Military

19 October 2004 – Appealing to members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) for help with United Nations peacekeeping operations, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette today said the world body desperately needs another 30,000 military and many more civilians to satisfy current demand.

"I ask each of you to work with your home governments to help answer the urgent global call for UN blue helmets, civilian police, and political and financial support for peace operations," she said.

She argued that UN peace operations "are an excellent investment," noting that the world body has spent $30 billion on all its peacekeeping operations over time - just one-thirtieth of the amount that was spent last year alone on global military expenditures.

The Deputy Secretary-General also called attention to how the IPU can help the world reach the goal of halving extreme poverty - one of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) hammered out at a UN in 2000, to be reviewed next year and achieved by 2015.

Only by addressing poverty could the other MDGs - on education, gender equality, child and maternal mortality, stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and on environmental sustainability - be reached, she said, calling for a true global partnership for development.

"Each of you, as parliamentarians, can do a lot to help the world meet these great challenges - by focusing attention on them, by educating your constituents about them and by working to build consensus amongst your fellow parliamentarians on their vital importance for the long-term future of the world," she said.