UN addresses challenges for peacekeepers

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Violence in Mali provides a consistent reminder of the dangers the United Nations peacekeepers face.

Last year, 21 blue helmets died in the country. Speaking at a wreath laying in the country back in May, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, "Peace in Mali is a factor of worldwide security. And the world must understand that it has to support you without conditions."

But funding for the United Nations Peacekeeping mission is far from unconditional. In June, the UN General Assembly voted to slash 600 million US dollars from its annual budget of nearly eight billion US dollars.

Complicating matters, the United States said it will no longer fund a quarter of the UN's peacekeeping operations.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley hailed the move, saying there should be a shared burden with shared costs.

The aim of the cuts is to make the UN peacekeeping more efficient but some warn it could have major consequences for the blue helmets working in increasingly dangerous environments.

UN peacekeeping soldiers carry the coffins of two Dutch UN peacekeepers accidentally killed at the Bamako airport, Mali, July 11, 2016. /VCG Photo

"The cuts not only hurt the peacekeepers in terms of their equipment, in terms of the numbers, in terms of what they are able to do in the field," said Simon Adams, executive director at the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect.

"The people they truly leave vulnerable are the people who live in these countries," Adams added.

The UN peacekeeping mission has been operational for 70 years. To mark this occasion a high-level meeting was scheduled during the annual UN General Assembly. Nations have reaffirmed their support for the work they do around the world.

But this comes as the blue helmets have been under fire for a slew of sexual assault scandals.

A woman reacts next to UN soldiers in front of the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic, Bangui, April 11, 2018. /VCG Photo

Guterres has made this issue a key priority but some say that the UN's inability to administer punitive measures remains a problem.

"If the countries themselves, troop-contributing countries are not much more forceful in sticking their soldiers with stiff rules and stiff penalties, the UN is pointless," said Dirk Salomons, special lecturer of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York.

The Secretary-General calls UN peacekeepers the foremost symbol of the United Nations. UN officials say the blue helmets remain the thin blue line protecting some of the world's most vulnerable people, but "they are also facing a more fundamental challenge – namely, the gulf between aspirations and reality," Guterres said.

(Cover: A Ghanaian UN peacekeeper stands watch as children look on at a protection camp for displaced civilians in Bentiu, South Sudan, June 18, 2017. /VCG Photo)