S/PV.7558 Security Council

In accordance with rule 39 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I invite the following briefers to participate in this meeting: Mr. Hervé Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations; Mr. Charles Bent, Deputy Police Commissioner of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan; Mr. Pascal Champion, Police Commissioner of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Mr. Gregory Hinds, Police Commissioner of the United Nations Mission in Liberia. The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. I wish to draw the attention of Council members to document S/2015/844, which contains a letter dated 5 November 2015 from myself, the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the United Nations, addressed to the Secretary-General, transmitting a concept note on the item under consideration. As we have a number of participants in this meeting on this important issue, I encourage speakers to make concise interventions. The intention of this meeting is to be as interactive as possible, as we were in the same briefing last November and as we are in our individual dialogues with Force Commanders. We are looking forward to questions from Council members to the Commissioners and from the Commissioners to the Council. To that end, brief interventions will allow more time for subsequent exchanges, and I remind speakers that the presidency will use the flashing lights on the collars of the microphones to prompt speakers to bring their remarks to a close. I give the floor to Mr. Ladsous.

I wish to thank you, Mr. President, for this fresh opportunity for dialogue with our police commanders and the Security Council in the framework of following up on last year’s resolution 2158 (2014). I am pleased to see here three high-level officials of our police components, and I fully agree that our dialogue must be as interactive as possible. I wish at the outset to make a few brief remarks. First, while we most often associate peacekeeping with military Blue Helmets, in reality the protection of civilians is frequently primarily the responsibility of the police. The reason is very simple: these men and women have been trained, and their vocation is to engage with the community, analyse potential threats and, if necessary, take action. Police forces throughout the world probably represent the greatest reservoir of expertise in the area of protection. It is a reservoir that we have only just started to tap into, but I think that its potential is considerable. It is clear that over the past 10 years, the number of police troops in missions, of which 10 have civilian- protection mandates, has nearly tripled, to almost 13,000 police deployed, most frequently with multidimensional mandates. I therefore take this opportunity to welcome this expansion and thank the aforementioned for their contributions. In fact, the face of the United Nations police is very frequently the one that local communities see first, because it is they who have a relationship with the community, who build relationships at the local level and reflect one of the principles of peacekeeping: that it must be people-centred. Indeed, their contribution has been reaffirmed in the report of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (see S/2015/446). Protection must start out as unarmed protection, through the building of relationships with the community. But it cannot be ruled out that this protection might become, in very specific circumstances, a physical contribution that, when circumstances dictate, requires the use of force. For example, the Bangui task force, in its normal configuration, was under the authority of the police component; then that was changed, for the time being, following the incidents that took place at the end of September. But we did see clearly the role that the police played in protecting, inter alia, camps for internally displaced persons, and also in preventing attacks that could have resulted in many victims, for instance when one of the camps was attacked by 200 armed ex-Séléka members. I think, therefore, that this is very important. At the same time, the police presence tends to decrease the number of zones to which our missions have access and where the host Government authorities themselves may have reason to intervene. Ultimately, we have developed a mode of operations that is being used, for instance, by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, where joint operations with the Haitian National Police, United Nations police and the United Nations military components have allowed the the re-establishment of a certain degree of security in the Grand Ravine slums of Port-au-Prince, and enabled the delivery of humanitarian assistance and medical care, as well as the restoration of order. It can never be reiterated often enough that host States have the primary responsibility to protect, and it is clear that a peacekeeping mission’s mandate is very often linked to whether or not the host State authorities are able to take up their policing responsibilities. That is why training is a critical mission of United Nations police. We have seen how the restructuring and operationalization of the various police services and gendarmerie have required vast resources in Haiti, but we must also recognize how in Mali, for instance, some 8,800 Malian personnel have already been trainined by our police. I wish to make two points before I conclude. The first concerns capacities. We have made great strides in predeployment training on the ground. We must make every effort to continue to professionalize our police contingents and ensure that they are up to their job. This will also require us to make the best use of the standing police capacity. It is equally important that we place growing emphasis on specialized police units and greater language capacities. I cannot overstress the importance of that. I am in ongoing contact with the International Organization of la Francophonie on this issue. We also need more female police officers and women’s units. Our experience in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti and Liberia confirms them as a component of engagement that is extremely important and very useful, and we should make greater use of them. We must also coordinate all components with the mission advisers for the protection of civilians, child protection, women’s protection and gender. All of this is the primary responsibility of our police leadership, and we must continue to work on that. I recall that this year we have drawn up our first policy document on the protection of civilians in peacekeeping, along with guidelines for the military. We are in the process of drafting guidelines for the police, and will be happy to share them with the Security Council. In conclusion, I would urge the Security Council, through you, Sir, to always communicate its directives and requests to us as clearly as possible. We will be able to do our jobs effectively only if we have a crystal-clear strategic policy and if we enjoy the Council’s support — as we generally do — vis-à-vis the host countries, which are not always as receptive as we would wish. Let us continue to strive in that direction.

I thank Mr. Ladsous for his briefing, including that important point at the end about the requirement for clarity. I now give the floor to Mr. Bent. Mr. Bent: I would like to thank you, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to speak to the Council today in representation of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and United Nations police and in regards to the protection of civilians in South Sudan. In the past 22 months, UNMISS has been engaged with adjusting from a post-conflict/recovery mandate, focused on capacity-building, to a series of crisis/ conflict-adjusted mandates focused on the protection of civilians. The scope of this tasking is vast and includes civilians sheltering for safety in various venues, including those which are within United Nations compounds. UNMISS has seen its protection of civilian sites expand from housing several thousand internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the first days of the conflict to hundreds of thousands of IDPs spread across the four major UNMISS protection of civilians sites. The United Nations police has been tasked with maintaining public safety and security within those sites.There are constant, daily threats to our staff, and situations can easily escalate to where staff members are surrounded by tens and even hundreds of aggressive and threatening IDPs. Serious physical injury to United Nations personnel has happened on several occasions. In reponse, UNMISS continues to look for innovative ways and a better way of doing things. As exemplified by the recent report of the High- level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (see S/2015/446), in which a change was called for to improve the efficiency of peacekeeping operations. Considering the dynamics of South Sudan, it is imperative that new ways be identified to engage and improve the mission. The Panel report calls for tailoring mandates to meet the dynamics of the mission. In the section on four essential shifts, it calls for being more field focused and to awaken the United Nations on the distinct and important needs of the field missions. It calls for new approaches, a convergence of expectations and capabilities, and for clarity of purpose and potential. From our experiences and observances of the dynamics in South Sudan, the Panel’s recommendations could not fit our mission more appropriately. Currently, UNMISS and the United Nations police are engaged in supporting the pilot project for safe return through curriculum support and human rights training to select South Sudan National Police Service (SSNPS) officers. This training is supported by the respective components of our human rights, women’s and child protection sections. The United Nations police is also supporting the SSNP identification card project and the 777 emergency call centre — all of which are approved in consideration of the Human Rights and Due Diligence Policy and are supported in an attempt to foster an improved public perception of the SSNPS and build confidence within the IDP populations that safe return to their homes will be possible. UNMISS is also actively engaged in supporting and implementing cross-cutting programmes with other mission components in the areas of gender violence and women’s and child protection. These innovations are combining the focus of these concerns into an overarching community policing strategy that is being supplemented by IDP community watch groups within the protection of civilians sites. This overarching strategy is also being aligned to support and enhance the external portion of the community policing strategy, which involves the SSNPS and community watch groups as IDPs return to their homes, and also to support the efforts of the SSNPS under the pilot project for safe return. These efforts also align with and support perfectly the concept of the newly proposed joint integrated police. It is envisioned that this concept will be the future policing strategy and ethics base for the future police service in South Sudan. Finally, we would like to reference resolution 2185 (2014) and the Guidelines on Police Capacity-Building and Development, considering that police are a bridge between civilians and Governments. Police interact with civilian populations on a daily basis while guiding, assisting and protecting them. This is the embodiment of resolution 2185 (2014), identifying the centrality of police in peacekeeping. However, the Guidelines on Police Capacity-Building and Development recommend that the host Government have ownership of the process of reform and that plans be phased, with one phase being completed before the next begins Let me conclude by restating that the UNMISS protection of civilians mission faces many challenges and dangers. However, we are confident that given sufficient support, guidance and flexibility, as outlined in the report of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations, resolution 2185 (2014) and the Guidelines on Police Capacity-Building and Development, our mission has the capability to adjust and prevail through innovative and sustainable approaches and programmes. I would ask that the Council invest in the Panel’s recommendations, which would help to provide missions with the flexibility, resources, guidance and support needed for the successful implementation and maintenance of the protection of civilians mandate.

I thank Mr. Bent for his briefing. I now give the floor to Mr. Champion.

I am very grateful to the Security Council for having given me the floor today. I wish to introduce an aspect of our work on the protection of civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Strategy to Combat Insecurity in Beni (SOLIB) in the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) territory. The model is not yet well known, and I wish to thank Assistant Secretary-General Dmitry Titov for mentioning it to the Council on 20 August (see S/PV.7508). SOLIB was established in April 2014 to respond to serious threats and multiple killings in the previous months in Beni. We were observing increasing insecurity at that time. In four months, there had been 17 murders, 15 terrorist acts, 14 armed robberies, threats or assault, and 6 cases of mob justice that had killed 20 and injured 29. The diagnosis took into account a number of factors, including the infiltration of local criminals and accomplices; insufficient coordination between the Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo and the Congolese National Police (PNC); the uncontrolled movement of armed police and military personel, who are poorly paid and poorly trained; the intra-State and cross-border trafficking of weapons linked to the illicit exploitation of natural resources; and the people’s loss of trust in the security services. The Congolese National Police suffer many shortcomings in Beni territory, as they do in the entire region. Officers are poorly trained, the infrastructure needs to be overhauled and facilities are poorly financed, primarily by the Government and the United Nations. In that regard, I pay tribute to the courage and determination of many police officers at all levels who have shown their skill and determination despite a situation of extreme deprivation. Progress, while not very tangible, does exist. The number of deaths during the presidential elections decreased considerably in 2011 as compared to 2006. SOL1B was designed in accordance with the following principles. The joint United Nations police-PNC undertaking goes beyond the mere police dimension and takes on a more comprehensive approach that seekss to involve as many partners as possible. The Strategy also combines the protection of civilians and the restoration of State authority towards the two objectives of strengthening the professional and operational capabilities of the PNC and ensuring security and public order through a coordinated security response from all local actors, be they civilian or military, Congolese or from the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). SOLIB is involved in 37 operational, administrative and logistical activities, including training, mobility assistance, monitoring and advising; human resources; rapprochement between the population and the authorities and listening to their voices; joint security management; civil-military coordination; and naturally, strengthening joint, immediate-impact preventive and law enforcement actions to assist the population. SOLIB has benefitted from the performance leadership of the United Nations police, including the Chief of Staff’s office in Goma and Beni, and regular visits from the United Nations police monitoring teams. The MONUSCO police are committed to providing specific responses to reduce threats to the population. I will mention a few. On the authorization of the Mayor, the SOLIB team coordinator participates in the meetings of the Urban Security Committee. Meetings have been organized between the PNC and civil society, working to ensure community security. Three seminars have been held by non-governmental organizations on community policing and human rights. And we have formally collected and processed information on armed groups. Our experience in 2014 on the police use of drones has shown their added value in public security, but it has not been currently implemented. The United Nations police is also involved for 16 months in very significant efforts to secure logistical support for the Congolese National Police, for example by providing $7,000 for two SOLIB telephone hotlines to be used by the population to call for help or inform the police. Concerning the Rights Up Front initiative, in November 2014 we were able to act in accordance with those principles. The formed police unit could not, in accordance with United Nations regulations, intervene in Beni because its initial training was not complete. Given the disturbances, the United Nations police decided on the immediate use of the unit, which contributed to the security of the population. Some results have been achieved. We have set up a coordination, command and control centre linked to the two SOLIB hotlines to improve police response. Over 16 months, we have had 3,000 calls that have led to 1,000 interventions, 700 interrogations and 7 search-and-raid operations. The total number of arrests and individuals brought to justice amounts to 1,500 in Beni — including more than 300 soldiers and police officers and a dozen ADF and Mayi-Mayi rebels — and 200 in Oicha. The population and the authorities welcome this work and its security benefits on a regular basis. We follow up through a regular monthly satisfaction survey. The elected officials have noted an improvement in the climate of trust with the Congolese National Police and now welcome meetings with civil society organizations. The PNC authorities in North Kivu want to extend the model to several cities, including Goma. The United Nations police faces a number of challenges and limitations  — such as the complexity of partnerships and coordination, the mobilization of all kinds of resources, the transformation in the United Nations police and MONUSCO, further developing command and control, and performance guidance — that it is seeking to overcome with the means at its disposal. Attaining greater effectiveness in the United Nations police will require certain measures. The swifter and more resolute implementation of resolution 2185 (2014) would respond to many of our difficulties. The integration of the United Nations police operational strategy component, in particular, would facilitate the tactical performance of our tasks. The police component must continue to implement its strategy Forward to 2020 within the strategic guidance framework. The effort on behalf of SOLIB was especially burdensome. The United Nations police needs multidisciplinary, human, technical, operational, methodological, logistical, financial, administrative and performance assistance. To conclude, the Congolese National Police are in a delicate situation. No miracles can be carried out without flexibility support. We must act beyond simple advice and review. Finally, the protection of civilians requires determination, capacities and resources, which is as true for the Congolese National Police as for the United Nations.

I thank Mr. Champion for his briefing. I now give the floor to Mr. Gregory Hinds. Mr. Hinds: I, too, wish to thank you, Mr. President, and the members of the Security Council for this opportunity to speak along with my colleagues on the critical contribution of the United Nations police on the protection of civilians in peace operations. Let me also express my gratitude, on behalf of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), to the Council and police-contributing countries for their continued support to Liberia’s ongoing peacekeeping efforts. The commitment and dedication of the police have been and remain critical to maintaining peace and stability in Liberia. Today, I will speak about what the protection of civilians mandate in Liberia means for the United Nations police and how the devastating Ebola outbreak presented both challenges and opportunities in moving forward protection aspects for transition. The United Nations Mission in Liberia was established in 2003 by the Security Council , under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, with a clear mandate to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence, within its capabilities, and without prejudice to the efforts of the Government of Liberia. Twelve years later, UNMIL still retains a protection of civilians mandate, underscoring the legitimacy and credibility of protecting civilians as a significant part of any long-term peacekeeping and peacebuilding effort. The protection of civilians is a whole-of-mission responsibility. Notably, the United Nations police is an integral part of the UNMIL protection of civilians strategy, first, by supporting protection through political processes; secondly, by establishing a protective environment; and thirdly, in building the capacities and capabilities of the national police and other law enforcement agencies to protect the population from physical violence. The UNMIL comprehensive protection strategy came into effect on 1 March 2014. It seeks to increase the Government’s awareness and understanding of its full and primary responsibilities to protect civilians from physical harm and to enhance its capacity and willingness to assume that responsibility. The strategy also notes UNMIL’s strategic readiness to act to protect civilians within its capabilities when the Government is unable or unwilling to do so. As we move towards transition, it is critical to have national ownership and leadership in the Liberian Government’s readiness to assume fully its complete security responsibilities from UNMIL by no later than 30 June 2016, as called for in resolution 2239 (2015). However, in consolidating this readiness, the Liberia National Police and other security and justice actors will require further support in three key thematic areas to fulfil their protection of civilian role: First, following years of capacity-building support and while noting the gains made by the National Police, support is still required for them to better understand and fully assume their protection responsibilities by strengthening police leadership; enhancing accountability; establishing command, control and coordination mechanisms; improving operational planning and response; and strengthening substantially its community engagement. Critical to ongoing peace and stability in Liberia will be a stronger foundation of confidence and trust in the Liberian criminal justice system, built essentially on protecting civilians through steadfast partnerships between the police and the communities they serve. United Nations police, in coordination with bilateral partners, continue to advise and guide the Liberia National Police in its community engagement strategy and in delivering targeted projects to strengthen this relationship. Projects have been successfully delivered in several counties and will be extended across Liberia in direct support of the revised national community-oriented policing policy. Now, secondly, in order to extend protection capabilities throughout the country, the decentralization and decongestion of State, police and justice services, including those to remote areas, is essential. Steady progress is being made with those priorities identified under the Government’s plan for UNMIL’s transition, which also includes the deployment of increased numbers of police countrywide. To that end, the Liberia National Police are currently deploying 552 officers to the border counties. And, thirdly, further enhancement of accountability and oversight is necessary to consolidate Liberia’s protection of civilian responsibilities. During 2015, after extensive consultations, Liberia’s legislature is now deliberating the much-needed legislative reform for its National Police. A draft police act includes the provision for civilian oversight in two keyareas  — complaints made against the police and in its policy development. Also for the first time, the Police Professional Standards Division is now deployed outside the capital, Monrovia, to strengthen accountability and disciplinary mechanisms. In each of the three thematic areas outlined earlier  — targeted capacity building and improved community engagement; decentralized and decongested service delivery; and enhanced accountability and oversight — the Ebola crisis, which spanned more than 16 months and took thousands of lives, inadvertently brought new opportunities to reinforce protection capacities and responsibilities for the national police, including fostering better police-community relationships and strengthening the presence of police throughout the country. Notably, United Nations police supported the national awareness-raising and outreach programmes to communities to prevent the further spread of Ebola and they also supported an integrated response to Ebola operations. In a partnered approach, the United Nations police trained 1,000 Liberian law enforcement personnel in human rights and in the protection of civilians during the state of emergency period, while our formed police units provided backstopping support to the Liberia National Police in public order management. The Ebola crisis presented unprecedented challenges. It tested the Mission’s ability to rethink and adapt the execution of its protection of civilians mandate and explored new areas of cooperation and support with the National Police and other actors in providing a security envelope to allow the necessary health and humanitarian efforts to occur. This highlights the critical role police play in often unpredictable operational contexts in protecting civilians. I wish to express my sincere appreciation to Member States for standing by Liberia and UNMIL in the face of these protection and operational challenges, and thank especially UNMIL personnel for their courage and commitment to peacekeeping during this time. Moreover, Liberia’s security sector should also be commended for its resilience and professionalism in preventing the spread of Ebola, despite its limited capacity and resources, and the risk posed by the epidemic. Notably, Liberia is now Ebola-free. Looking forward, UNMIL’s new protection-of- civilians mandate, contained in resolution 2239 (2015) of September, is not without challenges, particularly given the transition of security responsibilities and the Mission’s significant police and military drawdown in the lead-up to June next year. The Security Council reaffirmed UNMIL’s protection mandate and noted that, from 1 July 2016, the Mission is still to support Liberian security agencies to protect civilians in the event of a deterioration of the security situation that could risk a strategic reversal of peace and stability, taking into account UNMIL’s reduced capabilities and areas of deployment. This change in the Mission’s operational response to the protection of civilians will require clarity between the Government and UNMIL as to the circumstances in which the Mission’s armed capacities will be deployed and what actually constitutes a security deterioration that risks a strategic reversal. In conclusion, I wish to reaffirm that policing remains an integral part of United Nations peace operations, and we must have clear, credible and achievable mandates matched by appropriate resources. There remains a pressing need to recognize that the mandate for each peacekeeping operation, as can be seen today, is specific to the needs and situation of the country concerned. As outlined in last year’s inaugural resolution for policing in peacekeeping operations and special political missions, resolution 2185 (2014), United Nations police play a critical role in supporting protection efforts through the political process; in establishing protective environments; and by building the capacities and capabilities of national policing institutions to protect the population from physical violence — all of which underpin lasting peace, security and stability in post-conflict situations. Once again, thank you, Mr. President, for convening this briefing and affording me the opportunity to address the Council today.

I thank Mr. Hinds for his briefing, and I thank all four briefers for, among them, raising so clearly some of the important issues facing police contingents, as part of United Nations peacekeeping operations, in seeking to implement mandates for the protection of civilians. I now give the floor to the members of the Security Council and encourage them in particular to respond to what they have just heard from our four briefers and to put their own questions to the briefers.

I would like to thank the United Kingdom presidency for taking the initiative of convening this important meeting on the difficulties that United Nations police forces are encountering in carrying out the protection of civilians mandate. I would like to also thank the Under-Secretary- General for Peacekeeping Operations, Mr. Hervé Ladsous, and the Deputy Police Commissioner of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), the Police Commissioner of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) and the Police Commissioner of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) for their briefings. About a year ago the Security Council adopted resolution 2185 (2014), its first resolution on the functions of the police. It provided strategic and practical guidance for the heads of United Nations police components. It is important to ensure high levels of competence, adequate training and suitable equipment for the United Nations police components, without which they will not be able to effectively discharge their protection-of-civilians mandate. It is therefore logical that the United Nations police and the Member States maintain a close collaboration aimed at identifying areas where there are gaps to fill or improvements to be made. Moreover, given that the police components interact regularly with the population, it is important that the officers be equipped with the linguistic and cultural knowledge that are appropriate to the host country. Accordingly, we encourage Member States to increase the number of female personnel, trained appropriately within the police components, including in high-level positions. We think that women personnel are in a better position to protect other women against sexual and gender-based violence, as well as abuse directed against women and children, in general. Taking into account the threats arising from organized crime, the proliferation of arms and the insufficient number of officers within the police components, those components must work together in a coordinated and concerted manner with all other components, as well as with local civil society, in order to better implement the mandate to protect civilians. I would like to cite the specific cases of South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and the Central African Republic. In South Sudan, despite the successive strengthening of UNMISS, its mandates to protect civilians, to monitor and to investigate human rights matters, the situation among civilians is more troubling. That situation reflects a departure from the Security Council’s original vision when it established UNMISS in 2011, which focused on peacebuilding, security and facilitating development. Nevertheless, UNMISS continues to be useful in providing refuge to tens of thousands of civilians within its bases, even if that is not sufficient to accommodate such numbers. In order to better protect civilians, it is necessary to go beyond a simple physical presence by increasing commitment to prevention, mobility, active intervention and the protection of civilians against imminent threats. We welcome the recent Rwandan formation of a police force in Malakal in the Upper Nile state, and hope that it will soon achieve full capacity with the additional deployment of other formed police units. Moreover, we need to think about protecting individual police officers, who are neither armed nor provided with protective equipment. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, we welcome the activities undertaken within the framework of the Strategy to Combat Insecurity in Beni in the territory of the Allied Democratic Forces. We also welcome the progress made in certain key activities identified in the 2012-2017 action plan for police reform, including the establishment of a mechanism in support of the reform and its implementation, as well as the increase and reinforcement of specialized police forces. We call on the MONUSCO police component to continue to contribute to training Congolese police in the maintenance of public order and human rights. It must also strengthen its deployments in remote areas and resolve its logistical problems, so as to conduct rapid- response counter-offensives in cases where the civilian population is attacked. In that regard, it is important that its work focus on preventive measures and seek, in particular, to strengthen its relations with communities and the Congolese police, in order to improve rapid warning and response. To that end, we also encourage the Congolese authorities to complete the legal toolkit on reform and to wage war on impunity by prosecuting the alleged perpetrators of violent acts. In Liberia, during its more than 12 years of existence, UNMIL has made considerable progress. However, much still needs to be done. While in the transition phase, the Mission must redouble its efforts for a successful transfer of all security-related competencies to the Liberian authorities, in accordance with resolution 2239 (2015), adopted on 17 September. To accomplish that, we must strengthen the capacity of Liberian security agencies — in particular, the Liberia National Police and the immigration and naturalization offices — and accelerate the implementation of lasting programmes in the areas of the rule of law, justice, governance and security-sector reform. The continued contribution of the bilateral and multilateral partners is essential. We must not forget that all of this must be undertaken in close collaboration with the Government of Liberia and with its participation. In the Central African Republic, the reopening of the police stations and the police patrols in Bangui are positive signs, for in the quite recent past the population itself formed committees and groups to provide for its own self-defence. We encourage the Central African authorities to further commit to bolstering the security of their population and to building trust among the people and forces of public order. However, we remain deeply concerned about the violations of human rights and the violence committed with impunity against civilians. Furthermore, while welcoming the laudable efforts of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic in the protection of civilians, we believe that it must play a crucial role in restoring the rule of law and assistance to the transitional Government in the fight against impunity. We commend the critical role played by the United Nations police in the performance of their protection of civilians mandates, and we pay deserved tribute to all the women and men police officers who continue to spare no effort in the protection of civilians, as well as to all the police-contributing countries that have made deployments in countries in conflict or emerging from conflict. I would like to close by asking the three Police Commissioners a question. How, specifically, can the Security Council help them to resolve the issues on the ground, particularly those regarding the implementation of the protection of civilians mandate?

I am the daughter of a military man. I therefore promise that I will be very organized. (spoke in Arabic) Let me begin by thanking all of the police commissioners in the various United Nations peacekeeping operations for their efforts and continued sacrifice. We know the challenges and problems that they are facing. I would also like to thank Mr. Ladsous, Mr. Bent, Mr. Champion and Mr. Hinds for their briefings. We all know that the United Nations is developing strategies and defining activities to maintain and build peace. Those activities and strategies are implemented in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and focus on the rule of law, respect for human rights and the protection of civilians in the various peacekeeping operations. We all know what the challenges are and how complex they are in peacekeeping operations, and we are aware of the importance of increasing the police component in the peacekeeping operations. We must reinforce the criteria for the rapid and effective deployment of missions. We also need to establish joint criteria to consolidate the capacity of police and security personnel in host States, and we must strengthen United Nations strategic planning with a view to sparing future generations the fallout of wars. We must have strategic guidance for peacekeeping operations in the field. That was touched upon by the various police commissioners. We need to define the priorities and the various challenges on the ground. Our focus should be on the following points. First, we must focus on the nature of the training programmes used by the troop-contributing and police-contributing countries. Secondly, we must strengthen the peacekeeping operations system and ensure the safety of their personnel with a view to protecting human rights and supporting the various police and security institutions. We must also strengthen the rule of law and train police on that point. Jordan has set up a comprehensive training programme on peacekeeping operations with the local police that is aimed at enhancing respect for human rights. The programme is based on various principles, including the transformation of institutions into a citadel of training for all peacekeeping components by focusing on individuals and providing them with various kinds of peacekeeping training. At present, Jordan’s security leadership has established training aimed at combating terrorism and strengthening social integration through a number of training programmes based on a document published by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in order to assist support missions. That is one of the most important objectives in peacekeeping operations. We must overcome the various challenges and set up a comprehensive strategy for training police personnel in the various components of peacekeeping operations. We have also strengthened our strategic and security plans in peacekeeping operations in order to meet their main objective, namely, that peace and security is a right for all. We support all efforts aimed at meeting the objectives to which we all aspire, namely, meeting the challenges that face peacekeeping operations on the ground, strengthening the peacekeeping operations system, which is one of the primary objectives of peacekeeping operations, and providing necessary assistance in the area of training, along with the physical and financial resources for those operations. Members already know that we are facing a number of challenges that undermine the capacity of our peacekeeping operations to carry out their mandates, including the protection of civilians. That too was mentioned by our briefers. I would like, therefore, to focus on the various joint operations that are quite complex in the way that they ensure peace and security. We do not wish to duplicate the work of the police and military forces. That raises the following question. Are they addressing that issue in a manner that corresponds to their mandates? Is there a lack of clarity in the mandates with respect to the protection of civilians. If so, how can the security forces tackle that issue?

I welcome the briefings by Mr. Hervé Ladsous and the Police Commissioners from the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United Nations Mission in Liberia. I thank you, Sir, for taking the initiative to hold this meeting. I am going to ask my questions now, at the beginning, so that they are clearly understood. I have two questions on gender policies in the police components. First, what has been the recent evolution with respect to the percentage of women in mission police components, and what measures are being taken to increase that number? Secondly, we know that there is a senior gender adviser, and we would like to know if there is an intent to appoint specific focal points within the police components in missions to ensure the incorporation of a gender perspective within each unit. I have now asked my questions. We fully agree that police components provide considerable added value to the complex mandates that characterize today’s peacekeeping operations, especially with regard to the protection of civilians. Police units have an enormous potential to generate trust, because they work closely with the local population, and that proximity is quite important. However, we would point out that, in order for that potential to be fulfilled, the police units must be accountable for their actions and must have adequate training. Accountability and training are key to any mission, but that is even more true in the case of police components. Troop-contributing countries should provide trained police units that have been rigorously selected and that have predeployment experience in the areas of human rights, international humanitarian law and sexually-based violence. Such pre-deployment training would, we believe, meet the objective established by the United Nations, and we are therefore quite pleased that Spain has received certification attesting to the fact that all our personnel deployed in United Nations peacekeeping operations have received appropriate pre-deployment training in accordance with the standards set by this Organization. Mission police components can be effective only if the missions themselves are effective. In that regard, we share the recommendations aimed at ensuring the effectiveness of missions drafted by the High- level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (see S/2015/446) and in the Secretary-General’s report reviewing the implementation of the recommendations of the Panel (S/2015/682). Members of the Security Council have the obligation to provide missions with clear mandates that reflect sufficient political will for their implementation, and to give missions the necessary intelligence capabilities and training in new technologies. We also share the idea expressed in the Secretary-General’s report that conflict prevention is a central component of peacekeeping operations and a particularly relevant principle with regard to the conduct of police components in the context of protecting civilians. Another point is the coordination between the police and the protection advisers. We believe that is crucial, since the work of the police, given their proximity and direct contact with local populations, can assist in detecting potentially conflictive situations and can prevent outbreaks of violence. Moreover, we recall that United Nations police play a very important role in supporting security-sector reform, in particular that of the police units of host States. Spain also supports the development of a strategic guidance framework for police units within the Department of Peacekeeping Operations that would establish a doctrinal basis for the work of the police components of missions. We hope that that pillar will be finalized by the end of the year. We also find timely the decision to organize an external review of the functions, structure and capacity of the United Nations Police Division. The demand for and the increasing complexity of the tasks performed by the police units in peacekeeping operations means that the Division needs to have an appropriate structure and sufficient human resources to carry out their work. At the recent Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping we pledged to review future contributions of formed police units and a gendarme corps — a Civil Guard of which we are especially proud — which is doing outstanding work in Haiti and the Central African Republic. In conclusion, I would like to stress the essential role that the police components play in missions in the context of women and peace and security. The participation of women in the police units is more advanced than it is in the military components but we are still far from our objective of 20 percent. We welcome the recent launch by the Police Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations of the United Nations Police Gender Toolkit, but I think we could be even more ambitious. As recently adopted resolution 2242 (2015) notes, we must do more to increase the participation of women in peace operations. Women’s participation will further promote trust among the civilian population, help to protect women and children against all forms of violence and abuse, and lead to reporting of cases of sexual or gender-based violence. Finally, I would like to refer to cases of sexual exploitation and abuse by United Nations personnel. On this point, we fully endorse the Secretary-General’s zero-tolerance policy and, as far as my country is concerned, we are committed to applying that policy most rigorously, as our Prime Minister stated at the recent review of resolution 1325 (2000) (see S/PV.7533).

We would like to thank the United Kingdom presidency for convening today’s informative meeting and the briefers for their valuable briefings. Police work in peacekeeping and peacebuilding is relevant in terms of protecting the civilian population and playing a leading role in restoring national security institutions. The increase in the number of police personnel deployed and the change in the nature of their tasks is a necessary response to increasingly complex realities and the need to strengthen the fundamentals of their work, which we fully support. We also agree that it is the responsibility of each State to protect its civilians, but if a State fails to do so, the United Nations police presence can play a central role in supporting national authorities to fulfil the task. The presence of United Nations police in conflict zones produces a feeling of security in the population through the deterrent effect it has and through the interaction it generates with the local population. This dynamic allows it to act as an early-warning mechanism in line with the Secretary-General’s “Human Rights First” initiative. It also facilitate the processes of reconciliation and confidence-building between civil society and the State, which is one of the objectives of the security sector reform. The protection of civilians must be at the core of police training. Police units must be given the right preparation and equipment for respecting human rights, enforcing the rule of law and protecting the civilian population, especially those in vulnerable situations, such as women and children who have been subject to sexual violence or gender-based crimes. In this vein, we support the Secretary-General’s zero-tolerance policy and call for prosecuting and punishing any misconduct. Greater participation of women police would meet the needs and expectations of civilian women and would facilitate the recovery of trust and reduce impunity. Therefore, in line with resolutions 1325 (2000) and 2122 (2013), we would highlight the need to increase the participation and leadership of women in police contingents from both police-contributing countries (PCCs) and from missions’ host countries. We encourage the PCCs to close the competency gap that exists today so as to ensure greater female participation. We also welcome with interest the System’s innovative initiatives aimed at mainstreaming the gender perspective in police personnel, such as the United Nations police manual on gender issues, the Gender Toolkit, which was launched on 10 November, and the creation of the role of the gender adviser. Finally, within the framework of the Government of Chile’s International Cooperation Programme for Uniformed Police, over 250 officers of the Haitian National Police have been trained by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, contributing thereby to vocational training both at the basic level and for officers at the middle and senior ranks. A strong police training is fundamental for the respect for human rights and for the democratic development of any country. Police units ultimately help to lay the foundations for the full establishment of the rule of law, where reconciliation and the promotion of development through economic growth, poverty eradication and social and inclusive development are keys to overcoming conflict and consolidating peace. We would like to close with a question related to remarks made by our colleague from Spain. What are the main constraints today on deploying a greater number of women in police units in peacekeeping operations and how they can these possible obstacles be overcome?

I thank Under-Secretary-General Ladsous for his briefing and welcome all the Police Commissioners. We thank them above all for their service, often in very difficult environments and for being here to brief us. We wish to express our special thanks to the United Kingdom for convening this important briefing. It is extremely important that this become an annual event, not only because of what happens in the briefing itself but for all of the side meetings that take place where we get to hear directly from the Police Commissioners, who offer a perspective that we do not get day to day, which I will come back to shortly. The world of United Nations policing is changing rapidly. Just three years ago, there were 52 formed police units (FPUs) participating in United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world. There are 64 today, and at the Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping six weeks ago, Member States pledged an additional 15. Earlier this year, just to give one telling example, we authorized the deployment of more United Nations police to just one Mission  — in the Central African Republic — than were stationed globally 21 years ago. That is just one reflection of the large numbers, but it is the incredible relevance of these police in post-conflict societies and in societies that are still experiencing conflict and in weak States. This is an extremely important function, and as the Security Council we need to reflect that in our engagement with and support for the United Nations Police Division. It is not just about numbers. As we deploy more police, we are asking more of them, and we now recognize that effective policing is critical to achieving one of peacekeeping’s most important and challenging mandates, namely, the protection of civilians. The Commanders with us today know this better than anyone. The individual officers on the streets represent the first line of defence and the first point of assistance for civilians in need. This work equips officers with the kind of invaluable local knowledge, insight and relationships that can help Mission leaders refine strategies and tactics to more effectively address potential threats to civilians. So the work that the United Nations police do can inform the entire mission and the way those missions are calibrated to serve their foundational function. In the longer term, of course, even more foundationally and more fundamentally, United Nations police contribute to the sustained protection of civilians and to freedom from fear in the country by training their local counterparts and building lasting institutions that uphold the rights of civilians. Their job is to try to put themselves out of business so that we do not need United Nations police or peacekeepers, and that is about building local security institutions and particularly police forces. From conducting daily patrols to formulating multi-year programmes, it is evident that the growing number of United Nations police can and must play a leading role in protecting civilians, and we in the Council must do all we can to position them for success. I would like to briefly highlight four ways in which we can do that. First, we must ensure that the United Nations approach to peacekeeping fully reflects the importance of the police. As others have said, that means supporting continuing reforms, including through the external review proposed by the Secretary-General to examine how United Nations policing is equipped to carry out those enormous responsibilities. I know there is a sense among many of those here that there are deficiencies in how police are coming into mission areas and in the kind of training and equipment they have for doing their jobs. It also means supporting the Police Division’s efforts to develop a strategic guidance framework for United Nations policing, which many have been hungering for. Secondly, we must ensure that all United Nations police are properly trained and equipped, and we in the United States have sought to address those needs. Since 2010, we have trained more than 5,000 police peacekeepers, and next year we plan to conduct training sessions across seven police-contributing countries, enhancing pre-deployment preparation for up to 14 units. We also continue to provide technical, financial and material support to the United Nations Police Division’s efforts to improve FPU standards, training and curricula. And because well-trained police can have an impact only once they are on the ground, we are also working through the African Peacekeeping Rapid Response Partnership to ensure that those units can deploy quickly. Here, in a very important point, by procuring and delivering the equipment an FPU requires, the United States intends to shorten deployment times from many months to as little as 30 days after the adoption of a Security Council resolution. We know that is going to hard to deliver on, but it is an extremely important ambition. Thirdly, I would simply like to second everything that the representatives of Chad and Chile have just said about the importance of increasing the number of women police. However, I think we also have to acknowledge that part of the challenge is that our own nations’ police forces — whether city, state or national — themselves have a deficit of women police, which gets replicated in United Nations missions. So as Member States, we have to deal with that challenge in our domestic law- enforcement branches, and the United Nations system itself must get involved and ensure that when there is a pool of women who can be deployed that a special effort is made to bring them into its missions. Lastly, we must improve the channels of communication so as to ensure that the Council has insight into the critical work that police units are doing and into their perspective, which is a distinct one. We need the benefit of reports from police in order to ensure that our missions are achieving their mandates. That is why, as I said earlier, we must make this meeting an annual one. It is also why Police Commissioners should increasingly participate in our country-specific briefings alongside Force Commanders and the Special Representatives of the Secretary-General. They have an extremely important perspective and it will enable us to ask questions of them beyond the kind of tour d’horizon that we are doing today. In the spirit of this free flow of information, I will conclude today by asking a couple of questions. I would like to ask Deputy Commissioner Bent about the police contingent of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), which is now charged with protecting more than 180,000 civilians living in six designated locations. That was never the way the Mission was supposed to be configured, and that kind of deterioration was never what anyone expected to see in South Sudan. I gather that the Deputy Commissioner has around 1,170 police officers for accomplishing that task, which has now sadly had to become a central part of UNMISS’s mandate. But then there is also the fact that those 180,000 are just the ones in the camps, and that the rest of the country is filled with civilians in desperate need of protection as well, at a very difficult time. I would like to ask the Deputy Commissioner to speak to the resources, capabilities and mandate adjustments he needs in order to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, both in terms of police and, as the police are integrated into the larger peacekeeping Mission, where civilians outside the protection-of- civilian sites are also crying out for protection. What is the division of labour between police and troops in that regard? Finally, as someone who visited Commissioner Hinds in Liberia at the height of the Ebola epidemic when everybody else was racing for the exits, I would first like to underscore how impressive was the leadership that he and the police under his command in the United Nations Mission in Liberia showed. I think they are owed the gratitude of the Liberian people and the entire international community for staying the course and being there for those people in their hour of most desperate need—something that I think will never be forgotten, as I hope the Commissioner and the officers who work with him are aware. Of course, the big challenge for him as he faces a drawdown is building up the local Liberian police, and that has been a challenge for a very long time. I would like him to speak a little more on the extent to which having an exit strategy is helping to focus minds, and whether he has seen concrete improvements in the training and its results for Liberian police capacity. I am interested particularly in how that applies outside Monrovia, where much of the effort over time has been focused because that is where the central Government authorities are. How can the Liberian National Police begin to make strides, particularly, as I said, with the drawdown looming over the Mission, so that police outside Monrovia have the capabilities they need in order to keep the Liberian people safe?

I would like to thank Under-Secretary-General Ladsous, as well as Commissioner Champion, Commissioner Hinds and Deputy Commissioner Bent for their briefings. We welcome your decision, Mr. President, to focus this briefing on the protection of civilians. About 13,000 United Nations police work in dangerous and challenging conditions in 16 peacekeeping and five political missions around the world. They certainly play a key role in making civilians safer, whether through direct patrolling of areas of increased risk and by ensuring security in camps for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), or indirectly by supporting building national police institutions and assisting in the development of national rule-of-law capacities. United Nations peacekeepers are deployed in places where law-enforcement structures are weak or non-existent or, worse, where the local security forces that do exist commit crimes against the very people they are expected to protect. The task facing United Nations police in each and every mission is certainly enormous. The Council must therefore make sure that it engages in a genuine and regular dialogue with Police Commissioners, not just in this once-a-year open meeting but also in the various configuration briefings we hold, so as to ensure that we are fully apprised of the challenges they face and are providing them with all the support they need in their work. Turning to the specific missions represented here today, in South Sudan, as has been noted, almost 190,000 civilians have been forced to seek protection at sites overseen by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan. Forty per cent of the UNMISS force strength is now dedicated solely to protecting those sites, a huge and daunting task for the Mission’s police component, not just of protecting civilians from outside threats but also of ensuring order within the camps. We commend Deputy Commissioner Bent’s efforts under such extremely difficult circumstances. He has spoken about the transformation of the Mission. I would like to ask him if he could elaborate later on the key hurdles he encountered in that urgent, unexpected task, and on the lessons he could offer to other missions that might, God forbid, face similar circumstances. My second question is about the extent to which the availability of the flow of small arms in the area is complicating his task and what could be done about that. The Deputy Commissioner also referred to hostile IDPs and the difficulties created for the police in doing their work; besides the issues that are created within the sites, I would like to know if there is an issue, or if there could be one in the future, with infiltration by criminal elements, radical extremists or members of armed groups coming in from outside and exploiting the situation in the camps. What measures can the Commissioner take to protect his own staff in such situations, what do they need and what should the Council pay greater attention to? My next question concerns the measures that are being taken to tackle sexual and gender-based violence within and around the sites and, again, what the Council can do to facilitate implementing that task in terms of additional capacity or needed supplies. I believe the Police Commissioner for the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) spoke about drones. Certainly, the use of modern technologies and equipment is always an issue. Could any of the Police Commissioners elaborate as to what else would be needed besides the drones, and how does that change the effectiveness of what they do? Bearing in mind the history of sexual exploitation and abuse — unfortunately, not only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the past, but also the recent unfortunate stories we hear about sexual abuse and exploitation in the Central African Republic  — we certainly welcome some of initiatives that MONUSCO has taken on additional training of personnel and setting up whistle-blower mechanisms. I wonder if any of the Police Commissioners could elaborate on the good practices that they have introduced in that respect, and what else needs to be done from their point of view on that issue? A number of delegations have spoken on the percentage of police women. We fully support and agree with what has been said in that respect. Again, we also understand the constraints that the representative of the United States referred to, but for our delegation the issue of encouraging more female police representatives is extremely important. Could any of the Police Commissioners share some experience from the field? How greatly does a female police presence change the interaction with the local communities, and how would that improve the work of the Police Commissioners? The report of the United Nations High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (see S/2015/446) points out that national police development and reform cannot be implemented separately from the broader efforts to strengthen rule of law capacities and the security sector. The police do not operate in a vacuum. If other branches of law and order are weak or inoperative — be it the prosecutor’s office, correction facilities, or the courts — even the most genuine efforts of the police can be compromised. In that respect, from our point of view it is essential that the United Nations presence on the ground develops a comprehensive approach to strengthening the justice and security sectors, ensuring close cooperation among all mission/ country team components, including United Nations police. As the largest United Nations peace operation, MONUSCO is responsible for implementing a particularly multifaceted mandate. My question to Commissioner Champion is: How does he ensure coordination among all mission components in assisting the development of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s security sector and rule of law institutions? How big a challenge is posed by criminal groups or traffickers? He referred to natural resources and poachers who are increasingly well equipped. What additional needs does MONUSCO have in that respect? With regard to the United Nations Mission in Liberia, we appreciate the tremendous work done during the Ebola crisis. It really is an inspiration to all of us. That is an issue the Police Commissioner has spoken about at length. What lessons could he draw from the Ebola crisis with regard to preparedness, resources, training and contingency planning needs?

I thank you, Mr. President, and let me also thank and congratulate the United Kingdom for organizing this briefing. We fully agree with the comments of Ambassador Power of the United States that this is an important event and that we should annualize it. It might seem slightly odd for those operating in the field to see the Council in this rather remote environment from the realities that the Police Commissioners confront on the ground, so I think that it is very important that we have a chance to interact with them. I will ask some questions in relation to the different perspectives that we bring to those different issues. I want to thank all of the briefers — Under-Secretary- General Ladsous and the Police Commissioners. Their frank briefings are very helpful and address the issues of concern to them. I particularly highlight the call for a clear political strategy that Mr. Ladsous made of us, and the request for a clear and credible mandate, based on the circumstances of the country, which is an issue highlighted in the report of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (see S/2015/446), as a number of speakers have noted. We believe that the challenges of resources and training and the relationships with host countries are the questions that are particularly challenging, and bear on the central task of the protection of civilians, which we all recognize as a fundamental part of United Nations police operations. As others have noted, policing is an extremely important, relatively new expanding tool for the United Nations and the Security Council. In the past, there were complaints that peacekeeping operations were the only tool at our disposal. We discarded that notion by the wayside when we needed to do something. We do not want to risk police becoming another variety of that problem, but the Police Commissioners do offer  — I would be interested if they disagreed with us — a more flexible and community-oriented response to some of the situations that we face on the ground. Let me say that it is a given that New Zealand is a very strong supporter of United Nations police operations, and we see the value of the work that they do. We know from our own experience in the Pacific how important getting people out into the field and being part of the community is to bringing some stability and order to society. I have three questions that I want to ask the Police Commissioners. The first is the issue of prescription. In the Council, we love to have long discussions and negotiating sessions on mandates, but it occurs to me that if one is operating in the field having a very prescriptive mandate may be rather unhelpful, so I would be interested in the Police Commissioners’ views about how prescriptive they need our directions to be in terms of the job they are doing. Secondly  — and without wanting to tread on anyone’s toes  — how does it work for the Police Commissioners when they are operating in a military and police environment? How do the command-and- control issues get resolved, especially when complex criminal gangs are operating in the margins of those internally displaced persons and guerilla groups? I would be interested in how that works. Is there something we can do to help in relation to that? Last is the question of host country relationships. We recognize that this is a particularly big deal for the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the moment, and it is a big challenge for the Council. Are there things that the Police Commissioners can do, or that we can do for them, to help improve the host country engagement, because in those sorts of environments, even though the three situations that each of the Police Commissioners have spoken about re so very different, there is a commonality of challenges in the remarks they made.

I too would like to start by thanking the Under-Secretary-General Ladsous and the three Police Commissioners of police components for their briefings. I would also like to thank you, Mr. President, for convening a meeting in the same format one year after the meeting on the topic of the protection of civilians in United Nations peace operations (see S/PV.7317). When one is talking about the protection of civilians, it is always apt to recall that the principal responsibility for the protection of civilians belongs with the host country. It is good to bear that in mind. Nothing that we say here takes mitigates the responsibility of the host country in that area. Having said that, obviously the United Nations, and more specifically the police and gendarmerie components of peacekeeping operations, can have a central role to play, in particular in putting all necessary measures in place when they are needed. We have talked a great deal about the means and capacities that are necessary to enable the United Nations police to carry out their missions. Of course, as many have said, the training issue comes into play. Beyond that, there is also the issue of harmonization and consistency. We have to prevent the norms and practices that the police-contributing countries transfer to the host countries from varying too much from one contributor to another. I welcome the work on the development of operational standards and guidelines carried out by the Police Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations for several years. That is important, even essential, to ensure the performance of the police dimension of peacekeeping operations. The linguistic dimension is another central issue. Here once again, if we want to ensure that peacekeeping operations perform well, we must deploy police officers and gendarmes who speak the language and know the culture of the country to which they are deployed. That is absolutely essential in order to facilitate the relationship with the population and to guarantee performance, in particular with regard to the training carried out by the United Nations police. Lastly, many speakers have said this but it merits repeating, there is a gender element. We must deploy a greater number of female police officer to facilitate relations with the population, especially those who are most exposed to human rights abuses  — women and children — and they certainly bring a value added to sexual violence investigations. I will listen with great interest to the answer to the question posed by the Ambassador of Lithuania on the experience that each of the Police Commissioners has had with their female police contingent. I will conclude with several brief comments and questions. First, I wish to emphasize that, just like the military component, United Nations police should not wait for attacks to happen to intervene. Instead, they should be proactive and ready to take action, through the setting up of prevention and rapid-response mechanisms in situations in which civilian populations are under threat. Secondly, I would stress the importance of the issue of the penal chain. The Security Council, when it went to Haiti on mission last January, was truly shocked to see to what extent the judiciary and penal component in Haiti was, shall we say, in ruins. There was a stark contrast between the considerable and effective effort that had been made by the police and the total lack of engagement by the host country in particular on judiciary and penal issues. I think that it is vital to have a comprehensive view of the penal chain in order to ensure its effectiveness. This is of course not the case only for peacekeeping operations, and it is not the responsibility of the United Nations alone. But I think that all stakeholders must have a comprehensive view of the penal chain so as to avert situations such as the one we saw in Haiti. Lastly, a question was asked about modern technologies. They are essential, of course, and can play an important role in terms of warning and evidence-gathering. The Lithuanian Ambassador also asked a question on this issue. I would be interested in hearing how Commissioners have been able to use these technologies. I believe that General Champion said that he no longer used them. Why is that, and what does he need in order to be able to use them to a greater extent? I would ask one last question of General Champion, since the light is not yet blinking. A very specific part of his briefing related to the strategy to combat insecurity that he put together in Beni. He very clearly underscored the need to take an integrated approach to the protection of civilians by showing that this was the only effective means of doing so. Having said that, we are aware that his resources and equipment are limited and that police mandates in peacekeeping operations are increasingly multidimensional. They are being given many tasks: to protect communities, ensure the continuing training of their own police and of local police, and build capacity. I am sure that he has to prioritize and make choices, and I would be interested in hearing what criteria he uses in order to allocate his resources.

Mr. President, let me join others in thanking you for having convened this briefing. I wish also to thank Under-Secretary-General Hervé Ladsous for his informative remarks. We owe a great debt to the Police Commissioners for the first- hand knowledge they have provided to us in their briefings, especially the insights they have given us on the civilian police in the protection of civilians. Nigeria recognizes the significant role of police in United Nations peacekeeping and continues to deploy its police personnel in support of United Nations operations. We have deployed formed police units in the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali; and we have deployed individual police officers in UNMIL, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan and the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire. One vital aspect of police work in the framework of peacekeeping is community policing. The regular engagement by the police with local communities and their leaders is crucial to addressing disorder and criminality. These and other mandated activities serve to enhance trust and confidence between the police and the people they serve. Indeed, it lays the foundation for the performance of other police functions, especially the protection of civilians and crime control. This brings me to the issue of accountability. Guidelines for the conduct of mission personnel, both civilian and military police, are always clearly delineated at the first instance. The challenge lies, therefore, in identifying the appropriate entity to enforce discipline. Nigeria believes that as the State bears responsibility for training and equipping its personnel, it must also take charge of enforcing discipline when infractions are proved. We underscore the imperative of ensuring that offenders, especially those who engage in sexual exploitation and the abuse of women and children, are brought to justice. The Secretary-General’s zero- tolerance policy for such offenses must be enforced scrupulously and without exception. In terms of human rights and the protection of civilians in a peacekeeping context, police officers play a vital role. We acknowledge the incremental improvements in the levels of resource provision and training provided by the United Nations to enable this role. This support must be sustained with a greater focus on understanding, and I want to emphasize this, regional geopolitics and other dimensions of the conflict in question. Several speakers before me have touched on the need for an increase in the deployment of women in police contingents. We all seem to accept this in principle, and we support increasing their numbers in police contingents and ensuring that they are properly and adequately equipped so as to ensure their effectiveness. As women bear the brunt of violent conflicts, we believe that women police officers are better placed to appreciate their challenges and mitigate their plight. Women should therefore be sufficiently represented in all efforts to investigate and prosecute alleged perpetrators of sexual exploitation and abuse in the context of peacekeeping. It is also important to deepen the level of consultation and collaboration with police-contributing countries so as to clarify the responsibilities, demands and necessary skill sets required of its personnel. To achieve this, there must be appropriate training, so as to inculcate international best practices and standards on a continuous basis. We note the outcomes of the recent reviews initiated by the Secretary-General on peacekeeping. What remains to be done, we believe, is implementing them in a manner that will enhance the accomplishment of their mandates, especially as they pertain to the protection-of-civilians mandate. It is our hope that the challenges faced by individual police officers and formed police units in the context of peacekeeping missions will be addressed comprehensively. This is critical to empower them and ensure the overall success of United Nations peacekeeping. The question our delegation would ask is this: how receptive have communities been to women police, and what are the challenges that these women face on the ground?

We thank you, Mr. President, for having convened this meeting. We welcome the presence of the Under-Secretary- General for Peacekeeping Operations, Mr. Hervé Ladsous, and the Police Commissioners of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United Nations Mission in Liberia. We take this opportunity to thank them on behalf of our country for the work they are doing in peacekeeping operations. The tasks carried out by the United Nations police are divided into three key areas. The first involves providing assistance to host countries in the area of the rule of law through police services. Secondly, in countries with a more limited infrastructure, the police carry out tasks on a short-term basis, including law enforcement. And thirdly, they can have the function of supporting reform and restructuring efforts and, at times, creating a new national police service or other type of service that is then responsible for law enforcement in the country concerned. We would like to focus in particular on the third case, in which efforts are deployed to support the reform, restructuring or creation of police services in host States. I cite our experience of the work undertaken by the police component of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) — whose Police Commissioner I wish to commend  — which we feel is worth emulating. One of the primary tasks of a mission is to recruit national personnel to serve the cause of human rights and the rule of law, and to ensure that they are not vulnerable to organized crime and international crime. The police component of MINUSTAH has fulfilled that task successfully, as we saw during our visit in January. Another critical task that has proven to be a challenge to all police missions is establishing a corpus of national officials of the host country capable of effectively assuming the tasks of the police component and of undertaking the important job of interacting with the civilian population it is charged with protecting. This will give it the confidence to addressing the language, ethnic, religious and cultural barriers it needs to overcome in order to meet these objectives. We also feel that it is extremely important that the competencies of the military and police components be clearly defined. They are two completely difficult things, in particular when it comes to ensuring appropriate treatment for criminal matters and the maintenance of public order, with a special emphasis on preventive action. Another important aspect is strengthening and establishing, alongside the host country, an adequate legal framework for duly defining police action, crime-fighting, respect for human rights, accoutability and the protection of civilians. We believe that gender equality cannot be addressed within police missions on an exceptional basis. On the contrary, we think that women must participate heavily in the protection of civilians, including women and children, accountability, the fight against sexual abuse and the necessary interaction with the local population. Women have a fundamental role to play in the prevention of crime and conflicts. Peacekeeping missions, and police missions in particular, must, from the very conception of their mandate, plan when and how to transfer their competencies to the national personnel of the host country. This is critical. We believe that a mission’s success depends on its ability to ensure the rule of law, the protection of civilians and the transfer of capacities to the host country itself. That is closely linked to the sovereignty of the countries that host peacekeeping missions, since they cannot remain in tutelage to the United Nations forever. Moreover, the Security Council is responsible for providing the material and technical support necessary to the work of police missions, as we do not believe that any technology is beyond the needs of certain countries. We must help to reduce trafficking in the small arms and light weapons that cause terrible damage and promote criminal activity, including drug trafficking and other international organized crime. However, we stress that in most countries that are host to peacekeeping operations, the root problem is the serious social and economic crises that arise in those countries. In Haiti, although crime is a major issue, by far the largest problems are linked to the awful social situation of the Haitian people. We must make every effort to overcome them. I do not believe that the police component of our peacekeeping operations could foresee that the source of many of the problems they face are the social situations of host countries. We fully endorse ongoing dialogue between the Security Council and troop-contributing countries on peacekeeping operations, in particular the planning and drafting of mandates in accordance with Article 44 of the Charter of the United Nations. We echo the desire expressed by representatives of countries that provide troops and police to peacekeeping operations to participate in the planning and drafting of mandates with the respective Force Commanders. In conclusion, we reiterate the importance of the role of police contingents of United Nations peace missions. Nonetheless, the Security Council must bear in mind that the United Nations police is an integral of peacekeeping operations and that the Council must in no way encroach on the mandate of the General Assembly, in particular the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations.

We thank you, Sir, for organizing today’s meeting. We also thank Mr. Hervé Ladous, Under- Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, and the three Police Commissioners of the United Nations missions in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia for their briefings. I also take this opportunity to thank all police officers working within the United Nations system for their selfless work, which they carry out in sometimes very difficult circumstances. The importance of the work of police officers in contemporary peacekeeping operations is not questioned by anyone. United Nations police, which is a conduit of the Organization’s peacekeeping work worldwide, play a substantial role in helping national authorities to assume their main responsibility for the protection of civilians. This is accomplished not only in the traditional formats of patrolling, observation and suppressing disturbances of public order, but also in growing the host country’s national law enforcement potential by assisting in security sector reform. Extending such assistance on behalf of the entire international community, the police and all United Nations peacekeepers must adhere strictly to Security Council mandates; abide by the basic principles of peacekeeping; respect the sovereignty of the host country, in particular the primacy of the national responsibility of States for establishing their own law enforcement; be impartial and not be the first to resort to force except in self-defence or under a special mandate of the Security Council. The nature of conflicts has grown increasingly complex in recent years, and peacekeeping operations have grown increasingly manifold as they are assigned ever-more burdensome tasks. Very good examples of this include the challenges faced by the United Nations Mission in Liberia in the outbreak of Ebola virus disease, and the need to protect civilians in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo when illegal armed gangs were rampant there. The role of the police component of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan has grown in response to the need to implement the peace agreement concluded in August. At a certain stage, the mandate of that Mission will probably have to include a resumption of State-building tasks in order to help the country to establish effective law enforcement bodies. In order to enhance the effectiveness of the police and other components of peacekeeping operations, the Council must ensure that every mandate issued or extended is carefully considered in the light of the specific conditions of the host country at the time when the decision is taken. We believe that a mere technical copy of settlement formulas will only exacerbate situations. The Council will be unable to adopt effective decisions unless it cooperates with host and contributing countries in that task. We also need to review police activities. Given the expansion of their tasks and scope, they too need to be duly reviewed in the light of the changes that arise in host countries. Increasing the effectiveness, rapid deployment and operational capacities of United Nations police can impact a peacekeeping operation’s ability to fulfilling its mandate in unpredictable situations. In that regard, we fully endorse the idea that it is necessary to strengthen communication and coordination among police contingents, local authorities and the military component of a mission, as well as among the various missions that operate within a region. In future, what we need to improve is the process of the organization and deployment of the police component of peacekeeping operations and of formed police units. We also need to optimize their equipment. Within that process, the Secretariat must very carefully take into account the opinions and recommendations of the police-contributing countries. Missions need to improve their planning and management, increase the effectiveness of their use of resources and avoid unnecessary expenditures and the duplication of functions. The United Nations should expand its activities aimed at strengthening the potential of police peacekeepers from the various regional organizations, first and foremost the African Union, and help them play a greater role in maintaining regional peace and stability. With regard to the gender aspect of peacekeeping, which has been widely discussed today, we are convinced that, as we seek balance in that area, we need to remember that the key factor remains the professional qualifications of the individual. Otherwise, if we simply try to reach numerical parity between genders, we could put at risk the civilian population of those countries that have requested international assistance. Twenty-five per cent of Russian police serving in peacekeeping operations are women. Russia contributes considerably to efforts to increase the effectiveness of United Nations police. Our training centre in Domodedovo has trained more than 350 foreign police peacekeepers, including commanding officers, from more than 50 countries all over the world, most of them African countries. Among them, more than 70 have been women. Russia has unique experience in the area of professionally preparing peacekeepers, and we would be happy to share that in future.

I thank Under-Secretary-General Ladsous and the Police Commissioners of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United Nations Mission in Liberia for their briefings. China pays tribute to United Nations peacekeeping police officers, who serve under difficult and complex circumstances, for their dedication and sacrifice. As a result of the diverse nature of conflicts and disputes, there has been a marked increase in United Nations peacekeeping policing mandates in recent years. China would like to make four points with regard to ensuring proper conduct in United Nations peacekeeping police units. First, peacekeeping police units must strictly implement the mandate of the Security Council, abide by the basic principles of United Nations peacekeeping and respect the sovereignty of the host State. While assisting the host country with its security-sector reform and its police capacity-building and training, United Nations police must fully respect the opinions of the host country, while also constructively providing training, advice and other support. Police units must also formulate work plans suited to the conditions of the host country, pay attention to communications and public advocacy and seek the understanding and support of the public of the host country. Secondly, efforts should be made to make peacekeeping policing more relevant. When deploying a peacekeeping operation, the Security Council should ensure that the mission’s mandate is viable and practical. The Council must clearly prioritize the mission’s tasks, and not attempt to cover everything in its mandate. The result of the peacekeeping-policing mandate should be evaluated in a timely manner. The mandated tasks and the scope of the deployment should be correspondingly adjusted in the light of the changes in the situation on the ground. Thirdly, there should be comprehensive improvement in the management of peacekeeping policing contingents. Peacekeeping operations should streamline and optimize procedures for their establishment, deployment and rotation, be more forward-looking, ensure better planning, optimize the set-up of the police component and utilize the limited resources available for maximum results. Concerning the rotation of police contingents and the transportation of equipment, police-contributing countries should be afforded more options and greater freedom. It is necessary to seek, and pay attention to, the opinions of police-contributing countries when adjusting the rotation of contingents Fourthly, capacity-building in peacekeeping policing should be strengthened. Peacekeeping missions should set up complete peacekeeping policing training mechanisms and ensure that the training helps police officers fulfil their mandate, implement their tasks and respond appropriately to various contingencies and emergency conditions and situations. Furthermore, peacekeeping missions should explore ways and means to improve and implement a system of performance evaluation in order to effectively monitor and assess the capacity for discipline and the equipment of their personnel so as to be able to implement dynamic management and ensure the quality of the police contingents. China dispatched its first peacekeeping police contingent to the United Nations in the year 2000, and it is now one of the major police-contributing countries of the United Nations. Last September, in the course of attending various United Nations summits, President Xi Jinping announced a number of concrete initiatives and measures that China will take to support United Nations peacekeeping operations. China is ready is undertake joint efforts with the international community to promote ongoing progress in United Nations peacekeeping policing efforts.

We thank this month’s United Kingdom presidency for convening this meeting with the heads of the police components of peacekeeping missions. We also welcome the Under-Secretary- General for Peacekeeping Operations and the Police Commissioners present in the Security Council Chamber today and thank them for their insightful remarks on the important mission entrusted to them. In recent years, the police components of peacekeeping and special political missions have greatly increased in number and scope — a development that illustrates the challenges facing missions and that reflects the changes in the character of conflicts and the growing number of threats, ranging from traditional security problems in cases of insurgencies and civil strife, to combating terrorism and the organized crime associated with it, to the insidious forms of asymmetrical conflicts. A common factor in all of them is that civilians become the main victims, and there has been an impressive toll of civilian casualties associated with egregious violations of their fundamental rights. Under such circumstances, the police components of peacekeeping operations play a crucial role in assisting host countries, as do the missions themselves in protecting civilian populations through the delivery of police services and in cooperating with, and providing expertise to, local authorities. They are also crucial in supporting security-sector reform and in restructuring, and quite often working to revive, collapsed national police forces and other law-enforcement structures. In some cases, namely, in weaker countries with a devastated social fabric, the rules of engagement of United Nations police also include law-enforcement duties. Police components thereby assume even greater relevance, as in many instances they are the first line of contact with local populations and play a crucial role in strengthening local police capacities. In addition to their mandate to protect civilians and provide security, United Nations police contribute to restoring trust between the population and the local police, which usually is shattered in conflict situations. In their core mission of protecting civilians, United Nations police seek to structure their activities around preventing and, if necessary, responding to situations where civilians are under the threat of physical violence. They also focus on creating a protective environment, which basically involves establishing a relationship of mutual trust with populations living under stressful conditions of insecurity, whose cooperation they need for the establishment of a more secure environment. Moreover, problems related to public order can ignite dangerous security situations, especially for women and children, which calls for special attention to gender issues by ensuring greater integration of women in United Nations policing as well as in national police forces. The presence of women in the United Nations police staff increases the ability of missions to strengthen trust with communities, especially with women. The role of police women is essential in creating an environment in which victims, including victims of rape or sexual violence, acquire a level of confidence to denounce crimes and report them. In that regard, we welcome the establishment of a project for training and selecting police women and the holding of training courses on gender. In conclusion, the extremely complex scenarios faced by United Nations policing underscores the need to increase the number of police deployed in order to implement United Nations peacekeeping mandates and special political missions in which the protection of civilians is a central feature. To ensure that peacekeeping objectives are fully met, it is important that police-contributing countries pay greater attention to selection, direction, staff training and skills before deployment, as all that is vital to establishing feasible relations between the host nation and United Nations police. I would like to address two questions to Mr. Gregory Hinds concerning the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). Since UNMIL is carrying out its exit strategy — and Mr. Hinds referred to the need for clarity between the Government and UNMIL in the transition period — will it be possible to ensure that police and law enforcement structures can manage effectively after the withdrawal of UNMIL? How are things proceeding with the joint development of a strategy for the reform of the Liberian police, the benchmarks for the transition and the exit strategy itself?

I join earlier speakers in thanking the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Mr. Hervé Ladsous, and the Deputy Police Commissioner of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, the Police Commissioner of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Police Commissioner of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) for their respective briefings, which we have listened to very carefully. In line with its strong commitment to United Nations peacekeeping, Malaysia has contributed personnel to all three Missions. I wish to begin by reaffirming Malaysia’s support for resolution 2185 (2014), which paved the way for the Council’s closer engagement with the men and women serving in the police components of United Nations peace operations, including through meetings such as these. We strongly support the convening of similar meetings in the future and hope that the discussion and outcome of this meeting will contribute to the Secretary-General’s report requested in paragraph 33 of resolution 2185 (2014). I wish to pay tribute to the bravery and sacrifice of United Nations police personnel in the field and to their commitment in discharging the mandates and responsibilities with which they have been entrusted by the United Nations in pursuit of lasting peace, security and stability in their respective theatres of operations. One of the most significant policy shifts concerning the scope and role of United Nations police operations relates to the protection of civilians, with increased emphasis on both the protection of women and girls, including protection from sexual and gender-based violence, and the protection of children in armed conflict  — mandates that we welcome and strongly support. In that regard, we also support the call by earlier speakers for the deployment of more women police personnel on the ground. Through individual police officers and formed police units (FPUs), United Nations police have a niche role, including through training and capacity-building, and in particular in assisting national authorities to uphold their primary responsibility for protecting civilians. In that context, Malaysia fully supports the efforts of United Nations police to enhance the accountability of national security forces as a means to further strengthen the rule of law. Once local police are empowered and the security sector is reformed over time, the United Nations can hand over the business of the maintenance of law and order to the Governments concerned. Malaysia recently pledged additional contributions to United Nations police. Specifically, it will contribute 280 officers and personnel from the Royal Malaysia Police to be deployed as two teams of FPUs, as well as 100 police officers and personnel to be deployed as individual police officers. Malaysia is currently working to deploy those officers as soon as possible. We agree with the view that the current ongoing review processes of United Nations peace operations, the United Nations peacebuilding architecture and the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000), on women and peace and security, present opportunities for effecting improvements to the operational capabilities and capacities of United Nations police and for better clarifying its role and functions, among other things. To that end, Malaysia looks forward to working with all interested partners and stakeholders. We also see much scope for enhancing interactions and consultations between the Council and the troop- and police-contributing countries. In support of your call, Mr. President, to keep this briefing meeting interactive and lively, I conclude at this juncture with three questions for the briefers. For Mr. Gregory Hinds, as the Mission is currently in drawdown mode, how has that affected, if at all, the tasks related to transferring responsibility to Liberian security institutions? If it has affected them, I request him to elaborate on the specific challenges faced and possible solutions to address them. I also ask him to elaborate on the experiences of UNMIL’s police component in implementing the protection-of-civilians mandate, including by its family protection unit. I ask the other Police and Deputy Police Commissioners to elaborate on how the use of technology such as social media and telecommunications equipment has, or has not, helped in discharging their respective mandates, in particular with regard to the rule of law and institution-strengthening activities.

I shall now make a statement in my capacity as the representative of the United Kingdom. I shall recap the questions that have been posed and invite the briefers to respond to those questions. As President, let me thank everyone for asking so many questions. There are too many, in fact, for the briefers to respond to all of them at this meeting today. Let me therefore extract from the discussion the three overarching themes of the questions, and ask our briefers to respond accordingly. The first theme has to do with the cooperation within the Missions among the police and other components as it relates to the protection of civilians. The second is the institutional framework, including our own role in the Security Council, for supporting policing as part of peace operations. The third relates to resources and capabilities for policing, including, crucially, the role of women in policing. Let me say a little more about each theme. Under the first theme, several of the questions are an important follow-up to the Secretary-General’s June report (S/2015/453) on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. I hope those questions will also be a key part of the upcoming independent police review. For instance, how effective is cooperation between police and other force components when dealing with the protection of civilians? Are the rules of engagement clear? Do they differ between the police and the force? To what extent do police components coordinate with political affairs sections within missions, in particular on issues such as electoral violence? With regard to the second theme — the institutional framework  — the starting point is that the police component of peacekeeping is quite often neglected as compared to others. We should therefore think creatively about the part that policing can play in resolving instability. Is resolution 2185 (2014) fully effective? What more do the heads of the police components need from the Council? What more needs to be done to ensure that the mission leadership understands the role of United Nations policing? There is a lot of support for having this briefing every year, and we look forward to working with the presidency of Senegal at this time next year. Many questions were also raised about resources and the capabilities of policing. Some were directed at specific Commissioners, which I will not recap now; I will leave the Commissioners to respond to them. There were alaso a number of questions about the important role of women in policing, as well as comments about the strategic guidance framework. Finally, some questions were about the use of technology, other equipment and management. I will now give the floor to the briefers for responses to the questions posed and for any other remarks that they may wish to make. I give the floor first to Mr. Ladsous. Mr. Ladsous: I thank you, Mr. President, for putting the numerous questions into focus. I would first like to thank all the members for their comments. I think they reflect a real interest in what our police components are doing, as is fully justified. As the Council knows, the Secretary-General has proposed an external review of United Nations police. That is a review in which we will engage thoroughly, because it represents an important opportunity to improve on a number of the points that were mentioned, including intra-mission cooperation. As I said it in my initial remarks, we have made a lot of progress. With regard to the protection of civilians, for example, the fact that police components interact on a daily basis with senior protection advisers of the Special Representatives of the Secretary-General and with specialists on children and women seems to me as it should be. Protection can nevertheless be improved, and it should be. Taking up the specific question of women, let me say that there has been progress. Clearly, though, there has not been enough. At present, women make up 12.2 per cent of the United Nations police, which is substantial progress as compared to the situation 10 years ago, when they made up only 5 per cent. Two questions, however, arise. The first one is the extent to which 12 per cent reflects the make-up of police forces throughout the world. Were we to use an average country as an example — whether from the North, the South, the East or the West — we would come up with a similar statistic. That is a fact. It is easy to arrive at a 20 per cent women component in terms of a national contribution. However, as that relates to an extremely small figure, I am not certain that it is convincing. I completely agree that we have to continue to improve on that count. We have increased that percentage over the past four to five years, and we will continue to do so to the extent that it is possible. Another topic has to do with all-female police units, which, as I said previously, have proved their worth. I am happy that, at the last peacekeeping summit, several countries made offers of all-female units. I remember that Nigeria, Bangladesh and Rwanda made offers. I hope that by the time of the next United Nations chiefs-of-police summit, next spring, new pledges will have been made. Let me address some of the issues raised. Two years ago. we launched an initiative under which selection assistance and assessment teams train and subsequently select well-trained female officers with specific skill sets. That initiative has already yielded 260 women recommended for deployment, with 161 actually deployed. There will be another such programme in the Niger, where 187 women participants have already been registered. As one can see, things are progressing, although perhaps not to the extent that we would like. The toolkits involving gender issues are proving their worth in terms of mainstreaming, capacity-building and eradicating sexual and gender-based violence. The training package consisting of exercises that are based on case studies and scenarios. It is essentially e-learning, but it is proving effective and, moreover, helps in building the capacity of the police of the host State. We have gender focal points in all missions, and they were here this week for the launching of the gender toolkit. We have been able to put together some extrabudgetary funding for a general adviser here alongside Police Commissioner Feller, which I think will be very worthwhile. Finally, let me make a couple of very general points. First, I want the police, as I want my entire Department, to be constantly adaptable and innovative, as we had to be in the case of new arrangements in the Central African Republic, which were demonstrated by the Bangui task force. Sometimes things work, and sometimes they do not. While we need to make adjustments from time to time, we need to persevere in our efforts. A very important element in all of that is technology, which not only relates to unmanned aerial vehicle drones. It is also a question of better information and intelligence in order to know what is happening around us. It is about better communications. And it is also about specialized capabilities. We have created the only forensic laboratory in Mali that is able to deal with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and mines. In that regard, we are doing much better in terms of finding those responsible for placing IEDs intended for our units on the ground. That is only one example out of many. We have to continue in our efforts concerning formed police units (FPUs). The concept is adapted to the situation and basically works well, but I think that it can be improved. I am often struck by the percentage of staff members whose work is devoted to self- sustainment in an FPU, which numbers approximately 140 individuals. That is to say that the number of people who do the actual work that the personnel of an FPU are supposed to do is not at 100 per cent — in fact, it is sometimes substantially less. We therefore need to work on that issue. Lastly, problems of sexual exploitation and abuse are as unacceptable in police departments as they are in the military and civilian components. We continue to deal with those problems with increasing severity. Zero tolerance is an absolute necessity, but the goal has to be zero incidents. While we probably have some distance to go before achieving that goal, all of my colleagues and I are nevertheless fully committed to doing so. We want to very substantially reduce the number of deplorable situations we have had to face, including some in the recent past.

I now give the floor to Mr. Bent. Mr. Bent: I thank the members of the Security Council again for their kind remarks, their obvious support for United Nations police and their concerns about our operations within peacekeeping. I probably will not be able to answer all the questions, but I will try to. At the outset of the conflict, intra-Mission cooperation was very tenuous. We were engaged in capacity-building, which was mostly unrestricted. Everybody focused on his or her own area of importance, and there was not much integration. When the conflict started and forced us to all come together, making the world a lot smaller, there appeared to be some stepping on toes and some conflicts of interest in the cooperative relationships among the different components. There was a lack of clarity on the issue of primacy and focus. One must remember that, during that interim period, we had no adjusted mandate. During that gap, United Nations police tried to push forward without restrictions, with the knowledge that we needed to maintain some type of policing and control of the growing camps. During that time, we started to identify our own inabilities, with a view to addressing, through policy and procedure, exactly what we could and could not do, and we learned how to tie it all together. With regard to the rules of engagement, we knew that we needed to focus internally and that the force needed to focus externally. We had trouble securing the porous perimeters of the sites because of a lack of resources, inadequate fencing and an inadequate ability to observe the perimeters day and night. Weapons were being sneaked in  — including machetes and knives — and we therefore quickly had to combine with the force contingent directly in order to handle some of those situations. With respect to protective gear, we asked for it up-front in January 2014. And we pushed for it again, because many police-contributing countries cannot provide such equipment. We lacked it, so we were at risk. We were trying to rely on the minimal formed police units (FPUs) that we received in-mission and on the force contingent. That is where the rules of engagement began to become apparent. When FPUs were unable to engage quickly to get into position in the presence of an armed component that required the use of higher force in a situation they could not control  — and in many such situations we have had armed opponents with knives and machetes, throwing rocks or beating us with sticks, which meant that we were suffering injuries — we often had to withdraw. It is not simply a matter of having 20 or 30 formed police units armed with weapons that one thinks can defend itself and control the situation. We are talking about hundreds of civilians surrounding them with machetes, knives, rocks and sticks, even jumping and biting. The decision to use force to protect themselves becomes a very critical issue because of why we are there in the first place. Sometimes such escalation occurs just on a whim. Anything can ignite them. As soon as you lay hands on someone who is beating a woman and try to pull him off, you can suddenly be surrounded by 20 or 30 of his supporters who want to know why you are taking that person away. Thus the rules of engagement became very critical. We tried to address that through a standard operating procedure in responding to such incidents. But we found that the force contingent was correct in the view that it should not engage the civilian population and that its only capacity in most of its work with us was to support us in containing an area of conflict and locking it down. Most of what the force cotingent does is to help us form a perimeter and shut down a site. It comes in and extracts us from a perimeter whenever we have an issue. If I have a team that is cut off inside a site and things get to the point where the team is suffering injuries that require the use of deadly force — which has happened, and deadly force has not been used — the force contingent does not come in with a higher level of escalation; they come back in with containment and control. That leaves us vulnerable to an apparent abuse of force. We are not properly equipped. We do not have the resources to go into a site such as Bentiu, which has 121,000 internally displaced persons, with 30 FPUs to control a situation where 200 or 300 people may be rioting. The dynamics of some of the content of the mandates therefore become almost irrelevant. We have been working intra-mission to coordinate. But it is incredibly dynamic, in part due to the institutional framework. Within a mandate, we can have statement that says “by any and all means necessary within your resources and capabilities in areas of deployment”. What exactly does that mean? Is your area of deployment South Sudan? Is your area of deployment the protection-of-civilians site you are assigned to? Is your area of deployment the specific purpose you came to the mission to perform? In the first parse of that, we had people who came to the mission for capacity-building. They were not there to carry out any engagement with civilians. Yet for almost a year we had to reassign them to do something with which they were not comfortable and for which they were not trained. Those things get very critical. Resources and capability come into play too, because the training is not as simple as training people to come to a mission. You have to train them for the environment they are in. And you have to train them, within that environment, for what they are up against. In the first stages, we realized that our induction training was inadequate for when people came to the mission. I am not saying that the external training was inadequate, but we had to get them to understand what they were going to be facing when they came to the mission. We adjusted our induction training to focus on the protection of civilians, women’s protection, sexual and gender-based violence and dealing with the locals as separate ethnic groups. Along with that, we also started to request more females. We had always been in search of female police officers, but we needed more because, as has been pointed out by several members of the Council, women have a unique advantage in those sites, where we are dealing with a population that is primarily made up of women and children. We had to have some way to take advantage of that and leverage it, so we asked all the police-contributing countries to provide as many women as they could. We were at 20 per cent at one time, but I believe our numbers are sliding down below 18 per cent now. That is not enough. One point I would like to make in that regard is that we also have to look at the fact that we are dealing with a very harsh environment: people are working outside in the elements, with a hostile group present and females going unprotected. There are not enough FPUs to work with the groups that focus on protecting women and children. We put them in and expose them to great danger, without giving them the protection they need to comfortably do their jobs. I think it may be for that reason that some countries have started to reduce their contributions. No one feels good about asking people to volunteer for a mission and then putting them in harm’s way. And while we do have a gender focal point, we also have to deal with rotations. Taking in and training someone as a gender focal point and then having her rotate out eight months later means that there is no longevity. We have been asking for team packages in order to address some of those issues. We are short on resources and personnel, and we need to make the most of the limited resources we have available. That is what we have been trying to do in restructuring the entire mission, specifically United Nations police, so as to put in place dedicated teams for the specific areas we have to address. We have teams for public order, which are made up of a combination of United Nations police and FPUs. We have teams for community policing, which do nothing but work with community watch groups  — nationals at the sites. And we have teams on gender and child violence. We are working very well with those teams, but the dynamics are immense. I would therefore ask again that we look at this as a package. We need to focus on what we absolutely need to get done. In a sense, capacity-building takes place from the top and the bottom at the same time. Building from the bottom up takes too long, but if we do not structure it correctly it will collapse. In fact, it collapsed right after the conflict began. We need to have clarity on this matter, and we need to take the time to do it right as we put the pieces together. Many of the missions I have been involved in suffer from diluted potential because we start to move too quickly. I believe we were doing that prior to the conflict. That is what we are hoping to do now in this case, and what we have been trying to do through these regimented programmes that focus on community-oriented policing and the protection of civilians.

I now give the floor, very briefly, to Mr. Champion.

With regard to the role of women, last year we set up a very active United Nations police women’s committee, and this year I appointed a very dynamic woman as gender equality adviser. Through our action plan to protect the victims of electoral violence, which consists of 120 points for the next two years, we have been trying for the past two months to figure out how we can fully integrate a gender perspective across our work. That is not an easy undertaking given the role of women in the Congo, but we are working on it and it is very motivating. With respect to sexual violence and abuse, since the month of August we have obviously made an extremely great effort under the leadership of our Special Representative of the Secretary-General. I would just like to note that we have put in place a mechanism for reporting any allegation of sexual violence or abuse to the Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic People’s Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) within three hours. I think this is the key to a number of other mechanisms, since the disciplinary unit is also informed within in the same time period. On the use of new technologies, in particular drones, the police use of unarmed drones last year showed some promise with respect to maintaining public order, monitoring of illegal barriers, deterrence of crime in urban areas and a range of police-oriented aspects as to the use of these new technologies. If we have reduced our use this year, it is because priority must be given to military use for dealing with a number of armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, particular the Allied Democratic Forces, the Forces de résistance patriotiques en Ituri and the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda. A second reason for the reduction in the use of drones by police is that we also have to recruit police officers who have a certain sensitivity on the police use of unarmed drones, give them some training on the ground and follow up on and manage them in a somewhat specific manner. But it is a subject that we have naturally not set aside. With respect to organized transnational crime which is connected to one of the questions that was raised in the context of the very prescriptive versus somewhat flexible mandates adopted by the Security Council, I would say that, in the context of the current MONUSCO mandate, the trafficking of natural resources is an important subject. We do not necessarily see the mandate as very prescriptive in terms of requiring the MONUSCO police to work specifically on serious organized crime. Indeed, in bringing all of these items together in the context of budgetary constraints, I would say that the right balance has to be found, first, to take into account that, as stated in the mandate, there is a problem involving the trafficking of natural resources. Secondly, there are budgetary constraints and, under the traditional mandate of the United Nations police in terms of capacity-building, serious organized crime is one of the elements of the judicial police and as such those aspects cannot be completely overlooked. I believe, therefore, that we must find the right balance of resource allocation. For our part, we are currently dedicating four MONUSCO police officers with some limited resources, but they still manage to have an impact and, in terms of civilian and military coordination, it is possible, for example, to have some aspects of this effort linked with those of the military component of MONUSCO beyond dealing with armed groups in eastern Congo, as the aim of our general approach on the serious organized crime is to work on a national scale.

I now give the floor to Mr. Hinds. Mr. Hinds: I thank Council members for their questions, praise and recognition of the work that we are doing in some of these tough peacekeeping environments. First, with respect to institutional frameworks and mandates, as discussed, we need clear, credible and achievable mandates that are matched by sufficient resources, whether it be in terms of logistics, mandates or guidance so that we can implement the mandates. We would also like to see a greater role for the Security Council in engendering the political will that is necessary and the commitment that needs to be undertaken by host States in relation to working in partnership in achieving the mandates and at times providing some tough love to make sure that the hosts actually do come on board and are part of the political process and making sure that a mission and its mandate can actually be achieved. We need to ensure that the tasks are prioritized, well understood and based on the necessary building blocks for peace and security and stability in each of the countries concerned. As the Council can see today, they do differ. As far as what United Nations policing brings to these mandates, a better understanding of resolution 2185 (2014) would ensure that the resolution is put to its greatest effect when the Council is devising new mandates. It would also assist us in thinking creatively about what policing brings to the continuum of peacemaking, peacebuilding and peacemaking/ peacebuilding processes and in ensuring that we are more accountable for the delivery on our mandates. A better understanding of resolution 2185 (2014) would also ensure that the police advisers who are part of permanent missions are fully utilized. In the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), we have more than 20 police advisers from more than 90 police-contributing countries. The Council needs to look into tapping into that resource as part of its deliberations and discussions because they truly understand what the police bring into peacekeeping operations. On the second issue of gender and resources, I will just touch on the basics. Mine is actually one of the missions that has an all-female formed police unit, from India. We are very lucky to have it and grateful for it. I think it provides and demonstrates and showcases the opportunities that are presented for women in peacekeeping and peacemaking roles. It really demonstrates equality. They stand equally beside men and women of other formed police units, those of our force and those of our civilian counterparts. They really do have an impact, particularly for the women and children in the areas of the protection of the civilians whom they serve. There is a much more nurturing and caring bond between them and the communities where they serve. I think our current representation in missions, as mentioned, mirrors our national and domestic policing institutions globally. I have to say with some regret that I have only 20 per cent female officers as my individual police officers and slightly fewer in my formed police units, but we have created an environment in the Mission and a leadership culture that provides opportunities based on fairness and equity to allow everyone regardless of gender to reach their full potential. But in this Mission it is also an opportunity to stretch and grow our female officers, to give them opportunities that they may not have been gotten in their own countries, build their capacity and further enhance the skills, knowledge and expertise that they bring to the Mission while maximizing and optimizing what their contribution. We are very fortunate that we have our men and our women, but we are especially lucky to have the women, as they are incredible role models, not only within the communities where we serve, but also with their national counterparts, showing that women do have a significant role to play in communities and in security services. Lastly, I would touch upon some of the questions specific to Liberia and its readiness during transition. As the Council knows, the Government of Liberia has a security transition plan. the Council having urged it to adopt one in resolution 2190 (2014). There has been steady progress in this area. However, focus on process has been greater than on implementation. Through the Mission, through the broad range of United Nations partners on the ground and most importantly through the international community we are stepping up urgency with respect to the ways in which we can provide support and help the Government to achieve the benchmarks and the timelines that have been put in place for their transition and for their peace consolidation plan. The Liberia National Police (LNP) has had the primary responsibility for in-country policing, regardless of the United Nations Mission’s presence. Our role has been to develop, build capacity and reform, as well as to support them operationally and intervene in situations that have got beyond their control. Encouragingly, we have been seeing less and less of that being required. What do they need? They need to be capacitated. They need the necessary tools, resources and equipment to do their jobs. That is an area where Member States can look to support the Government of Liberia, since some of what is needed is currently beyond its capacity and resource abilities, given the fact that the country is also recovering from Ebola, which had a significant impact. There is a saying: “It is time to go.” That has been absorbed by the LNP. We are starting to see in it a national pride and ownership in relation to the transition, and an attitude that is looking to move the process forward. We will continue to work with the LNP to build the trust and confidence in communities that will be an important part of the country’s security and stability. The future of Liberia is in Liberian hands. We are working to support that and to contribute the timely effort needed to ensure that it is ready for the transition of security in eight months’ time. We look forward to having the support of the Security Council and Member States in achieving that aim alongside the Mission.

I thank all four briefers for taking our questions and responding with such useful insights, so that together we can go on with our work to continually improve United Nations peacekeeping. It is clear that we have a healthy appetite for continuing these discussions. We have not been able to fully answer every question raised, but I hope that the conversations will continue so that we can do so. I encourage the Commissioners to continue to tell us exactly how they feel, to tell us about their experiences in the field, on the front lines and in the most vulnerable communities. I would also like to thank my colleagues on the Council for their comments and questions. There are no more names inscribed on the list of speakers.