Tough choices as budget cuts impact on UN’s peacekeeping

JOBURG/NAIROBI: On June 29, Maman Sidikou, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, received a cable from headquarters in New York in which his bosses laid out in no uncertain terms that the world’s largest peacekeeping mission had to make cuts, and fast.

Facing an 8%, or $93 million (R1.2 billion), budget cut for 2017/18, Sidikou was told to revise staffing, slash fuel costs by 10% and streamline aircraft use – all without compromising the mission’s mandate.

The mission in DRC, known as Monusco, must work out how to juggle those demands with the need to respond to a growing political and humanitarian crisis in the central African giant – and it is not alone.

Belt-tightening at Monusco, which has about 18 000 uniformed personnel, is part of a broader push by the US, the biggest UN contributor, to cut costs. In June, the 193 UN member states agreed to a total $600m in cuts to more than a dozen missions for the year ending June 30, 2018.

Today, the 15-member UN Security Council will discuss peacekeeping reform during the annual gathering of world leaders.

Diplomats said the council was due to adopt a resolution pushing for improved accountability, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness in peacekeeping performance and to make peacekeepers more agile and flexible.

But critics worry that harsh cuts could harm peacekeeping operations in some volatile African states.

Analysts and some UN insiders say progress is slow, however, and that administrators in New York are dodging many of the thorniest issues – specifically the poor quality of many troops and confusion over the mission’s priorities.