The United States is organizing a summit on U.N. peacekeeping on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly next week that will be addressed by Vice President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame.
A note on the Sept. 26 summit, sent to U.N. member states and obtained on Tuesday by The Associated Press , says “United Nations peacekeeping today is more critical than ever to international peace and security, with peacekeepers called on to end ethnic conflict, prevent violence against civilians, and serve on the international community’s frontlines against violent extremists.”
The U.N. currently runs 16 peacekeeping operations, with more than 100,000 peacekeepers deployed around the world. Its budget for the fiscal year from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015 is just over $7 billion.
