focused on political issues in the UN, and typically are subordinate to the nation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, a section of the mission should, as its primary responsibility, ensure
that the nation’s UN contributions are adequately prepared.
This requires active coordination with numerous UN offices
such as the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO),
the Department of Field Support (DFS), the Policy, Evaluation,
and Training Division (DPET), the Office for Peacekeeping
Strategic Partnership, Integrated Operational Teams (IOTs) for
relevant missions, and other agencies.
disciplinary proceedings related to in-mission misconduct, and
managing casualty procedures such as next-of-kin notification
and assistance. The CPC could coordinate any operational
partnerships with other nations,3 and also manage any national
support elements (NSEs) that accompany a contingent to a UN
mission.4 The CPC should include a lessons learned cell to improve future preparations and mission performance. The CPC
would be a logical partner for bilateral assistance programs that
seek to foster sustainability by building effective peacekeeping
institutions in TCCs and PCCs.
Equally important, the national mission to the UN should have
a direct, robust, and responsive coordination channel with the
CPC. As the CPC’s de facto liaison to the UN, the national
mission should be able to provide the CPC with authoritative
and timely information on topics such as UN policies, procedures, training materials, and contingent-owned equipment. It
should provide relevant documents such as mission concepts
of operations, memoranda of agreements, rules of engagement,
and status-of-forces/mission agreements (SOFAs/SOMAs).
The national mission should also respond quickly to requests
for information originating from the CPC or deploying units
through the CPC. Conversely, the CPC should provide the
national mission with any information that the latter may
require, such as status reports on units preparing to deploy or
after-action reports from returning units. In some countries, the
CPC would be required to accommodate non-UN considerations. For example, an African CPC may have to account for
requirements that originate from the African Union or regional
standby force arrangements.
The bench of national contributors to global peacekeeping is
growing. Most nations are keen to improve UN peace operations, and a useful way of doing so is for TCCs and PCCs to
ensure that two critical nodes are fully capable. Those critical
nodes are an engaged national permanent mission to the UN,
along with a strong national institution to manage preparations
and deployments. These elements comprise the essential foundation for effective national contributions to UN peacekeeping.
Supported by effective dialogue with the national mission,
the CPC would help alleviate a problem that is all too common; namely, deploying units that flounder in the dark as they
attempt to prepare for peacekeeping missions and arrive unprepared. The CPC would provide the institutional support to
ensure that deploying units and personnel are properly trained
and equipped and would provide the national certification of
mission readiness. Many nations form their UN contingents
from scratch, rather than deploy an existing formed unit, and
the CPC could be tasked with the requirement to create such
units. Any national peacekeeping training centers should be
included under the CPC’s control. The CPC’s responsibilities,
however, should transcend those associated with training.
The CPC could provide administrative control of and reachback support to deployed units and personnel. In this capacity it
would manage national administration and logistics, including
contracting, resolving problems that arise during deployments,
serving as the rear detachment for deployed units, handling any
Dwight Raymond joined PKSOI
in July 2009 after retiring from the
Army as an Infantry Colonel. He is
currently serving as PKSOI's Peace
Operations Specialist. His areas of
focus are: Stability Operations; Protection of Civilians, Mass Atrocity
Prevention and Response, Civilian
Casualty Mitigation, Peacekeeping,
Interagency Planning, Tabletop
Exercises, Professor (Mass Atrocity
Response Operations and Asia Regional Study electives)
Notes:
Uniting Our Strengths for Peace—Politics, Partnership and
People. Report of the High-Level Independent Panel on United
Nations Peace Operations (16 June 2015), 49-50.
2
The term “CPC” used here is merely illustrative, and other
approaches may certainly be employed. The key point is to have
an institutional agent in the Ministry of Defense or Ministry
of Foreign Affairs that has the authority and responsibility to
orchestrate the preparation and deployment of peacekeeping
contributions.
3
See Donald C. Daniel, Paul D. Williams, and Adam C. Smith,
Deploying Combined Teams: Lessons Learned from Operational Partnerships in UN Peacekeeping (New York: International Peace Institute, 2015).
4
Some national support elements, which are not part of the
UN mission, are as large as the contingents they support.
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