USG Field Support

With the General Assembly having just wrapped up talks on the Secretary-General’s sweeping proposals for transforming service delivery to United Nations peacekeeping missions, senior field support officials announced today that the world body was poised to approve a new, enhanced global system to match the global enterprise into which peacekeeping has evolved.

Alain Le Roy, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, said that while the Secretariat’s New Horizons initiative “would never make any headlines”, it was providing a framework for positive and broad-based discussions on making United Nations peacekeeping more effective on the ground.  Issued as a discussion paper in July, the study highlights the need to strengthen command and control systems at every level, including through more robust accountability frameworks between Headquarters and mission leaders.

Noting that Member States had lauded the United Nations’ recently announced plan to chart a new, improved course for peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, said this afternoon that it was vital that all peacekeeping actors work in the coming weeks and months to ensure those operations were robust and that they adequately protected civilians.

Remarks of the Under-Secretary-General for Field Support, Ms. Susana Malcorra, to the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations   Madame Chairperson and Distinguished Delegates, Thank you for the opportunity to address the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. Like Mr. Le Roy this is the first time that I have the honor to brief you on the support components underpinning peacekeeping and special political operations at the opening of the substantive session of C-34.