The U.N.'s Peacekeeping Personnel Problem

Ten years after he assessed the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to stop atrocities during the Rwanda and Srebrenica genocides, Algerian veteran diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi has once again turned a critical eye toward the peacekeeping system, which has swelled to include nine times as many personnel it utilized in 1999—124,000 people across four continents. In recent years, peacekeeping missions have come under fire for failing to protect civilians in Eastern Congo, and some soldiers have been accused of sexual abuse. The Congo, along with Eritrea and Chad, have asked that the U.N. remove their forces. U.N. General Assembly President Ali Treki admitted that the U.N.'s record is "mixed"; "we are all struggling over how to get it right," he said. According to Brahimi, the core problem plaguing the system is an HR issue: The U.N. has trouble finding the right candidates to staff peacekeeping missions: "There is no substitute for getting the right people into the right jobs, at the right time, and only for the time that is necessary."