Please join the Fletcher Russia and Eurasia Program and the World Peace Foundation at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University for a talk by Dmitri Alechkevitch who will discuss contemporary challenges to UN peacekeeping.

Peacekeeping is often described as a flagship activity of the United Nations. It is a unique and – scale-wise – unparalleled way to deploy tens of thousands of ‘blue helmets and berets’ to the world’s most trying environments. At its post–Cold War peak around 2015-16, UN peacekeeping fielded over 100,000 uniformed personnel in 16 missions on four continents. Its annual budget reached $8 billion although it was still less than 0.5% of global military spending. Today, after mission closures and drawdowns, UN Peacekeeping footprint has shrunk to over 67,000 uniformed peacekeepers in 11 operations, backed by a peacekeeping budget of roughly $5.6 billion for 2024–25. How has peacekeeping reached its high point and why does it now find itself under pressure? In this talk, we will examine how UN peacekeeping can adapt to remain the international community’s preferred instrument of collective security in an era of geopolitical competition. We will also touch upon the policy discourse regarding peacekeeping in the former Soviet Union area. Several post-Soviet countries contribute troops and police to UN peacekeeping and voice diplomatic support to the UN peacekeeping enterprise. Yet, the only two UN peacekeeping missions in the region – United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) and United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) – deployed in the 1990s-2000s.

Dmitri Alechkevitch is Policy Adviser in the United Nations Police Division, Department of Peace Operations (DPO). He is responsible for the development of the full range of policies, guidelines, directives and procedures related to the deployment of United Nations Police (UNPOL). Prior to joining the Police Division in 2012, Mr. Alechkevitch worked as Senior Adviser to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities in 2003-10 and later as Human Rights Officer in the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2010-12. During his assignment with the DPO Policy, Evaluation and Training Division’s Knowledge Management Team in 2014-15, Mr. Alechkevitch led the overhaul of the Department of Peace Operation’s knowledge sharing and organizational learning framework, recognized by the UN Joint Inspection Unit as a best practice in the UN system. In 2022, he was Head of the Policy Unit at the United Nations Mine Action Service, engaging with Member States and UN system partners over mine action priorities. Mr. Alechkevitch holds a master’s degree in international relations and European studies from the Central European University and a graduate diploma from the Paul H. Nitze Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Discussion will be conducted under Chatham House rules. The talk will be moderated by Professor Alex DeWaal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation.

Alex DeWaal is a Research Professor at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, and leads the WPF research programs on African Peacemaking and Mass Starvation. Considered one of the foremost experts on the Horn of Africa, his scholarly work and practice has also probed humanitarian crisis and response, human rights, pandemic disease, and conflict and peace-building. His latest book is New Pandemics, Old Politics: Two Hundred Years of War on Disease and its Alternatives. He is also author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine and The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa (Polity Press, 2015). Following a fellowship with the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard (2004-06), he worked with the Social Science Research Council as Director of the program on HIV/AIDS and Social Transformation, and led projects on conflict and humanitarian crises in Africa (2006-09). During 2005-06, de Waal was seconded to the African Union mediation team for Darfur and from 2009-11 served as senior adviser to the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan. He was on the list of Foreign Policy’s 100 most influential public intellectuals in 2008 and Atlantic Monthly’s 27 “brave thinkers” in 2009 and is the winner of the 2024 Huxley Award of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Refreshments will be served. This in-person event is open to the public. Please register via the Google Form here.