FACT SHEET: Summit on UN Peacekeeping

Today, Vice President Joe Biden co-hosted a summit meeting on peacekeeping with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan.  Summit participants also included ministers and other high-level representatives from Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Latvia, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, the Netherlands, Norway, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and Vietnam.

For the United States, UN peacekeeping today is more critical than ever to international peace and security, with peacekeepers called on to end ethnic conflict, prevent violence against civilians, and serve on the frontlines in the fight against violent extremists. But peacekeeping is under strain, with peacekeeping numbers at all-time highs, peacekeepers operating in more complex and dangerous environments than ever before, and an architecture and infrastructure in need of continued modernization.  At today’s summit, leaders reaffirmed their support for UN peacekeeping, both by announcing new commitments to strengthen UN operations to more effectively meet new challenges, and by emphasizing support for the UN Secretary-General’s strategic review of UN peace operations.

Stakeholder Contributions

An effective peacekeeping system requires contributions from a wide range of stakeholders, who provide peacekeeping forces, carry out the mandates of peacekeeping missions, and provide the funding and resources for these missions.

At today's summit, countries across the globe announced new commitments to international peacekeeping.  Sweden, Indonesia, Nepal, and Egypt committed to future troop deployments, while Colombia followed Mexico in announcing its intent to return to peacekeeping. Bangladesh, Serbia, and Vietnam announced new contributions of key enablers, including aviation, engineering, and hospital units, and China, Indonesia and Chile pledged to consider deploying helicopters. Bangladesh, Nepal, Rwanda, and Ethiopia pledged to take further measures to protect civilians from violence through peacekeeping operations. Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Mongolia, and Indonesia committed to make available troops for rapid deployment, which are so critical to responding to a crisis. Japan, Spain, France, Latvia, Ireland, Croatia, Chile, and Pakistan pledged to bolster their support for peacekeeping capacity-building. Over the next year, Uruguay, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and the Netherlands will convene regional leaders, and United Nations will convene military chiefs of staff from across the world, to encourage further support for peacekeeping. Representatives agreed to a joint statement expressing their shared support and commitments.

U.S. Support for Peacekeeping

At today’s summit, the Vice President highlighted continued U.S. leadership to support peacekeeping.

• As the world’s largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping, the United States provided $2.1 billion in FY 2013 and intends to provide $1.9 billion in FY 2014 to the UN peacekeeping budget.  The President’s 2015 budget requests over $2.9 billion to meet the U.S. share of peacekeeping assessments expected in FY 2015. 
• The United States has announced the African Peacekeeping Rapid Response Partnership (APRRP, “A-Prep” for short) a new investment starting in FY 2015 of $110 million per year for 3-5 years, to build the capability of six leading African militaries (Senegal, Ghana, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda) to rapidly deploy peacekeepers in response to emerging conflict, by building improved capacity in areas such as military training, equipment maintenance and repair, institutional support, and interoperability with other Africa-based peacekeeping forces.  These African partner nations will commit to maintaining forces and equipment ready to rapidly deploy and state their intent to deploy as part of UN or AU missions to respond to emerging crises. 
• Since 2005, the United States has contributed nearly $914 million to support peacekeeping capacity building efforts through the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), facilitating the training of more than 272,000 peacekeepers.  The United States has further obligated or committed over $1.44 billion to support African peacekeepers taking part in the UN peacekeeping operations in Mali (MINUSMA) and the Central African Republic, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), and AU and UN peacekeeping operations in Darfur. 
• The United States also contributes uniformed personnel to UN peacekeeping, including approximately 80 U.S. police officers and nearly 40 military personnel serving in UN peacekeeping operations. 
• Since 2009, the United States also has provided over $25 million through the International Police Peacekeeping Operations Support (IPPOS) program, for training, equipment, and capacity-building for over 4,500 police from nine partner countries deploying to UN peacekeeping operations in Darfur, Liberia, South Sudan, Haiti, Mali, and the Central African Republic.