – slightly than burdensome mandates – may even assist tackle the rising belief deficit dealing with peace operations right now.

Reforms for adaptability can embody the modular approaches advised within the DPO’s latest research on the way forward for peacekeeping, which might assist guarantee peace operations are targeted, nimble, and context-specific. This may also be completed via adaptive planning, structural adjustments that assist flexibility, and incentives for considerate risk-taking slightly than an acceptance of the established order.

In conclusion, Mr. President, the United States stays involved in regards to the UN’s bureaucratic inefficiencies, politicized initiatives, and burdensome mandates that inhibit clear prioritization and pressure assets.

President Trump is steadfast in his purpose of restoring peace internationally. And President Trump additionally has made clear the UN must concentrate on its core mandate to higher place it for fulfillment.

That is why we proceed to advocate for important reforms to the UN, together with via the Review on All Forms of Peace Operations. Progress in responding to this pivotal time within the transformation of the UN would require broad political backing, operational wherewithal, and visionary management. We should be prepared to fulfill the second.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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