Running Head: UN PEACEKEEPING LOGISTICS
UN peacekeeping logistics
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Introduction
The United Nation is an international body that was established after the Second World
War. The main reason for creating this organization was to keep both international peace and
security in different countries. The other purposes for establishing this international organization
was to promote relationship ties between different countries. Improve better living standards
among people of different nations. To facilitate social progress of different countries and to fight
for the human rights of people that belonged to different nations. After the occurrence of the
Second World War, many nations suffered politically, socially and economically, and there was
need of reconstructing these nations to enable them to attain their peace, security, human rights
and relationship ties back. UN, as an international organization, played a significant role in
restoring peace and security, thus facilitating harmony between different nations (Adebanjo,
2018).
The United Nation body is comprised of 193 member states. The sovereign member state
in this international body has common problems concerning their state’s politics, economic, and
social issues. They, therefore, converge to provide viable solutions to these common challenges
and decide by voting on the primary challenges that need immediate attention and resolution.
The foundation of the United Nations was based on the impartial organization in which nations
from different parts of the world are being considered as equal members of the United Nations
body. The crucial components of the United Nations are universality as well as fairness.
The United Nation member states are bound together with the core principle of charter of
the United Nations. Charter refers to an international treaty that stipulates the member state’s
responsibilities and rights as the members of the international organization. The charter is also a
foundational document that guides the United Nations various operations such as maintain peace
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and security among the member states. There are sections of the charter that contain
peacekeeping mandate, and these mandates in the charter help in facilitating various field
mission, such as deploying of police officers in a given state to promote peace and security.
Furthermore, the charter mandate also provides the logistical support needed to perform the
mandate successfully.
The United Nations general assembly has a representative from each member state. Their
role includes making decisions on various significant challenges and discusses all international
matters such as developmental projects, humanitarian issues, human rights violation, and
financial issues especially on the ways of expanding the United Nations peacekeeping budget to
promote mission successfully included in the charter (Dorussen & de Vought, 2018). The
General Assembly in the United Nations plays a crucial role in acting as a policymaker and also
represent the United Nations’ organ. There is one vote of each member state in the UN. The
critical decisions on matters such as an admission of the new members, issues concerning peace
and security and the UN peacekeeping budget need tow-third votes from the member states to be
approved by the General Assembly. The General Assembly holds regular sessions annually, and
the member state can also meet in case of emergency issues that require immediate attention and
solution.
UN peacekeeping Logistics
Different operations of UN peacekeeping have continued to develop and advance each
time to incorporate an extensive range of tasks of enhancing peace and security in different
regions of the world. United Nation peacekeeping mission has risked its various operations in the
volatile areas. The logistics, as well as administration, are some of the most important aspects
that have been implemented by the mission.
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The United Nations headquarter is found in New York. There is a department of
logistical support set in New York, and it is the one that has the role in delivering logistical
support within the United Nations member states. This department also ensures that the designed
logistical support various operational plan (Williams, 2017). It enhances this by providing the
required finances, logistics, communication, and human resources that are required to enable the
mission mandate of promoting peace and security in different regions of the member states.
Under the department of logistical support, there is also the Logistics Support Division, that has
the crucial role of not only implementing the policies but also monitor these policies and various
procedures involved in the logistical support. The department of support division contains three
essential components which entail transport and movement services, and specialists support
services as well as operational support services. The operational support services plan and
coordinates logistical support for various new field mission as well as expanding the already
existing multiple field missions.
On the other hand, the operational support service has the role of making sure that there
is a fast deployment of police officers in regions that have various crisis such as political crisis,
to establish the required international security standards. The specialist support service is
responsible for strategic planning as well as enhancing management of various services
appropriately to help in realizing the missions established by the United Nations peacekeeping
body. There is also a logistical operation section that has the responsibility of coordinating
various operations that have been integrated with logistics support to field mission planned by
the UN. It also acts as a link and coordinates various field missions with components in the
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external bodies. Logical operation section has an even a planning unit together with operational
units that have a duty of field mission in each member state; for example, Africa has one unit.
Deployment of stock service
A successful mission start-up would highly depend on swift implementation, meaning
that the necessary resources such as human resources, finances, and equipment, have to be
readily available. For example, in 2006 February, 90 million dollars had been set aside for
inventory purposes. The SDS has the mandate of developing, reviewing all concepts in SDS, its
policies, different procedures as well as guidelines. The SDS sector supports account budgets,
implement various reports, and provide follow up activities.
To enhance more safety, the UN relies heavily on on-air movements. Air movement is
fast and increases safety movements during various operations of the UN peacekeeping. The
aviation safety unit has the role of providing safety units and informs the managers of their
safety. Accidents are prone to occur, and therefore this department has implemented accidents
prevention programs to promote survey of various missions. The unit was established as an
independent advisory unit to run the daily operations and management of the UN missions.
Peace and security activities
There are a variety of measures that the UN has put in place to encounter cases of conflict
in different areas. Apart from the peacekeeping activities has also in place of conflict prevention,
peacebuilding, and peace enforcement. The central role of peacekeeping operations is to deploy
the military to cease conflict, to initiate peace agreements and establish any measures that would
help in eliminating events of the conflict in the region where the conflict occurred. The logistic
planners and personnel are aware of activities that are to be undertaken in circumstances of
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conflict and are therefore always ready in initiating measures designed by the UN peacekeeping
mission. Their efforts have been witnessed in peacemaking, peacebuilding and making peace in
countries that have experienced conflict.
The UN peacekeeping body has in places a variety of measures they employ in
preventing conflict. This involves the use of diplomatic measures to curb situations or tensions
that could eventually result in conflict. The following ways are usually used before conflict
breaks out, having a dialogue between the states that are suspected of having disagreements that
could lead to conflict — sending a third party to mediate a dispute among the countries that
could be warring among themselves — making an inquiry to the source of conflict. The source
of conflict could be political wrangles or economic exploitation. After the peacekeeping body
has established sources of conflict, they are always ready to create viable solutions that would
not see these sources of conflict rapture into real conflict in the states experiencing these
challenges. The logistical support is tasked with providing mission substance allowances that
would provide adequate cover to living expenses that the person may incur during their
operations of executing a mission. As much as the personnel are providing support during these
events of conflict, they are accorded much protection.
UN has developed ways of enhancing peacemaking in member states that could be
experiencing war. The UN facilitates peacekeeping activities by using negotiators and different
international actors, for example, UN provides unbiased locations where negotiation process can
be conducted and also take part in chairing these negotiation sessions or meetings (Kepstra,
Bouma, Wallinga, Tittonell, Smith, Cerdà & Bardgett, 2016). The UN Security Council may
plead with the peacemakers which involve regional organizations such as the African Union to
help them intervene in areas of conflict and help them in taking necessary legal actions of ending
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situations of conflict in a particular state. The non-governmental groups may also come in to help
in initiating peace keeping efforts. An example of UN peacekeeping effort was witnessed when
they appointed a Swedish diplomat known as Count Folke as a representative of UN mediator in
1948 in Palestine. Count Folke, as a mediator had the responsibility of enhancing the peaceful
adjustment of Palestine. As much as the United Nations’ charter does not incorporate the element
of peacemaking in its key components, the legal basis supporting peacemaking is entailed in
chapter VI and vii of these documents. Logistic support for peacemaking activities includes both
simple and complex activities aimed at bringing peace in states prone to conflict.
There are sometimes that preventing conflict in a particular state becomes difficult. The
UN peacekeeping body is, therefore forced to establish better ways of managing the situation
because it is their responsibility to promote peace and security in cases of war or conflict. The
UN has peace enforcement which has a variety of measures that include sanctions of countries
involved in a conflict. For example, Xenophobia witnessed in South Africa claimed the lives of
other racial groups working in this country to earn a living. The citizens of the state felt that
these different races were grabbing employment opportunities from them, and they therefore
resorted to conflict. Several people were killed and tortured as their property also got destroyed
has the mandate of thus sanctioning South Africa over violation of human rights. The United
Nations can also take the action of deploying military officers in areas that conflict has become
rampant. For example, they interceded when there was conflict in Somalia, Sudan, and southern
Sudan by deploying military officers to take charge and help in bringing peace among the
citizens of these counties that were involved in the war. The main reason why UN take actions
such as initiating sanctions and deploying military is an attempt to restore peace and security in
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those states experiencing conflict and also to implement one of their core principles of taking up
responsibility.
The UN Security Council is the only organ with the responsibility of authorizing these
coercive measures. They also have the mandate to permit peace enforcement strategies without
informing the states involved in the conflict. They do take this legal action because when conflict
occurs to these nations, there are economic destruction, violation of human rights, and political
instability. UN is determined to protect the economies of different member states from restoring
peace and security in these regions. In most cases, the UN does not involve itself in peace
enforcement, but it instead makes good use of the regional organizations such as the African
Union, IGAD and SADC for peace enforcement as stipulated in the charter. The peace
enforcement poses some logistical challenges to the United Nations; UN, therefore, needs to
develop more resources and comprehensive planning for them to continue implementing their
principles and continue in their responsibility of promoting peace and security among the
member states (Ruggeri, Dorussen & Gizelis, 2018).
Attaining full success has not been smooth with the UN body, and this is because there
have been some loopholes they have not managed to cover in their various operations. For
example, in 1994, there occurred genocide at Rwanda that claimed about a million of the
people’s lives. A research conducted later in 1999 showed that the United Nations deliberately
ignored the pieces of evidence that addressed the genocide act in Rwanda and failed to take any
legal action. Another incidence was witnessed when they took away about 2500 peacekeepers
after about ten Belgian soldiers had been murdered. These instances indicated that the UN
peacekeeping body failed in their responsibility of promoting the protection of human rights,
which is one of their core principles outlined in the charter. Irrespective of these loopholes UN
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peacekeeping has continued to extend its mandate in different parts of the country. For example,
they intervened in Somalia when there was a conflict that claimed lives of more people and as
much as they were received with hostility, they were determined to realize their objective of
restoring peace and security. The UN peacekeeping force also operated in Sierra Leone from
1999-2005, where it implemented peace agreements after the country had undergone some civil
war (Autesserre, 2019). UN remains to be a vital international body that has been useful in
restoring peace and security among member states in different regions.
Conclusion
The United Nation is an international organization that was formed to promote peace and
security among the member states. The UN has been cooperating with other regional
organizations such as ECOWAS, SADC, and AU to restore order in different regions because
this is their primary role. The DOS is a body that has been in the forefront to help the United
Nations in attaining logistic support in its significant operations.AS a result of collaboration
logistical consideration have been successful. Irrespective of the logistical challenges such as
inadequate resources and personnel, United Nations is determined to continue delivering its
operations to member states while at the same time making sure that the guiding principles and
mandates stipulated by the charter are well followed.
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References
Adebanjo, A. (2018). Pax Nigerian Versus Pax Gallica: ECOWAS and UN Peacekeeping in
Mali. In the Palgrave Handbook of Peacebuilding in Africa (pp. 209-231). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.
Autesserre, S. (2019). The Crisis of Peacekeeping: Why the UN Can't End Wars. Foreign
Aff., 98, 101.
Doren, H. P. R., & de Vought, M. (2018). Putting Civilians First. NGO Perceptions and
Expectations of UN Peacekeeping.
Kepstra, S. D., Bouma, J., Wallinga, J., Tittonell, P., Smith, P., Cerdà, A., ... & Bardgett, R. D.
(2016). The significance of soils and soil science towards the realization of the United
Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Soil.
Ruggeri, A., Dorussen, H., & Gizelis, T. I. (2018). On the frontline every day? Subnational
deployment of United Nations peacekeepers. British Journal of Political Science, 48(4),
1005-1025.
Williams, P. (2017). UN Support to Regional Peace Operations: Lessons from
UNSOA. Available at SSRN 2969338.
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