Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday extended Bangladesh's full support to the United Nations secretary general's strategic review on peacekeeping, and the country's resolve to strengthen his hands by providing rapid support at all times since Bangladesh is regarded as a tested and confident peacekeeper country.
"I wish to conclude by conveying our full support to UN secretary general's strategic review on peacekeeping, and our resolve to strengthen his hands by providing rapid support at all times. We value our partnership with the US and other cohosts to carry our pledges forward. My salute to peacekeepers all over the world," she said.
Hasina was addressing the high-level summit on UN Peacekeeping at the conference Building of the UN headquarters in New York in the morning.
She said as a tested and a confident peacekeeper country, Bangladesh pledges to build partnerships with countries that need critical enablers, personnel, force and mission.
"We also remain ready for a triangular cooperation. Bangladesh will provide training and skills to emerging TCCs with support from partners. We further pledge to contribute well-trained and self-sustained infantry units and formed police units, including all-female police units at shortest possible time," the prime minister said adding that her government pledges to offer critical enablers, including air power, helicopters and aircrafts at the shortest notice.
"We pledge engineers, signals, medical teams, riverine and sea-based units on shortest notice. We’re also keen on providing senior leadership both at the UN Headquarters and in field missions. We look forward to entering into logistics and services supply partnerships for field support to missions, including with the African Peacekeeping Rapid Response Partnership," she told the summit.
Mentioning that Bangladesh has a state-of-the-art Institute for Peace Support Operations and Training, BIPSOT, Hasina said her government has plans to turn BIPSOT into a global centre of excellence for training peacekeepers, especially women peacekeepers, from all countries.
"We pledge to share our expertise through customised training, joint exercises and necessary technical support to other TCCs and PCCs. We aim to make Protection of Civilians (POC), gender and human rights issues, an essential component of our regular peace support training. We pledge to invest in further enhancing language skills of our peacekeepers," she added.
Hasina noted that Bangladesh has become a brand name in peace support operations for its utmost dedication and professionalism, for its high respect for religious, cultural and social values of the people we serve.
"Our commitment to peacekeeping is reaffirmed through the supreme sacrifice made by 119 of our valiant sons. To carry on their legacy, we’re currently working on a National Peacekeeping Strategy to pursue evolving pledges and capabilities to UN peacekeeping," she added.
The prime minister said UN Peacekeeping has evolved as a central pillar of Bangladesh’s value-driven foreign policy. As invoked in its constitution, Bangladesh has, never ever failed to respond positively and quickly to UN's call for strengthening peace and stability worldwide.
She said peacekeeping continues to face newer challenges as it is becoming more complex, demanding, and dangerous for UN peacekeepers and the UN. UN missions are currently being called to end ethnic conflicts, prevent violence, assist countries to make the difficult transition from conflict to peace, and from chaos to state-building.
The prime minister opined that the troops and police need costlier and comprehensive training as they face asymmetric and high-risk security threats with the challenge to fulfill more robust mandates.
In last December, she recalled, following the UN secretary general's emergency call to her, Bangladesh got ready to deploy an infantry unit to South Sudan within 48 hours.
She said Bangladesh deployed medical and engineer units within 2 to 3 weeks while its Air Force helicopters and Police units were deployed from Congo to South Sudan at very short notice.
In Mali, Eastern Congo and CAR, Hasina said Bangladesh was quickest to deploy troops under blue helmet .In Sierra Leone and DR Congo, when no other country was willing to, Bangladeshi peacekeepers negotiated, entered rebel-held territory and maintained peace.
"And in all this, we remained fully self-sustained, including in accommodation, taking the pressure off from UN logistics system. I can assure you that Bangladesh would maintain similar rapid deployment and self-sustaining capabilities in the future," she said.