Thanks, for this opportunity to brief this committee. I'll be under 10 minutes, so no worries there.
Today I'll speak from my experience as the former political adviser to the UN peace operation in Congo, and from sometimes serving in other large peacekeeping operations.
I'll try to cover three issues. The first is on current trends in peacekeeping. The second is on key gaps and entry points into missions that are created by these trends. The third is on some considerations and maybe some questions for Canada's re-engagement and contribution.
On current trends, in the past 15 years conflict has become more complex in three ways that have impacted peacekeeping. First, there has been a rise in intrastate civil wars, where civilians are increasingly the target of violence. Second, there has been a trend of regional involvement in these internal wars. Mali is one example, but Congo, Syria and Yemen are others. Third, the rise in importance of so-called jihadi groups has complicated traditional peacekeeping in several ways, which we can get into in the question and answer period.
One point to really flag is that across all conflict settings the risk to civilians has grown dramatically in recent years. Since the end of the Cold War, 2015 was the most dangerous year worldwide for civilians, and protection of civilians has become, really, the overriding priority of many UN peacekeeping operations today.
To meet some of these challenges, UN peacekeeping has increasingly entered into a range of partnerships with other actors and entities. There's the hybrid UN–AU mission in Darfur, UNAMID; the use of the G5 Sahel force in Mali; AMISOM's AU soldiers, who are deployed alongside the UN mission in Somalia; and the regional protection force in South Sudan, which is another example of a partnership that the UN has entered into. This does create new opportunities for troop-contributing countries to gain experience alongside other troops, but it also creates new challenges.
A final trend to note is the downward pressure on budgets. MONUSCO has undergone significant cuts in Congo three years running. UNAMID in Darfur is closing down within the next year or so. MINUJUSTH in Haiti is phasing out. Across the board, key member states are looking for cost savings and reductions. These trends combine to create concrete needs for UN peacekeeping today and opportunities for member state engagement. I'll list a few of them that may be interesting for this committee.
In MONUSCO, the reduction of the static footprint of the military component over the last few years has created a “protection through projection” concept, which requires greater airlift capacities and longer-range use of drones. That is a very concrete need that the mission has because of these reductions in static footprint.
In many of the more complex environments, including Mali, increased use of peacekeeping intelligence, as it's called, is also a premium, and new capacities have been created in missions like MINUSMA and MONUSCO to build this intelligence capacity.
Many of you may be aware of the action for peacekeeping initiative that was signed last week. There is a clear need articulated in that commitment for renewed commitment to training and equipping troops who deploy to ensure they're capable of responding quickly and effectively to protection threats. I would flag that the Elsie initiative is something worth discussing later on training as well.
All three of these—air capacities, peacekeeping intelligence, and training and equipment—are areas where demand outstrips supply today. This raises a set of questions for Canada's potential re-engagement in peacekeeping. The first question is, what kind of experience is Canada hoping to achieve through re-engagement? Is it to contribute directly to the robust protection activities of today's peacekeeping in places like Central African Republic, or is it more to gain important joint experience with European partners in the Sahel? Is Canada planning to contribute a long-term capacity to peacekeeping or a shorter one-off deployment, which you see in some contributing countries, in Mali and elsewhere? Is Canada interested in deploying only troops, or would it consider the deployment of something like formed police units, which might be more effective in some of the settings where there are large-scale urban risks as well?
Another question is how well the commitments made last year in Vancouver match the needs that I've just described. In my view they're an excellent match. The air task force in Mali is filling a crucial gap of the kind I just mentioned, air capacity. Strategic air lift in Entebbe would be a major asset to the missions in that area. A quick reaction force would almost certainly boost the protection capacities of the UN, which is exactly the set of needs I've described. The offer of training is exactly what the action for peacekeeping had in mind. I think that following through on the Vancouver commitments would be a great contribution to peacekeeping, as I've described it.
I'd add that, across the board, everybody I talk to in and around peacekeeping considers the Elsie project for increasing the role of women in peacekeeping to be a vital initiative that requires further support.
The final question I have is this: Where is Canada's value-added in peacekeeping? I work directly with Canadian officers in a range of settings and I think they're some of the best, if not the best, that I've seen in peacekeeping. I think specifically Canada can offer a combination of linguistic capabilities and excellence in military training that almost no other country in the world has today, and it's much needed in some of the bigger missions that I've listed here.
At a time when the bulk of today's peacekeeping requires both the ability to engage with the local population and the experience to develop complex strategic plans, true contributors like Canada are needed more than ever.
I will stop there and turn it back over to the committee.