The UN will spend in excess of $8bn on its peacekeeping
missions this year, an increase of 17% on 2015. The overall budget is
equivalent to 1.4% of US defence spending. The US was able to spend the
equivalent of the entire peacekeeping budget on 34 F35 strike fighters. There
are more than 100,000 peacekeepers wearing the blue helmet in 16 missions
across the world, from Kosovo in eastern Europe to western Sahara in north
Africa.
The budget for all medical care for the missions in 2016
stands at a little over $47m. To put that in context, a little known project
known as “enterprise resource planning project” is budgeted for $31m this year,
the equivalent of two-thirds of the medical budget. The project’s stated aim to
“streamline administrative practices and boost efficiency throughout the
organisation”. Medics in peacekeeping missions have long found themselves
overstretched and underfunded. A 2009 audit of the UNmil mission in Liberia
(UNmil) found inadequate training, no standard operating procedures, and lack
of quality drugs being provided. Audits in 2009 and 2011 of the Ivory Coast
mission (ONUCI) also found a lack of basic training. More recently, a report by
the International Peace Institute entitled Healing or Harming? United Nations
Peacekeeping and Health noted there was a problem “of peacekeepers providing
healthcare to the local population in situations where the quality of medical
care provided to the mission’s own personnel is not always in accordance with
WHO guidelines”.
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