Jean Pierre Lacroix, the Under Secretary General Department of Peace Operations (USG DPO) will be visiting Bangladesh next week. The visit will take place from June 25-26, 2023 in Dhaka.
This is the first time the peacekeeping chief is visiting Bangladesh. His visit has also brought much anticipation among the concerned stakeholders as well as domestic groups that aim to score politically.
While rights activists are trying to put pressure on the chief to advocate for human rights issues, domestic quarters are also taking the chance to spread rumors regarding Bangladesh's participation in the peacekeeping mission.
The chief's visit hence has become a "trendy" topic in Bangladesh's national politics. But it seems the rumors and the political narratives dwell far from reality. In reality, the press release and a deeper look into United Nations Peacekeeping initiative suggest that the visit may not focus on "human rights screening" or axing Bangladesh's participation in UN missions, rather it will be more focused on peacekeeping and related management.
Purpose of the visit
The peacekeeping chief's visit to Bangladesh is a part of his broader visit to South Asia. The chief will visit four countries -- Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. These four countries have a greater significance to the UN missions collectively. Together, troops and police from these four countries make up close to one-third of some 91,000 uniformed personnel across 14 ongoing peacekeeping operations.
During the visit, Lacroix will attend a preparatory meeting mainly. In the coming months, UN Peacekeeping Ministerial 2023 will take place -- a biennial conference initiated in 2021. This year, Bangladesh is one of the co-hosts for this event along with Canada and Uruguay.
Apart from the preparatory meeting, the agenda includes thanking these four countries for their service and sacrifice in the name of peace, as well as to update on ongoing reforms in the UN peace and security reform area, specifically, the UN secretary-general's Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative to make peacekeeping more focused, safer, and stronger.
Importance for UN Peacekeeping organization
Lacroix's visit is an important one for his organization. The visit and preparatory meeting will contribute to this year's conference. The biennial event is designed as a flagship conference to bring together the foreign ministers and the defense ministers.
Beside the conference, the visit will also update Bangladesh and other visiting countries about Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative. A4P is a new initiative introduced in 2018 to overcome ground level challenges in UN missions such as solutions to political situations, lack of mandates and focus, rise in casualties, ensuring rights, and sustain peace. The initiative aims to overcome these challenges and ensure a more modern and effective peacekeeping by implementing 45 mutually agreed commitments across 8 broader areas.
The broad areas are: Advancing political solutions to conflicts, women, peace and security, strengthening protection, improving peacekeeper's safety and security, effective performance and accountability by all peacekeeping components, strengthening the impact of the missions, improving partnership among peacekeeping stakeholders, and strengthening conducts of peacekeeping operations and personnel.
Under these broad areas, there are 45 mutually agreed commitments and more than 150 endorsements. Some of these commitments are to be implemented by the member states, some solely by the UN secretariat and some by both UN and member state's collaboration.
Through this visit, Lacroix will inform these top troop contributors the update regarding the A4P. However, looking at the 42nd commitment suggests that certifying of the prospective personnel to meet UN service standard in peacekeeping missions are to be implemented solely by the member state. It means, it is up to the sending states to certify whether the candidate meets the UN service standard or not. Therefore, there is hardly any chance of any "axing of participation" or screening. The best thing that can happen is that the UN may update its service standard and inform its member states.
Importance for Bangladesh
Over the last few years, the troop contribution from many states is decreasing. Decreasing contribution is translating into decreasing number of peacekeepers. While decrease takes place, contributing to peacekeeping has emerged as both lucrative and traditional deputation for Bangladesh's security and law enforcement agencies over the past 40 years. Bangladesh is also the largest troop contributor and is eager to increase the contribution. Perhaps, the under secretary general may request for more contribution from Bangladesh. It will increase Bangladesh's role in the UN Peacekeeping.
Besides, through the UN Ministerial 2023, Bangladesh will have a prestigious role of co-host. It will increase Bangladesh's national image at the same time.
Rights advocates are doing what they are meant to do -- pressuring the stakeholders and keeping the activism alive. But the vested quarters engage in spreading rumor and misinformation. However, the agenda and purpose of the visit suggest that the issue may not be of priority. Only an unnecessary politicization of the event is taking place.
A closer look at the 8th broad area -- strengthening conduct and 42nd commitment of A4P suggest that there are scopes of discussing human rights and other management issues during the visit under A4P. But, the focus will be on mission time rather than introducing any new screening process or axing participation as certification is implemented by the member states according to existing UN service standard. The visit will hold special significance for both the UNPKO and Bangladesh.
Lastly, beyond the unnecessary politicization, the visit is significant for both Bangladesh and the UN Peacekeeping Organization.
Shafiqul Elahi is a retired government official of Bangladesh.
