Security Council recognizes contributions of police components to UN peacekeeping

6 November 2017 – The Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution stressing the important contribution that United Nations policing can provide in peacekeeping and special political missions throughout the conflict cycle.

In the unanimously approved text, the 15-member body, while stressing the primacy of political solutions to conflict, resolved to include, on a case by case basis, policing as an integral part of the mandates and decision-making structures of UN peacekeeping operations and special political missions.

In doing so, the Council took into account the need for consistent integration of police expertise within the planning of such missions, and to give dear, credible, achievable, appropriately resourced mandates for policing-related activities.

While recognizing the role of UN policing in UN efforts to prevent conflicts, the Council called on the Secretary-General to make sure that planning of UN peacekeeping and special political missions with police mandates are based on a thorough analysis of the context, capacities and needs of host-States.

Further, the Council recognized the important role that UN police components can play in the protection of civilians, including in preventing and addressing sexual and gender-based violence and conflict-related sexual violence and violations and abuses against children in the conflict and post-conflict situations.

The Secretary-General is requested to submit a report by the end of 2018, including on the implications for the delivery of policing mandates of changes to the Secretariat’s peace and security architecture, as well as efforts to strengthen and improve UN policing coherence, capability, accountability and police generation.

Briefing the Council were Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Issoufou Yacouba, Police Commissioner of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), Georges-Pierre Monchotte, Police Commissioner of United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH), and Priscilla Makotose, Police Commissioner of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID).