Statement by Ambassador Marc-Andre Blanchard permanent representative of Canada to the United Nations - To the Security Council on Strategic Force Generation

New York, 05 October 2017

Mr. President,

I would like to thank France and the United Kingdom for convening this timely meeting on strategic force generation and for inviting Canada to brief on the upcoming Vancouver Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial.

Canada is convinced that when properly mandated, resourced, and supported, peacekeeping remains one of the most flexible and effective tools available to the international community in responding to crises.

But the nature of conflict is evolving, the operational tempo of peacekeeping is increasing, and the scale and complexity of peacekeeping operations is growing.

We have no choice but to anticipate, adapt and respond to the challenges.

This requires reforming our collective institutions, enhancing operational effectiveness, and making a sustained and collective effort to address capability gaps.

However, addressing capability gaps requires more than just supplying boots on the ground. It is about providing troops with the right training, capabilities, and equipment, and doing it in a timely fashion.

Strategic force generation is fundamental to this effort, and it is an area where we need to do our work together – Member States and the UN Secretariat – differently and better.

Since 2014, a high-level series of conferences have helped to bridge the gap between the operational needs of UN peacekeeping and the tremendous capabilities that Member States have to offer.

From New York, to London, to Paris – not only have we seen an unprecedented number of pledges to UN peacekeeping, but also a move by Member States and the UN to introduce qualitative considerations into the discussion on force generation.

These annual events are now a key part of the institution of UN peacekeeping, complementing the work of this body, as well as the Special Committee on Peacekeeping, or C34. UN peacekeeping has a renewed sense of purpose with the reforms proposed by the Secretary-General.

With these considerations in mind, Canada volunteered to host the 2017 UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial.

We are not alone in this endeavour. We are honoured to be working in lock step with 10 co-hosts. They include Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Rwanda, the United Kingdom, Uruguay and the United States.

The Peacekeeping Ministerial will take place on 14 and15 November, in Vancouver. Participation in the Ministerial is open to Member States announcing new pledges to UN peacekeeping in Vancouver.

Already, much preparation has gone into organising and planning the Ministerial.

This includes three substantive conferences held in Tokyo, Kigali, and in Dhaka, which involved the participation of some 50 Member States. These meetings have helped pave the path for a successful conference in November.

We are on track to have the highest level of participation seen yet and we have set equally high expectations for the outcome of the event.

Canada fully agrees with Secretary-General Guterres that conflict prevention should be one of the key priorities for the UN.

Discussions in Vancouver will accordingly highlight the importance of integrated approaches to preventing violent conflict. Ministers will advance these objectives through panel sessions on the following themes.

First, participants will close capability gaps in UN peacekeeping by announcing new pledges and taking stock of pledges already in place. In particular, these include strengthening capabilities related to gender, police peacekeepers, as well as to peacekeeping in a francophone environment.

Second, we will identify concrete ways to strengthen partnerships on training and capacity building between the UN, troops, police, and other actors. We all have a common purpose in making UN peacekeeping operations more effective, and we have complementary skills and experiences to offer.

It is time that troop and police contributors, along with the UN Secretariat, work closer together before deployments to ensure that all of our women and men in the field have the training they need, and are able to operate as one.

Third, we will examine how we can better protect those at risk, by ensuring our strategies align with the realities on the ground. This includes examining what concrete measures can be taken to better address sexual exploitation and abuse, and prevent the recruitment and use of child soldiers.

Fourth, we will encourage greater coherence in early warning and rapid deployment, by identifying innovative approaches, capacities and technologies to improve early warning, rapid analysis and planning capabilities. We will also look at ways to shorten new mission start-up times and ensure that we have filled the UN’s rapid deployment requirements for 2018.

Given the leadership of Prime Minister Trudeau and Secretary-General Guterres, it will surprise none of you that the Vancouver ministerial ‎will include the importance of integrating gender perspectives as its principal cross cutting theme.

In addressing our persistent failure to leverage the impact that women can have in prevention efforts and in securing a durable peace, gender perspectives will be mainstreamed across all discussions. This will include enhancing the recruitment of female personnel, addressing barriers to their participation, providing training opportunities, and combatting conflict-related sexual violence as well as sexual exploitation and abuse.

Indeed, gender perspectives and the participation of women is directly linked to operational effectiveness and it is vital to prevention efforts and in securing a durable peace.

Most fundamentally, in the Canadian way, we recognise that inclusive partnerships are central to our shared success.

The peer-to-peer nature of joint training, leading to better prepared and interoperable troops and police; the vital importance of working with key regional organisations, such as the African Union, on a more equitable footing; the potential of joint “smart” pledges which can provide the predictability of supply needed to enhance a mission’s chance of success -- all point to how we can do more to come together at a time when UN peacekeeping needs us.

We look forward to welcoming you all to Vancouver.