India to host mission leaders’ course on UN peace operations

(PHOTO: Getty Images)


The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and India will jointly conduct a course here to strengthen senior leadership capacity on effective planning and conducting of integrated UN peace support operations.

The Senior Mission Leaders’ Course (SMLC) will be held at the Centre for UN Peacekeeping from 20-31 March, according to the Ministry of External Affairs.

A total of 25 participants from 18 countries will attend the course along with 21 UN officials, senior mentors, facilitators and presenters.

The annual course is conducted with the objective of strengthening the senior leadership's capacity through training on effective planning and conducting of integrated UN peace support operations.

It provides a forum for the participants to interact on diverse issues related to peace and security; and challenges faced by them in UN missions. Participants in this course are high ranking military, police and civilian officials and who are expected to assume senior leadership positions in future UN Peace operations.

India continues its strong commitment to UN Peacekeeping both through enhanced contributions and peacekeeping capacity building efforts in recent times.

More than 2,00,000 Indian troops, military observers and civilian police officers have participated in 48 out of the 69 UN Peacekeeping Operations and Observer Missions established since 1948.

The keynote address at the inaugural session at the Manekshaw Centre will be delivered by Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs Preeti Saran, and attended by Deputy Chief of Army Staff (IS&T) Gen J S Cheema and Jack Christofides, Director, Department of Policy, Evaluation & Training (DPET), United Nations.