United Nation Peacekeeping in Africa; Effectiveness and Problems

United Nation Peacekeeping in Africa; Effectiveness and Problems

Abstract of United Nation Peacekeeping in Africa; Effectiveness and Problems

The research provides an appraisal of UN PEACEKEEPING IN AFRICA .It investigates the effectiveness and problems of the mission with a possible aim of proffering recommendations. The study appraises the structural nature of Un Peacekeeping in Africa.                          

Chapter One of United Nation Peacekeeping in Africa; Effectiveness and Problems

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Determining the effectiveness of UN mission demands investigating the structure and how are peace operations are staffed and funded?Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan send the most troops to UN peacekeeping missions, while the United States, Japan, and France are the top funders. The top troop contributors to AMISOM are Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia, and Kenya, and funding comes largely from the UN and the European Union. They disconnect between those nations that send troops and those that fund missions is often a source of conflict. Wealthy nations spend the most on peacekeeping, yet they send relatively few troops; meanwhile, countries that either sends troops or whose citizens are directly affected by peacekeeping missions often have less say in how they are designed and mandated.

A 2014 internal review of peacekeeping practices related to civilian protection exposed some of these tensions. Researchers found that peacekeepers failed to protect civilians on several occasions. Countries that fund the annual UN peacekeeping budget of nearly $8 billion were angered by the findings, while troop Contributing Countries (TCCs) demanded raises to the reimbursement rates their soldiers receive for serving in UN missions, rates which had not increased in more than a decade. (The UN reimburses countries that contribute troops a little more than $1,000 per soldier per month, and AMISOM troops now earn roughly the same allowances as UN peacekeepers.)Both India and Brazil have cited their countries’ personnel contributions to UN peacekeeping in their bids to become permanent members of the Security Council, and several African governments have complained about having little say in the design and mandating of UN operations on the continent. “They would like to escape the tutelage of the UN in future crises,” says says Richard Gowan, an expert on multilateral security institutions at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Leaders in Africa and within the UN have called for African forces to play a larger role in securing peace and stability on the continent, but budget constraints persist. While the UN has a regular peacekeeping budget, the AU must continually seek out donors, such as the UN, the EU, and the United States, to fund its missions. Only 2.3 percent of the AU’s budget comes from AU member states.“Countries with more developed military capabilities—countries from the OECD—need to come back into peacekeeping in a way they haven’t been in recent years” —Bruce Jones, Brookings Institution “When the AU deploys a mission, it always needs to find external assistance,” says GWU’s Williams. As a result, the AU cannot quickly deploy or sustain troops in the field. “The lack of indigenous sources of finance also undermines the AU’s credibility as a leading player in peace and security issues on the continent and reduces its ability to exercise ownership of particular initiatives,” he says.

Peace operations in Africa are increasingly collaborations between the UN and AU. For example, in Somalia, AMISOM member states provide troops while the UN provides funding, training, logistics, and planning support. UNAMID, a UN-AU hybrid mission in Darfur, absorbed and expanded a mission initially led solely by the AU.

The research intends to investigate UN Peacekeeping in Africa; its effectiveness and problems