United Nations

The category analysis shows that COVID health protection requirements have had an impact on security activities within the international missions of each of the three organisations. Personnel have withdrawn from local engagement, rotations of contingents have been delayed, contingents have been reduced or withdrawn, and personnel have become sick or have died. Medical support arrangements for missions have always been challenging. Through UNSC Resolution 2518, the UN had already been calling upon nations to support the improvement in quality, capability and capacity of medical arrangements for peacekeeping. Whilst there is little public information about medical shortfalls on missions, it is unlikely that this would have been less challenging than for national responses. It is notable that the announcement of COVID-19 testing capability for the NATO mission in Afghanistan was as late as 31 May. Whilst nations and their armed forces are attempting to return to normal military activities, this is likely to be significantly constrained in the short term.

Each organisation has a different perspective of its role to mobilise international collaboration or solidarity to support the international community’s response to COVID. The UN focusses on humanitarian response, while the EU focusses on economic response within Europe, and NATO focusses on trans-Atlantic defence and security. All member nations of these organisations have utilised their armed forces in support of national crisis response, both as general support and to augment their health systems. However, it seems that many nations are placing sovereign autonomy above multi-lateral unity. Whilst both the EU and NATO have listed the activities of armed forces in the response to COVID-19 within nations, there are relatively few examples of pooled multi-lateral military support being provided to individual member states. From publicly available sources, most of the COVID-19 defence-related activities in the EU and NATO consisted of information sharing, though some of the NATO agencies are undertaking specific COVID-19 activities.

United Nations. The United Nations Secretary General and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) recognised the potential for the COVID-19 pandemic to increase instability and conflict across the world as the health, social and economic impacts spread and deepen. However, several factors have resulted in substantial restrictions of movement and hygiene protection measures: the significant risks of indigenous transmission of the disease to UN personnel (including UN Peacekeepers) in missions, the importation of the disease by UN personnel from their country of origin to the community in missions, and the transmission of the disease by UN personnel from the country of mission to their parent country. Despite these factors, there have been outbreaks of COVID-19 amongst UN personnel within missions. It is likely that the true impact of COVID-19 on UN peacekeeping has yet to emerge. The global economic impact may reduce funding for peacekeeping, nations may be increasingly reluctant to expose their personnel to the risks of COVID-19 in missions, and they may also need their armed forces as part of their national response to the crisis.

The provision of medical support to UN peacekeeping missions was already subject to scrutiny as a result of the HIPPO report published in 2015 (United Nations, 2015) and the subsequent Cruz report published in 2017 (United Nations, 2017). UN Security Council Resolution 2518 refreshed the call to UN members to enhance operational health support on UN missions. UN policy for casualty evacuation was updated in March 2020 (United Nations, 2020). However, the optimum balance between UN member states providing sufficient medical forces to support UN missions and UN missions contracting third party commercial providers (using funds provided by member states) has yet to fully emerge. Although the information is not available in the public domain, it is likely that the UN has faced challenges in procuring and delivering personal protective equipment (PPE) to its missions, and establishing test, trace, isolate and treat systems within its missions.