Syria, South Sudan, Haiti: the United Nations is in demand as a crisis manager throughout the world. Blue helmets, police officers and civilian personnel are facing ever greater challenges. Conflicts are becoming more complex, the instruments more diverse and specific. The UN therefore needs partners – such as the EU and its member states.

Hervé Ladsous, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, is currently on his first visit to Berlin, where he will meet high-ranking representatives from 16 European countries at the “Being A Peacekeeper Roundtable”. The focus will be on the possible shape of future European contributions to UN peace missions.

To mark this visit, the Center for International Peace Operations is organizing a panel discussion with Hervé Ladsous and Louise Fréchette, the former UN Deputy Secretary General, in cooperation with the Federal Foreign Office. The journalist Andrea Böhm and Bernd Mützelburg, former Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, are hosting the event entitled “Keeping the Peace in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities for Peace Operations”. The discussion will centre on the question as to how the UN can better position itself and build networks – especially in view of current crises such as those in the Middle East or in Africa.

The event is taking place in the Bärensaal Berlin (Jüdenstr. 42, Berlin Mitte) at 6.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 24 October 2012. Ina Lepel, Director for Global Issues at the Federal Foreign Office, will open the evening.

Please contact Wanda Hummel at the Center for International Peace Operations (e mail: w.hummel[at]zif-berlin.org) for more information or to register.

Joint Press Statement by the Center for International Peace Operations and the Federal Foreign Office.