“Listen to us to protect us” war-affected communities tell UN peacekeepers

Report by Oxfam calls on UN missions to engage and talk with local groups

UN peacekeeping missions worldwide – one of the key instruments to protect civilians trapped in armed conflicts - often fail to engage with the local communities they are meant to protect, according to international agency Oxfam.

In a report entitled ‘Engaging with Communities: The Next Challenges for Peacekeepers’, the relief group says that the willingness to engage with communities and take robust action to protect them, vary from one missions to the next. The call comes as the United Nations is debating in the Security Council on Monday (November 22) around how best to protect civilians and improve its peacekeeping operations.

Oxfam says that due to a lack of clear guidelines, poor training and preparation of personnel, many battalions on the ground had different interpretations of what “civilian protection” actually meant and the ways to implement it.

“Still in 2010, after years of experience from Kosovo to Congo, the way the international community responds to the major trouble-spots is still inadequate. While the UN Security Council is prioritizing protection of civilians in their mandates, not all missions are doing it in the ground,” said Kirsten Hagon, Oxfam’s Head of Office in New York.

“Communities are telling us that they want to talk and connect with peacekeepers. They feel at a loss as to why UN missions will talk to government officials but often fail to even sit down with them. Local communities are best placed to explain what needs to be done for them to feel safe. Peacekeepers need to listen to them.”

Oxfam’s report is based on field research in DRC and southern Sudan and on Oxfam’s extensive field experience. Its findings are the result of interviews in southern Sudan and the DRC with conflict-affected communities. The aid group also conducted interviews with representatives of local and regional government, local NGOs, police, the military, as well as both representatives of peacekeeping missions, UN humanitarian programs and agencies.

“The debate at the Security Council on protection of civilians is an opportunity for the UN to give clearer direction to peacekeepers to engage with communities as an essential part of protecting civilians,” said Hagon.

The report calls on simple and effective steps to improve the protection of civilians such as for missions to be results-driven, engage with local groups, boost the number of women in UN missions, improve patrols or to establish hotlines between communities and UN missions.

Hagon: “For any major emergency, civilians are always the ones that suffer the most. They bear the brunt of every single crisis. As UN missions aim to protect the families and communities affected by conflicts, engaging with them is the least they can do.”

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Download the report - Engaging with Communities: the next challenge por peacekeeping

Oxfam's work on Conflicts and Emergencies