Disaster Risk Reduction through the Peacekeeper’s Lens

Silvia Danielak, George Mason University (United States)

--- This presentation is part of a pre-organized session by Drs. Laura Peters and Juliane Schilling --- UN Peacekeeping missions have a track record of engaging across the entire disaster management cycle, from early response to recovery, and from disaster risk reduction measures to preparedness. Nonetheless, their role in disaster risk reduction and recovery is largely overlooked. Rarely formalized in their UN Security Council-provided mandates, peacekeepers have typically responded to disaster and disaster risk in communities in which they were already present. This is no coincidence: Natural hazard-induced disasters are more likely to occur in places of conflict where heightened socio-economic vulnerability due to conflict diminishes communities' capacity to cope with disaster risk. This presentation provides an overview of the types of disaster-related engagement by peacekeepers and discusses how those interventions—including humanitarian relief, infrastructure building, or training—are framed as part of the peace objectives stipulated in the mission’s mandate. Perhaps better than any other actor with such a large budget and sizable equipment, peace operations have understood the inseparable nature of conflict risk and disaster risk. In turn, their involvement in mitigating disaster risk might be an early proof of concept for environmental peacebuilding.