Since 1948, more than 2 million peacekeepers have served in 71 missions around the world, working to prevent violence, protect civilians and create conditions for lasting peace. Behind every peacekeeper is the UN Security Council and the UN Member States : Security Council members establish missions and set objectives, while Member States provide the resources to achieve those objectives. Each Member State contributes financially to peacekeeping operations, and many provide additional voluntary contributions.
Calling upon Member States to strengthen peacekeeping operations
Ministers help mobilize voluntary contributions. Held approximately every two years, the Peacekeeping Ministerial brings together senior officials from Member States to pledge support for UN peacekeeping missions, helping to make them more effective and improve the safety of peacekeepers. They also help missions acquire new capabilities or enhance existing ones, and gain high-level political support from Member States.
Commitments can take many forms, such as special forces and police, equipment and training. States can also pledge political support for peace processes, and these commitments are essential to promote ceasefires, peace agreements and other non-violent conflict resolutions.
The impact of countries' commitments
The Peacekeeping Ministerial helps missions fill persistent capability gaps, address performance issues and help establish a force reserve that can be deployed to any peacekeeping mission within 60 days, ensuring that additional special forces can be sent to reinforce missions if necessary in an emergency or to activate new missions more quickly.
Past commitments have helped strengthen peacekeeping operations in countries such as Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia, and supported ongoing peace efforts in South Sudan, Lebanon and Cyprus. These contributions ensure that peacekeeping missions can acquire new capabilities or enhance existing ones to respond to rapidly evolving conflicts and defend against spoilers who use the latest tools and techniques to wage war.
The combined efforts of peacekeeping missions, Member States and their partners are changing the lives of millions of people.
Next Ministerial Conference: Germany in 2025
The 2025 Peacekeeping Ministerial will be held in Berlin, Germany from May 13 to 14. It will focus on the future of peacekeeping, strengthening peacekeeping capabilities and effectively adapting peacekeeping operations to current and emerging challenges.
Previous Ministerial Conferences
The first UN Peacekeeping Ministerial was held in 2016, following a Leaders' Peacekeeping Summit held in the United States in 2015. The summit was intended to reinvigorate international support for UN peacekeeping operations and established the Ministerial to maintain the momentum.
Since then, UN Peacekeeping Ministerial Conferences have been held regularly, hosted by different countries:
- 2015-United States (New York)
- 2014-Leaders' Peacekeeping Summit (New York)