International Day of UN Peacekeepers 2013: Adapting to New Challenges

International peace and security needs are changing rapidly and this year we are used Peacekeepers Day to focus on how UN Peacekeeping is: Adapting to new challenges.

UN Peacekeeping is being given new mandates to meet new challenges. We are being asked to deploy in new operating environments such as Mali, a vast desert nation where international terrorists continue to threaten national sovereignty and local people.

In response we are developing innovative approaches to get the job done in the most challenging conditions. For example the deployment of an ‘Intervention Brigade’ and the use of ‘Unarmed Aerial Vehicles’in the DR Congo.

More than ever, UN Peacekeeping is a flexible tool. While we are increasingly called upon to deploy large-scale multidimensional peacekeeping operations, we remain flexible enough to rapidly deploy small-scale monitoring missions, such as in Syria in 2012.

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2013 theme: "UN Peacekeeping: Adapting to new challenges"