May 29- International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers

The day has two purposes:

to honour the memory of the UN peacekeepers who have lost their lives in the cause of peace;

to pay tribute to all the men and women who have served and continue to serve in UN peacekeeping operations for their high level of professionalism, dedication and courage.

On 29 May, UN offices, alongside Member States and non-governmental organizations, hold solemn events to honour fallen peacekeepers. Since the first UN peacekeeping mission was established in 1948, more than 3,100 military, police and civilian personnel have lost their lives in the service of peace as a result of acts of violence, accidents and disease.

International peace and security needs are changing rapidly and this year we are using Peacekeepers Day to focus on how UN Peacekeeping is ‘Adapting to new challenges’.

UN Peacekeeping is being given new mandates to meet new challenges. We are being asked to deploy in new operating environments such as Mali, a vast desert nation where international terrorists continue to threaten national sovereignty and local people.

In response we are developing innovative approaches to get the job done in the most challenging conditions. For example the deployment of an ‘Intervention Brigade’ and the use of ‘Unarmed Aerial Vehicles’in the DR Congo.

More than ever, UN Peacekeeping is a flexible tool. While we are increasingly called upon to deploy large-scale multidimensional peacekeeping operations, we remain flexible enough to rapidly deploy small-scale monitoring missions, such as in Syria in 2012.