New Delhi: External Affairs Minister of India, H.E. Dr. S. Jaishankar visited to New York during India’s Presidency of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and presiding over two high-level signature events on August 18 and 19. The first event on August 18, 2021 was Open Debate on ‘Protecting the Protectors: Technology and Peacekeeping’ while the second event on August 19, 2021 was the high-level Briefing on ‘Threats to International Peace and Security caused by Terrorist Acts’. Both these topics are priorities for India during its UNSC innings.
The Open Debate on Peacekeeping focused on the theme of ‘Protecting the Protectors’, including through the use of modern technological tools to enhance the safety and security of Peacekeepers and to aid Peacekeeping Missions to effectuate their mandates effectively and efficiently. In this regard, India, in collaboration with the UN, would be rolling out the UNITE AWARE Platform, which is a situational awareness software programme that allows a Peacekeeping Operations Centre to visualise and analyze the ground situation in a conflict zone on a real time basis. This project aimed to demonstrate the impact of modern surveillance technology on the detection of asymmetric threats. The aim is to improved camp security for UN peacekeepers, the overall security situation, and quality of situational awareness. India has partnered with UN to roll out the UNITE Aware platform initially in four UN Peacekeeping Missions: MINUSMA (Mali), UNMISS (South Sudan), UNFICYP (Cyprus) and AMISOM (Somalia).
A MoU between the Government of India and the UN in support to the ‘Partnership for Technology in Peacekeeping’ initiative was signed during the visit. The executing agencies for this MoU was the Center for UN Peacekeeping (CUNPK – on the Indian side) and UN C4ISR Academy for Peace Operations (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaisance) based in Entebbe (Uganda) on the UN’s side.
On 19 August, EAM was preside over a briefing session on the six-monthly report of the UN Secretary General on the threat posed by ISIL/Da’esh, under the agenda item “Threats to International Peace and Security caused by Terrorist Acts”
During this visit, External Affairs Minister was also had bilateral meetings with Foreign Ministers of other Member States on the sidelines of these UNSC high-level events.