UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — French diplomat Alain Le Roy was Monday entrusted with the heavy task of leading UN peacekeeping operations at a time when the blue helmets are more needed than ever around the world.
Le Roy will replace Jean-Marie Guehenno, the Frenchman who has led the UN peacekeeping department (DPKO) for the past eight years.
Under Guehenno's leadership, UN peacekeeping efforts saw unprecedented expansion, with some 20 separate efforts around the globe involving some 100,000 personnel.
Since September Le Roy, 55, has been the ambassador in charge of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union project aimed at linking Europe with six countries of North Africa.
But he is a a seasoned diplomat who cut his teeth in the Balkans, where he was sent to direct the reconstruction of public services in post-war Bosnia, serving as a deputy to the UN secretary general in 1995.
In 1999-2000 he was assigned to be administrator to the region of Pec, in western Kosovo, as part of the interim UN administration (1999-2000) there following the ouster of Serbian forces by NATO.
The United Nations in May marked the 60th anniversary of its peacekeeping operations, with its overstretched "blue helmets" still in high demand but somewhat tarnished by sex abuse and corruption scandals.
The world body does not have its own military force and depends on contributions from member states. Today some 120 countries contribute some 110,00 men and women military and police personnel to UN peacekeeping.
The largest troop contributors are Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria and Nepal, which together provide more than 40 percent of all blue helmets.
The European Union, the United States and Japan are the top financial contributors to the UN peacekeeping budget, which now totals about 7.5 billion dollars a year.
Guehenno, 58, paid tribute at May celebrations to the blue helmets' "sacrifice and dedication in pursuit of the noble goals of the United Nations."
He said that 90 peacekeepers died last year, taking the total number of personnel who have died since the first operation was established 60 years ago to more than 2,400.
The department has led more than 63 peacekeeping missions since its first assignment was set up on May 29, 1948 with an unarmed force charged with keeping the peace in the Palestinian territories. Today the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) still has some 375 staff.
UN peacekeepers are deployed from Haiti to East Timor, from Georgia to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Under Guehenno's guidance the department underwent a huge expansion. When he arrived there were only 50,000 people deployed in peacekeeping operations and the department only had a budget of 2.5 billion dollars.
UN sources say that not only has the number of peacekeeping missions increased, but they have becoming increasingly complex.
One of the most complicated missions to date is the joint UN-African Union force, UNAMID, which is entrusted with protecting the people of Darfur, the western Sudanese province where civil war has raged for five years.
The deployment of this 26,000-strong force, one of the largest peacekeeping forces in the world, poses huge technical, logistical and political challenges.
So much so that some six months after it was put into place it still only has some 9,000 troops.
The department has been faced with a difficult balancing act, partly due to obstruction by the Sudanese government and a reluctance by some countries to provide the necessary technical and logistical equipment.
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