African Peace, Security Council adopts ‘Cairo Road Map to Strengthen UN Peacekeeping Operations': Ambassador

CAIRO – 26 October 2020: The African Peace and Security Council unanimously adopted the "Cairo Road Map to Strengthen UN Peacekeeping Operations" document, during a council meeting chaired by Egyptian Ambassador to Addis Ababa Osama Abdel Khaleq.

Abdel-Khalek, who is also Egypt’s permanent representative to the African Union, stated that Cairo’s document is the outcome of the high-level regional conference on peace-keeping operations hosted in Cairo at the end of 2018.

The document was approved during the meeting of African defense ministers held within the framework of the efforts of the specialized technical committee for defense, security and safety, which was established by the Egyptian Defense Ministry in December 2019 in Cairo.

Abdel-Khalek explained that the document presented a number of recommendations made by African countries, and formulated by Egypt- in support of the United Nations Secretary-General's initiative to "work for peacekeeping.”

Ambassador Abdel-Khalek further signaled that the document targets preserving the interests of the African countries with the most contributing troops in the peace-keeping system, including Egypt, which ranks seventh internationally among countries contributing their troops in the international system.

The Egyptian ambassador added that the document sets out four main axes to enhance the performance of UN peace-keeping missions, which are: 1) Promoting political solutions with the mandate of UN missions with clear, progressive and enforceable mandates, 2) accountability of all actors in peacekeeping missions, including civilian peacekeepers and regular forces, for the effective performance of the mission, 3) addressing its shortcomings, and 4) providing trained and equipped regular forces to participate in peacekeeping missions, while working to develop their training methods.