Essay Example on The UN currently has 15 peacekeeping Operations

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The UN currently has 15 peacekeeping operations on four different continents four of those being in the Middle East and eight being in Africa The annual budget for these missions is about 5 billion Due to the increased targeting of civilians modern peacekeeping has altered its techniques The mandate is challenging due to constraints on personnel so that even large peacekeeping missions distribute relatively little peacekeepers in relation to the area facing conflict and the size and extent of the conflict MONUSCO a current mission has over 17 000 troops operating in a country filled with over 82 million people and spread over 2 3 kilometers These factors bring the ratio of troops to people for MONUSCO to 1 to 4 800 While the civilians are suffering in the conflict the peacekeepers themselves suffer as well They experience poor infrastructure and limited social security benefits and face backlash from the international communities who may not welcome and support the peacekeepers Due to the complexity of local conflicts national political processes are often able to derail the peace process These disruptions can arise from land disputes and other political and resource based factors The Russian Federation is a permanent member of the 



U N Security Council and contributes 3 088 of the annual budget or 83 403 706 as of a 2016 assessment These statistics are just for the regular budget though For peacekeeping the Russian Federation ends up paying upwards of 330 000 000 These are incredible sums of money which is why the discovery of corruption schemes and fraud that turned up in the 1 4 billion of peacekeeping contracts is a tragedy This scheme tainted 40 or 619 million of the contracts This was unveiled in 2007 and there are still indications of mismanagement and corruption that are reaching the public today In 2016 U N peacekeepers allegedly illegally resold food in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon There are also allegations of selling U N peacekeeping jobs in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and assertions by outside parties that the United Nations has failed to prioritize the fighting corruption in its peacekeeping operations A former OIOS Office of Internal Oversight Services investigator reported that there are cases that have been closed in the face of evidence fraud and sexual abuse and misconduct He details that the U N knew about abuses by French peacekeepers in the Central African Republic but failed to take action that could have resulted in timely investigation and deterred subsequent abuse The U N peacekeepers are also not making sufficient enough progress to match their incredibly high budget The United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan UNMOGIP was tasked in 1949 with supervising the cease fire between the two nations 



There was a dispute between India and Pakistan over UNMOGIP after hostilities resumed and there was another cease fire and the Silma Agreement was signed India believes that UNMOGIP s mandate should have been ended after the Silma Agreement was signed and restricts the activities of UN observers on the Indian side of the borders Despite this dispute and no change in the situation since 1972 the U N mission has remained to present day Besides the lack of progress that the peacekeeping groups are making they are also failing at their job when needed most As of 2014 there were 570 reported instances of violence and peacekeepers did not respond to 406 of the incidents where civilians were attacked There was even a leaked report from the African Union United Nations Mission in Darfur that provided leaked documentation that showed missions were deliberately underreported to conceal attacks by the Sudanese forces on civilians and U N peacekeepers Another major issue more prevalent in this day and age than ever is the sexual exploitation and abuse that goes on within the United Nations peacekeeper system There have been several reports of U N personnel raping and forcing prostitution on young girls boys and women U N personnel have been recently accused of abuse in Bosnia Burundi Cambodia Congo the Democratic Republic of the Congo Guinea Haiti Kosovo Liberia Sierra Leone and Sudan The U N peacekeepers still hold a respected reputation with some though Commissioner Richard Boykin suggested that the United Nations send peacekeepers to 



Chicago to face the horrible gun violence occuring there This illustrates how these peacekeepers riddled with abuse corruption and ineffectiveness are still viewed as okay in the eyes of some and are being asked to bring those plagues that they hold to these unsuspecting states The Russian Federation plays an active role in U N peacekeeping policy particularly by sanitizing mandates and ensuring there are no actions or parameters included that might be perceived as encroaching upon the national interest of the host state The Russian Federation does stress the corruption involved in the U N peacekeeping often remarking how senior peacekeeping leadership is inclined to take operational decisions closely aligned with Western interests Russian peacekeeping deployments today are small and specialized units that comprise of only a limited number of military experts The Russian Federation does push for the increase of Russians in senior posts in peacekeeping missions as well as in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations


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