The Ministry of Defense UN pooled funds

The Ministry of Defence has since 2012 distributed its UN pooled funds to projects and initiatives supporting the UN’s ability to carry out peacekeeping and stabilization efforts. The pool is financed with means from the Peace- and Stabilisation Fund and has since its establishment had an annual budget of 3-5 million DKK.

From 2022 to 2024, the budget of the UN pooled funds increases to a total budget of 42 million DKK throughout the period with an annual budget of 12 million DKK in 2022 and 15 million DKK in 2023 and 2024. In order to ensure continuity and quality, the UN pooled funds will mainly be implemented through three-year projects from 2022 to 2024.

The overall purpose of the UN pooled funds is to support tangible initiatives which contribute to the UN’s peacekeeping efforts. The funds are granted according to themes of priority rather than geographic areas and will in this way seek to improve the UN’s ability to carry out peacekeeping work across the entire organization.

More specifically, the following five thematic areas will be supported in 2022-2024:

1. Improving the Safety and Security of Peacekeeping (incl. veterans)
2. Supporting Effective Performance and Accountability by All Peacekeeping Components
3. Strengthening the Conduct of Peacekeeping Operations and Personnel
4. Strengthening the Protection provided by Peacekeeping Operations
5. Implementing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

Regarding (i) Improving the Safety and Security, the funds support efforts to mitigate the threat from IEDs, endangering the safety and hampering the ability to protect civilians and deliver against their mission mandate, through support to the IED Threat Mitigation Advisory Team at UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS), who plays a vital role in standardization and alignment of EOD and IED Awareness training with UN requirements as well as to enhance UN capability to respond rapidly to IED threats. Furthermore, the funds leverage on existing and well established partnership with the Office of Military Affairs (OMA) tasked with the development of guidance and best practice of intelligence training. Such guidance and training are fully in line with the UN strategic priorities and serves to assure and increase the safety and security of personnel, and to enhance mandate implementation by e.g. support the development of ISR handbooks, military peacekeeping intelligence (MPKI) training material as well as pre-deployment training in MPKI. In addition, funds is allocated to support the development of UN capacity to handle veteran’s issue and UN’s effort to develop a an up-to-date and sufficient UN veteran policy.

Under (ii) Supporting Effective Performance and Accountability, the funds will be spent on enhancing peacekeeping performance, through clear standards and sufficient operational and technical requirements, while holding all civilian and uniformed peacekeepers accountable for effective performance. This includes  support to education and training through the UN Integrated Service (ITS), who is the responsible body within the UN for developing general and mission-specific pre-deployment peacekeeping training standards and material. Furthermore the funds collaborate with United Nations C4ISR Academy for Peace Operations  (formerly Signals Academy) on enhancing the operational readiness and performance on key technologies used for C4ISR – UN Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance – and for Camp Security. In this regard, support is earmarked to both online and mobile training as well as training-of-trainers courses to ensure standardized, mission-specific and gender-inclusive hands-on ICT training on UN owned equipment and UN policies and standard operation procedure.

Regarding (iii) Strengthening the Conduct, the UN pooled funds will support projects under the UN zero-tolerance policy on all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse. Moreover, ensuring the right conduct of peace operations entails reducing the environmental footprint in the mission’s areas, and the funds commits to ensure sound environmental management as well an environmentally-responsible solutions to operations and mandate delivery.

Concerning (iv) Strengthening the Protection, the funds will pledge funding for identified projects supporting the implementation of the peacekeeping mandates regarding Protection of Civilian (PoC), Child protection and Conflict-related Sexual Violence as well as supporting initiatives aiming to improve strategic communication and engagement with local populations to strengthen the understanding of the peacekeeping missions and their mandates. 

The support for (v) the Women, Peace and Security Agenda underscores the need for systematic integration of a gender perspective into all fields and activities in the domain of the peace and security pillar. As such, the funds supports a range of activities. This includes support to e.g. The Peace Operations Training Institute (POTI), responsible for developing e-learning activities related to the implementation of UN Women, Peace and Security Resolutions; the Elsie Initiative for Women in Peace Operations aiming to overcome barriers and increase the meaningful participation of uniformed women in UN peace operation; and the UN Senior Women Talent Pipeline, a career program aimed at promoting gender parity at senior level in UN peacekeeping missions.

An annual reserve will be kept un-earmarked and thus held for disposal throughout the period in order to be able to react to emerging needs for funding. The UN pooled funds makes it possible to support projects with big flexibility and on short notice, contributing to the improvement of the UN’s stabilisation- and peacekeeping capability.