Vassily Nebenzia (C, Front), Russian permanent representative to the United Nations and president of the Security Council for the month of September, chairs a meeting on UN peacekeeping operations at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 9, 2019. The UN peacekeeping efforts aim to strengthen its missions' capacity to ensure a more mobile and robust operational approach, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix said Monday. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The UN peacekeeping efforts aim to strengthen its missions' capacity to ensure a more mobile and robust operational approach, the UN peacekeeping chief said Monday.
Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix said the volatile political and security environment, where the missions are deployed, requires well-equipped and capable military, police and civilian components, with the right mindset and posture to undertake flexible and rapid deployments.
For this reason, he said the missions are changing their approach to peacekeeping. "Our efforts are focused on adapting mission footprints and strengthening capacity to ensure a more mobile, robust, aware and integrated operational approach."
He took the mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for example, saying MONUSCO has replaced "static bases in some locations" with rapidly deployable battalions (RDBs).
"RDBs strengthen our mobility and robustness... (and) are capable of swiftly deploying to prevent, mitigate and address protection threats as they emerge," he said.
Turning to the mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), Lacroix said military units with high readiness and protection capacities have been generated to mitigate the challenges to mobility imposed by the difficult terrain.
In addition, the level of mechanization of the MINUSCA infantry battalions has been upgraded to ensure enhanced protection, he said.
Meanwhile, the undersecretary-general noted achievement made in peacekeeping fatalities reduction, saying the number of fatalities as a result of violent attacks stood at 27 in 2018, down from 58 in 2017.
Particularly, he attributed this to the enhanced effectiveness in countering the threat of improvised explosive devices in Mali, which has the most challenging environment for the security of peacekeepers.
