UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- The number of U.N. peacekeepers deployed around the world is at its highest in its history at nearly 100,000 and still rising while it evolves.
Top U.N. peacekeeper, Undersecretary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno, said Monday his department has an annual budget that has more than doubled over five years to $5.7 billion.
"This capacity for innovation has been a lifeline for U.N. peacekeeping," he told a U.N. General Assembly Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. He detailed new arrangements, ranging from U.N. military and police adviser support for an African Union force in Sudan's war-ridden Darfur region to loaning staff from other missions as in Timor-Leste, Lebanon and Nepal.
"It is on that adaptability that we must now build," Guehenno said. "We must turn our capacity for evolution into a vehicle for creating a stronger, more professional and more effective U.N. peacekeeping, even in a period of huge operational demands.
"No matter how capable the individuals and how innovative our response in particular contexts over the past few years of surge, the demands facing us today require a more systematic, structural response," he said.
Guehenno underlined the new structural reforms proposed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to split the current Department of Peacekeeping Operations into a Department of Peace Operations and a Department of Field Support, both headed by an undersecretary-general, the managerial level of the current DPKO chief.
The two new departments, proposed by Ban, are to be specialized and tightly-integrated.
