UN Peacekeeping Week 2016

David Lidington Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) on securing the debate and welcome the opportunity to discuss the challenges faced by UN peacekeeping operations and how we should try to address them. She spoke very well about the scale of the task that UN peacekeeping missions face in some of the most dangerous operating environments around the world, and about the vital role they play in trying to keep vulnerable civilians safe in the face of some of the most appalling threats of violence that any society can be confronted with. I was pleased that she was able to attend the Cenotaph ceremony on 25 May, at which my right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Anelay of St John’s laid a wreath on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government as a demonstration of the Government’s support for the work of United Nations peacekeeping missions past and present.

Peacekeeping remains a vital tool of the UN, and one on which the international community depends heavily. The past five years have seen an increase in both the number and the type of threats faced by UN peacekeepers. I echo the tribute that my noble Friend Baroness Anelay paid on 25 May to the men and women in blue helmets who put their lives on the line in order to protect the vulnerable.

UN peacekeeping operations are under strain, and peacekeepers are increasingly being asked to do more than they did in the past. In addition to protecting civilians and helping to restore the rule of law, we now look to them to try to ensure the safe transit of humanitarian aid supplies. Changes are needed to respond to those evolving demands. The Secretary-General’s review of peace operations, which took place last year, highlighted the need for reform. The Government welcomed that review, which provided us and our international partners with the opportunity to reflect on our approach to UN peacekeeping. This country already provides it with significant support, both through our permanent seat on the Security Council and through our financial contributions. We provide £303.6 million towards UN peacekeeping as part of our assessed United Nations contribution. Additionally, we have committed £1 million of programme funding to specific priorities identified by the UN on which more work or help is needed.

However, we are committed to doing more. I acknowledge the kindness of the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire in referring to the extra commitments that the Government have made as part of the Secretary-General’s review, and at and since the leaders summit hosted by President Obama in 2015. At that summit, the UK pledged our support, along with more than 50 nations and international organisations, for Ban Ki-moon’s efforts to strengthen UN peacekeeping for the future. The Prime Minister pledged to double our military contribution to peacekeeping by sending up to 70 troops to support the peace operations in Somalia and between 250 and 300 to South Sudan.

The first of those personnel deployed to Somalia last month, as the hon. Lady said, and we are preparing the ground for the bulk of our deployment over the next few months. We are offering logistical, medical and engineering expertise and short-term training teams, all in support of enhancing the capability of the UN operation, as well as to support troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia and the Somali national army. In South Sudan, the United Kingdom will make a significant contribution to the effectiveness of the UN peacekeeping mission. We plan to stagger our deployment; as the hon. Lady said, we have just deployed our first troops to South Sudan, and we intend that the main contingent should arrive at the end of the year. We are working with the UN now to identify exactly where this country’s expertise will be most effective. That may well include vital engineering work, which is one area in which it seems both to us and to the UN that we could make a particular contribution.

Our pledge to double our military commitment is part of a wider approach designed to help improve UN peacekeeping operations. We want to ensure that the UN is able to get the right people and equipment to the right place at the right time. I can boil that down to three overall objectives: first, encouraging more countries to pledge additional support; secondly, securing improvements in UN planning procedures; and thirdly, boosting the overall quality of troop and mission performance.

I shall say a little more about each of those three objectives. First, on pledges, our vision is that the UN should be able to draw upon a bigger pool of troop-contributing countries than is currently possible. That pool of potential contributions should have a wider range of capabilities than currently exists, so that the UN can pick the right contributions to suit a particular mission in a particular part of the world. That will allow the UN to deploy peacekeeping missions with the resources and abilities to carry out their mandates and the confidence that those objectives can be achieved. We are delivering on the pledge we made last year, and it is vital that others do the same. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence will host a ministerial-level meeting in London later this year, which we are looking forward to as, among other things, an opportunity to continue to press some of our international partners to deliver the pledges made at President Obama’s meeting last year.

Secondly, on planning, there is increasingly a gap between the expectation that the United Nations should intervene in difficult operating environments and the ability of peacekeeping missions to meet difficult demands in practice. To improve the co-ordination of peacekeeping efforts and the ability to respond effectively to new crises, there needs to be better planning and analysis. That starts with design and goes through to the set-up of operations and the eventual drawdown and conclusion of a peacekeeping operation. A mission needs at all times to have a clear focus on what it is seeking to achieve. We have already begun funding a new unit in the UN Secretary-General’s office to support improvements in planning and analysis.

Finally, better planning must be matched by improved performance. Increasing the number of available peacekeepers and improving the planning of missions will help, but that will work only if all peacekeepers, wherever in the world they come from, are appropriately trained, fully equipped and properly vetted before they are deployed. All countries that contribute either troops or police officers should deploy peacekeepers who have been trained to the highest standards. We will continue to push for that and for poor performance to be tackled constructively.

The hon. Lady mentioned the very serious allegations in respect of members of the peacekeeping operation in the Central African Republic. As part of our objective of improving the performance of the UN peacekeeping operations, it is a United Kingdom priority to work with the Secretary-General to tackle sexual exploitation and abuse, which, sadly, has been carried out by a small minority of peacekeepers. We welcome Ban Ki-moon’s recent report on special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and abuse and his appointment of Dr Jane Holl Lute as his special co-ordinator in improving the UN’s response. The extra £1 million of programme funding, which I referred to earlier, is being targeted in particular at efforts to help improve the capability of deployed peacekeepers to design a reporting system that local communities and potential complainants feel able to trust, and to ensure that, in the future, we get a stronger and swifter UN response to proven allegations.

The Government are committed to working with others around the world to achieve those reforms. As I said, my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary will host a follow-up meeting to President Obama’s summit here in London in September.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I am delighted to hear about all the contributions that the British Government and the British military are making not only to UN peacekeeping on the ground but to future planning so that UN peacekeeping forces can better deliver their missions. To which regions of the world should Britain and the UN be looking to make further and bigger contributions? The Minister says that some are not doing as much as they could. I do not want him to identify countries, but which regions should be doing more, along the lines of the excellent work of our British Government?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for not inviting me to point the finger at particular Governments. I do not think it would be helpful for me to do that in public—it is something better done through intensive diplomatic work, including at the forthcoming meeting. One has to look both at developed countries and at some of the emerging economies that are looking to take a more active role in international affairs and politics, and say to them, “As part of that, we think that it would be a very good contribution for you to make resources available to the United Nations.” Looking around the world, it is striking that a country does not have to be one of the so-called great powers to make an effective contribution. Countries such as Norway or Finland have made some very effective contributions to different UN operations over the years. There are some fine examples that other countries can look at.

The UN peacekeeping defence ministerial will take stock of pledges delivered since the last summit and encourage others to make good on their pledges, but it will also focus on how to improve UN peacekeeping and make real progress on reform, including on how to include more women in delivering peace and security. I hope that the London meeting will make a critical contribution to improving UN peacekeeping efforts and, in doing so, deliver better protection for those most at risk and in most need.

The United Kingdom wants to see more effective, more responsive and better resourced peacekeeping operations. We have identified the areas where we can best support the United Nations and have a positive effect, and we have already started to work on them. Most importantly, we are asking others to join us. We are determined to lead the work to help deliver real change, to make a real difference to the quality of UN peacekeeping and to enable the United Nations to meet the challenges that it will face in the future.

Question put and agreed to.