110 RESULTS

By Fred Carver, Head of Policy, United As the Sahel Nations Association – UK he UN deploys peacekeepers to 15 locations around the world. becomes Sahara TEight of those missions, including the five largest ones, exist in a belt across northern sub-Saharan Africa: in Western What happens when habitable land is lost? What Sahara, in Liberia, in Mali, in the Central can be done to alleviate the consequences? African Republic (CAR), in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Darfur, in Abyei and in South Sudan. Collectively these missions represent over 80 per cent of the UN’s budget and personnel for peacekeeping and, as a consequence, the lion’s share of the UN’s

CLIMATE 2020 RESULTS 111

UN peacekeepers from Rwanda patrol the city of subtly different purposes. Political missions Gao in northern Mali. The presence of peacekeepers may be able to substitute for peacekeeping in the country has probably prevented genocide when it comes to preventing a return to war, but that is increasingly a secondary purpose of modern missions. grievances, as inequality shifts from being a matter of justice to one of future security, Lessons learned and potentially one of existence. States’ When it comes to ‘peacebuilding’ – the confidence in economic growth and stability reconstruction of sustainable mechanisms falters, and they seek out the plunder and and infrastructure for a long-term reduction insider unity that conflict brings. in violence – and the prevention of Meanwhile apocalyptic cults (in Congo atrocities, there is no obvious substitute for and Mali) and secessionist groups (in UN peacekeeping missions. CAR and the Sudans) alike become more The record of UN peacekeepers on both appealing, as the disincentives to instability fronts is mixed but improving. A recent become less readily apparent. Young men study by the Rand Corporation, The UN’s (and increasingly women too) with less Role in Nation-Building, found that UN to lose and less to farm see fewer reasons peacekeepers outperform unilateral and/ not to take up arms. Much as Bambang or military interventions when it comes to Susantono has argued in his article on Asia state-building. (see page 48), in northern sub-Saharan As for preventing atrocities, peacekeeping Africa global warming hasn’t yet directly has learned the lessons of Rwanda and caused wars, but it has provided a more Srebrenica rather better than its political hospitable climate for them. masters. Modern missions have the mandate It is a phenomenon that could well creep and resources those missions lacked. What yet further south. Northern Nigeria and the they don’t always have is a Security Council greater Lake Chad basin, Eritrea and Kenya with the foresight to deploy them ahead of have all demonstrated the existence of risk the outbreak of violence. factors identified in the UN’s framework of Granted, the record is far from flawless. analysis for atrocity crimes. It seems likely Too often, Member States fail to provide the therefore that the stresses on the UN’s UN with sufficiently trained and equipped peace and security apparatus are only going troops. The UN internal investigation into to increase, particularly in this region. Yet violence in Juba in 2016 found that a force at the same time powerful forces, led by but of some 19,000 peacekeepers were unable not limited to the United States, are keen to protect civilians from atrocity crimes

© Marco Dormino/UN Photo Dormino/UN © Marco to reduce the size, scope and, notably, costs that took place just one mile from their associated with UN peacekeeping. base, yet a small handful of private security overall investment in peace and security contractors were. Why? What makes this particular crescent Peacebuilding initiatives A few hundred willing and capable troops of the world so particularly in need of the Thus far the Secretary-General has been could perform a more useful function than UN’s resources and attention? looking for the solution ‘upstream’. By many thousands of peacekeepers who lack There are, of course, a multitude of investing in mediation and pre-emptive the skills or motivation, and would also be reasons in each case and in no single instance peacebuilding initiatives, such as enhanced a good deal cheaper. However, elite troops was climate change the primary cause. and strengthened political missions, he with the skillset required to perform this However, it is certainly a contributory factor is hoping to reduce the need for future role are in short supply. Many hail from common to every single situation. expensive peacekeeping missions. This logic nations who have not been enthusiastic In recent years drought, desertification is sound, and were the situation static such an about volunteering them for UN duty. and soil loss have seen the Sahara creep approach would doubtless be effective. But as Nevertheless, UN peacekeepers have, south into the Sahel, and the Sahel in turn the Sahel turns into the Sahara he may find in all probability, prevented genocide in creep south into the Sudanian Savanna. these efforts going against a tide of sand. CAR and Mali, and significantly reduced Scarcity has followed, exacerbating Additionally, mediation and political the number and nature of atrocity crimes in existing power imbalances and providing missions are not a like-for-like replacement many other countries. Few missions have an incentive to act upon longstanding to peacekeeping. The approaches serve come in for as much criticism as UNAMID

CLIMATE 2020 112 RESULTS

– the joint African Union and UN mission to Darfur – and yet even in Darfur the United Nations Peacekeeping operations in Africa value of the mission is clear. As a teacher in North Darfur told Waging Peace in a report UN UNA-UK co-authored: “The bottom line is that the force can still manage to save some 472 lives and protect some of the population 1 UN from rape and torture, as well as report 14,321 UN atrocities.” Another Darfuri, in conversation 19,685 with the International Refugee Rights 2 UN Initiative, was even more succinct and gave UN them the title for their report: “No one on 5 4,769 1,622 UN the Earth cares if we survive except God and UN UN 6 sometimes UNAMID.” 13,633 15,991 Peacekeeping should therefore continue 3 4 395 to play a role in the region for some time 7 8 to come, and we would do well to maintain UN a sense of perspective about the cost. Around $7 billion a year may seem like a 22,283 lot, but it represents just 0.5 per cent of 9 total military spending globally. It pales into insignificance when compared to the other costs of what broadly should be considered 1 MINURSO 4 UNOCI 7 MINUSCA climate change adaptation and mitigation. Western Sahara Côte D’Ivoire Central African Republic 2 MINUSMA 5 UNAMID 8 UNMISS Smoothing the transition? Mali Darfur South Sudan But is peacekeeping a tool for adaptation? 3 UNMIL 6 UNISFA 9 MONUSCO Partly it depends on what we need to adapt Liberia Abyei Democratic Rep. of Congo to. If the Paris Agreement is successful then Figures show total personnel, civilian, police and military for June 2017. UNAMID is an African Union-UN hybrid operation. temperatures will rise by about 2°C over Source: United Nations Department of Public Information, in consultation with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the next 80 years and then hold steady. In Department of Field Support and Department of Management the short term that would see desertification continue and increase, and both the Sahara While the latter would require a completely that climate change will bring it will not, and Sahel move southwards. new global politics of migration and by itself, provide a just post-warming In the long term there is no consensus: asylum, and Herculean work by the already settlement for the region. the situation could stabilise with new overstretched UN High Commission for An (expensive) ongoing peacekeeping southern boundaries; or feedback effects Refugees, peacekeeping could provide part of presence or investment in robust institutions could see the region rendered a largely the answer to smoothing out the bumps and may keep the lid on hostilities for a while. uninhabitable extreme desert; or warming tensions of a less radical transition. But as the Sahara grows ever larger, pressure temperatures could see a reversal of the This cannot happen in isolation. will build and tensions will climb ever monsoon cycle and the region actually Conceptually, peacekeepers don’t end higher, eventually reaching bursting point becoming more fertile. If warming cannot conflict. They impose order but, as Stathis along familiar fault lines. This is unless a be held to 2°C then the region is much less Kalyvas has argued, order is not the process of development and, crucially, a likely to remain habitable. opposite of violence but simply a form of more equitable politics enables the creation The UN therefore needs to support the formalised violence. Thus, peacekeeping of a sustainable regional society better able region to go through – at the very least – provides a mechanism for de-escalation by to adapt to a warmer, dustier, future. decades of relative resource scarcity and formalising conflict and so legitimises and Peacekeeping can buy time, and curb the a permanent shift in geographic resource cements post-conflict power relations. But worst excesses of human behaviour. But, allocation (which will lead to political, social if those power relations remain exploitative, in the long term, if desertification is not and cultural tensions, which are likely to spill unjust and unequal then the ingredients for brought to a halt, and if existing resources over into multiple conflicts) and – at most future conflict remain. are not allocated more equitably, then the – the organised evacuation of most of the Peacekeeping is not peacemaking, Sahara will push a wave of conflict before it region (and other parts of the planet to boot). and while it can smooth the transition as it marches southwards.

CLIMATE 2020