Update on Peace Operations and COVID-19

The new coronavirus is spreading into conflict-affected states. The pandemic and efforts to contain it are much more likely to aggravate and multiply conflicts than reduce or end them.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the U.N. is going to flood the internet and social media with facts and science to counter what he says is a “dangerous epidemic of misinformation” about the coronavirus pandemic.

In a joint appeal issued on Saturday, the five UN envoys to the Middle East urged warring parties in the region to work towards an immediate end to hostilities, in line with the Secretary-General’s recent call for a global ceasefire during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a health crisis, its implications are more far-reaching and could threaten global peace and security, the UN Secretary-General told members of the Security Council in a closed video-conference held on Thursday.

[…] UN Peacekeeping has put in place a number of measures to prevent the pandemic from spreading among its personnel and to ensure that peacekeepers are not a contagion vector while minimizing its adverse impact on carrying out mandated tasks. These include working closely with national authorities and setting up World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations.

We must ensure a sufficiently global and coordinated response to the pandemic, then build resilience for the future.

A few weeks ago, peace operations across the world began swiftly adapting to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 disease. Missions have been forced to take unprecedented steps to cope with the coronavirus pandemic. These efforts may be just the beginning, and much more significant reductions and changes in the way these operations function may be needed over the coming months.

Jens Stoltenberg says immediate primary objective is to 'make sure a health crisis does not become a security crisis'.

UN Peacekeeping radio stations have in recent decades helped build support for peace process in a dozen countries around the world including Cambodia, Croatia, Namibia and Timor-Leste. Today, these stations are playing another vital role – getting the word out to vulnerable communities in conflict-affected states about the coronavirus pandemic and how people can protect themselves and others from getting the disease.

Deadly and disruptive as it already is, and terribly as it could yet worsen and spread, the 2020 coronavirus outbreak could also have political effects that last long after the contagion is contained.