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14.03.2025 Statement by Denmark at the 79. session of the Special Committee on PKO (C-34)

Who H.E. Erik Laursen, Deputy Permanent Representative of Denmark to the UN
Who H.E. Erik Laursen, Deputy Permanent Representative of Denmark to the UN
When 14.03.2025

Checked Against Delivery

Thank your, Mr. Chair.

Let me start by expressing our gratitude and appreciation for the hard work and efforts by the negotiators, co-facilitators, the bureau and the co-chairs and yourself over the recent weeks. I also want to thank the Secretariat and the interpreters for their valuable support.

You have all done your utmost in the informal consultations and outside them to try to bridge the gaps and find language we could all agree on.

Unfortunately, we did not succeed this year - the sixtieth year for the C-34’s establishment.

Mr. Chair,

UN peace operations continue to be highly relevant, a useful tool and a key element in the international society’s efforts for peace and security. We are looking forward to continuing discussions on the development of UN peace operations during our upcoming signature event in the Security Council next week and at the Peacekeeping Ministerial in Berlin.

The C-34 is tasked to comprehensively review all issues relating to UN peace operations. That includes making recommendations to all peacekeeping stakeholders.

The objective, which we all can agree on, is to improve UN peace operations, so that they can deliver on mandates and support the political processes leading to peace and security for the populations in the countries where they are deployed. As UN peace operations today operate in challenging and complex environments, we need to do our utmost to ensure that frameworks, guidelines and conditions take into account the realities on the ground – hand in hand with the UN’s overall approach to peacebuilding.

Mr. Chair,

For Denmark, it is a key priority to support the adaptation and efficiency of UN peace operations and to improve the safety and security of our deployed peacekeepers who are putting themselves in harm’s way.

 

We have paid special attention to some important topics. Let me mention five today:

  • Firstly, ensuring timely and effective casualty evacuation
  • Secondly, support to the uniformed personnel’s mental health and well-being,
  • Thirdly, effective use of peacekeeping-intelligence and digital platforms like Unite Aware SAGE,
  • Fourthly, continuously assessing UN peace operations to identify lessons learned and ways to further improve them, and finally
  • roll-out of renewable energy systems in order to increase resilience and operational efficiency and to decrease the environmental footprint.

We will continue to support ensuring full, equal and meaningful participation of women in UN peace operations, also in leadership roles, with the positive effect that follows.

As our work in C-34 is to improve UN peace operations, and to support their work, we could have done so by adopting a comprehensive report with clear recommendations, which could be implemented and which would have a positive effect.

To conclude,

Denmark regrets that the C-34 was unable to reach consensus on a 2025 report despite almost four weeks of negotiations.

Looking forward, we note that recommendations from previous reports are still valid and that implementation will continue – even with no consensus on a report this year. We look forward to the briefings on the implementation of the recommendations in the 2024 report and progress made before our next C-34 session.

Denmark will continue to follow implementation with interest, and will continue to provide Extra-Budgetary Funding to support the development and improvement of UN peace operations.

I thank you, Mr. Chair.