Rethinking how to deal with organized crime in conflict settings.
On 13 and 14 May, representatives from over 130 countries gathered at the UN Peacekeeping Ministerial in Berlin to discuss the future of peacekeeping and to pledge political and financial support for peace operations. While VIPs were driven in limousines through cordoned-off streets in the German capital, UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were on high alert against attacks from rebels fighting for control of mineral-rich regions in North Kivu. Meanwhile, the understaffed and outgunned Kenyan police leading the support mission in Haiti hunkered down in Port-au-Prince in the face of growing threats from criminal gangs, which now control most of the country. The contrast could not be starker. Yet the threat posed by organized crime was barely mentioned at the UN’s high-level political forum. It is also revealing that almost none of the pledges made by the 74 member states were related to organized crime. This lacuna undermines international peace and securi...