United Nations lauds India’s part in peacekeeping

Appreciating India’s contribution to the United Nations’ objective, UN resident coordinator in the country Yuri Afanasiev highlighted India’s contributions to peacekeeping missions and social policy discourse.

Mr Afanasiev was speaking at a reception organised to commemorate “United Nations Day” on 70 years of the UN on Monday in national capital.

Remembering PM Modi’s observation that “for seventy years, the world has remained a better place because of the UN”, Mr Afanasiev said that India has been the largest troop contributor to UN peacekeeping operations. “It has participated in 48 Peacekeeping missions and contributed over 180,000 troops. I would like pay my respects to the many gallant Indian soldiers who have served and even paid the ultimate sacrifice to bring peace and security to the far corners of the world, while serving under the blue flag,” he added.

He also acknowledged, India’s contribution to the United Nations Democracy Fund.

“As the world’s largest democracy, India is one of the founding members and the second largest contributor to the UN Democracy Fund, which plays a prominent role in strengthening democratic institutions,” he said.

Mr Afanasiev also mentioned that the government of India for becoming a major partner of the UN specialised agencies, funds and programmes on development issues and has been one of the bigger contributors to the core funding from developing countries.

Highlighting the India’s contribution over the decades in social policy discourse, he said that some of the most valuable intellectual contributions have originated from Indian nationals, both in the United Nations and in intergovernmental fora.

“The concept of Human Development as ‘the process of enlarging people’s choices’ was first laid out by a distinguished Indian, Amartya Sen,” said the UN resident coordinator in India.

Talking about the just concluded India Africa summit, Mr Afanasiev said that the resounding success of the Africa summit reaffirmed a new commitment to the India-Africa partnership.

Mentioning about the India’s contribution to Gender Empowerment, he said that Indian women broke the glass ceiling in 1953 when Vijay Lakshmi Pandit became the first woman President of the General Assembly. In 2007, the first all-women contingent in a peacekeeping mission to the UN Operation in Liberia came from India.

Speaking on the occasion, secretary (ER and DPA), Ministry of external affairs, Sujata Mehta said that 70 years UN see decisive progress in improving the nature of United Nations as ‘inter governmental body’. “UN as inter governmental body, it is our hope that we will see major reconfiguration to make it more reflective of current realities,” added Ms Mehta.