Harsch Discusses UN Peacekeeping Amid COVID-19 in Global Observatory
Michael Harsch, Visiting Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an article on UN peacekeeping efforts during the coronavirus pandemic in the Global Observatory, a publication by the International Peace Institute.
In the article, Harsch cites the pandemic as opportunity to enact much-needed reforms to the way the UN plans for missions and supports deployed peacekeepers.
An excerpt:
Peacekeeping’s initial response to the pandemic, a lockdown, has been surprisingly effective….But now the formidable challenge of how to resume operations in the field lies ahead. The pandemic is flaring tensions in host countries, and protecting civilians without becoming vectors in the spread of the disease has added complexity. In South Sudan, the first four cases of coronavirus were all UN staff members, which led to public outrage and restrictions placed on the movement of peacekeepers and aid workers. Furthermore, the countries with the largest UN missions—South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, and the Central African Republic—have very weak public health systems, and even the largest missions have very limited medical capacities.
It is thus critical that the UN adapt peacekeeping to the current pandemic by addressing its own long-standing health crisis, and member states need to step up to help the UN to do so.
The full article can be read here.
Michael Harsch is a Visiting Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School and a Fellow at the NYU Center on International Cooperation (CIC). His research examines global and local institutions’ role in promoting security, effective government, and economic development, with a focus on fragile and conflict-affected states. He is the author of The Power of Dependence: NATO-UN Cooperation in Crisis Management (Oxford University Press, 2015). Read more about him here.