UN chief ‘extremely grateful’ for India’s vax
United Nations, Feb. 18: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is "extremely grateful" for the gift of 200,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses announced by India for peacekeepers, the spokesperson for the UN chief has said.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, while addressing the UN Security Council meeting on Covid-19 on Wednesday, announced a gift of 200,000 Covid-19 doses for the UN peacekeepers. "Keeping in mind the UN Peacekeepers who operate in such difficult circumstances, we would like to announce today a gift of 200,000 doses for them,” he said.
“We are extremely grateful for this donation announced today by the Indian delegation. The distribution will be operationalised by the UN's Department of Support,” Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, said. The 200,000 doses essentially mean that it will be possible to administer the required double doses of Covid-19 vaccines to all UN peacekeepers across missions.
According to the UN Peacekeeping, currently a total of 94,484 personnel are serving in 12 peacekeeping
operations across the world led by the Department of Peace Operations. A total of 121 nations are contributing uniformed personnel to the UN peacekeeping missions. India is traditionally among the largest troop contributing countries to peacekeeping missions.
The UN Department of Operational Support (DOS) provides "operational support to all UN Secretariat entities, including
advisory, operational and transactional support services and, where needed, exercises delegated authority on behalf of clients.” The DOS supports the entire UN Secretariat, consisting of almost 100 entities located around the globe. It is led by Under-Secretary-General Atul Khare and consists of three offices working in the areas of Support Operations, including human resources, health-care management
and capacity-building, Supply Chain Management and Information and Communication Technology, the DOS website said.
The announcement by India was welcomed by UN diplomats. Permanent Representative of Canada to the UN, Ambassador Bob Rae tweeted: “This is an important and generous announcement by Indian government on vaccinating 95000 UN peacekeepers."