Global Policy Forum

By Nicole Winfield

The United Nations outlined an emergency proposal to reinforce U.N. peacekeeping operations with more support staff and resources to better coordinate its missions around the world, from East Timor to Sierra Leone. The plan stems from a report in August by a panel that found the United Nations risked suffering peacekeeping failures like the ones in Rwanda and the Bosnian "safe haven" of Srebrenica unless it creates the equivalent of a ministry of defense.

In a report Monday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggested 249 jobs be added to the U.N. payroll in the next year to increase the military and civilian police coordination units at U.N. headquarters. In addition, the report recommended shifting 24 jobs from other U.N. departments to help create a systemwide coordination office for peacekeeping activities.

The head of the U.N. peacekeeping department, Jean-Marie Guehnno, noted that 11 police support staff at U.N. headquarters coordinate more than 7,000 civilian police officers around the world. "That is a ridiculous number when you think of the complexity of police operations," Guehnno said. He called the proposed increases an "emergency package" to address the "most critical needs of peacekeeping operations."

The United Nations is currently involved in 15 peacekeeping operations involving nearly 38,000 civilian and military staff.

The United States has pressed the United Nations to keep a zero-growth budget for the past several years as part of its demand for a reformed and streamlined organization. But the United States has also lead demands for an enlarged and more efficient peacekeeping department to cope with missions in Kosovo, East Timor and Sierra Leone. The deputy U.S. ambassador in charge of management and reform, Donald Hays, said Annan's report "appears to be in the ballpark in terms of positions and in terms of dollars." But he said Washington needed a more thorough review of precisely where the money and positions would be used.

Jean-Pierre Halbwachs, the U.N. controller, said an additional report, to implement other recommendations from the August peacekeeping report, would be forthcoming. That report will include calls to deploy peacekeeping forces faster than the four to six months it normally takes.

The report issued Monday now goes to the 189-member General Assembly, which must decide whether to authorize an initial $22 million for 2000-2001 for salaries, office expenses and other administrative costs.

The report outlined an additional budget of $71 million for the years 2002 and 2003, but that figure may change with the additional recommendations in the second report.

To see the Secretary General's report on implementation of the Brahimi Report (PDF format), click here.

To see the Secretary General's assessment of the resources required for implementation (the document discussed in this article, in PDF format), click here.

To link to the Brahimi Report click here.