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Department of Peacekeeping Operations
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The Department of Peacekeeping Operations (or DPKO) is a department at the United Nations which is responsible for the peacekeeping operations that the UN partakes in. It reports directly to the office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Although the DPKO traces it roots to 1948 with the creation of the UNMOGIP and UNTSO, up to the late 1980s, peacekeeping missions were operated by six officials in the United Nations Office of Special Political Affairs, which was headed first by Brian Urquhart and then Marrack Goulding. Peacekeeping operations then operated with a clear doctrine, peacekeepers did not take sides or discharge firearms, save in self-defense or meddle in politics[1].
It was created in 1992 when Boutros Boutros-Ghali took office as Secretary-General of the United Nations and the creation of the DPKO was one of his first decisions. Goulding became under-secretary-general for peacekeeping with Kofi Annan appointed as his deputy. The role of the DPKO however, was only clarified when in June 1992, Boutrous-Ghali issed a plan to strengthen the UN's capacity for preventative diplomacy and peacekeeping, entitled Agenda For Peace.
After a peacekeeping force has been authorized by the Security Council, the DPKO works together with the Secretary General to administer and find donor nations willing to sponsor troops under Chapter VI resolutions. The DPKO then liaisons with the force commander and lead diplomat of the peacekeeping mission.
The current under secretary-general of the DPKO is the French diplomat Jean-Marie Guéhenno. Its most high profile mission recently was its role in the boosting of the UNIFIL mission in wake of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict as well as the debacle over whether the United Nations should intervene in Sudan.
- ^ James Traub, The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American Power, Page 34-35.