bourne2y: You say that you have no idea what I am in interested in, even though you have just quoted me stating that I am interested in knowing your views on the issue that we’re debating. I’m not interested in trading personal insults: what have I ignored, and what have I misrepresented?
On how to start to solve the problem:
1. Increase the autonomy of the UN Office of Internal Oversight, and ensure funding to operate at full capacity. Set aside a percentage of all peacekeeping budgets for OIOS and prioritise their deployment in field operations (i.e. put them in first, not last as tends to happen). Expand UN investigative capacity in the field, and conclude agreements with contributing governments on their investigating commitment.
2. Promote a UN peacekeeper code of conduct throughout missions, and create units in all missions specifically to promote and investigate issues around personal misconduct (possibly with victim complaints and support mechanisms built in, and looking at appropriate compensation mechanisms).
3, Improve relations between DPKO and operational agencies such as UNICEF, in order to improve the awareness levels of peacekeeping troops in areas such as human rights. Training of this sort before and after deployment (carried out jointly by UN and national government) should be set up to ensure that all troops have a basic level of understanding.
4. Institute performance-related remuneration to countries contributing troops – apply penalties for countries that fail to prosecute offenders, and bonuses for countries that deal with the problem swiftly and effectively. (This needs to be accompanied by ensuring basic troop safety, support and living standards while on mission.)
5. Improve transparency of missions by exposing troop contributions to more public view: publish league tables showing total global contributions (acknowledging their good work) but also grading performance (including dealing with disciplinary issues).
So that’s a start. I’ll say it again: I’m interested in hearing your views on how to approach this issue, but based on your last response, I’m not sure you’ve got any. How’s that for thin-skinned?
