Fifth United Nations Chiefs of Police Summit (UNCOPS 2026) - Press Conference on Upcoming Summit

All right.

Good afternoon.

We are delighted to be joined by the Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, and the UN Police Advisor, Faisal Shakhar. They are here to brief you on UN COPS 2026. So, Under-Secretary-General, please, you have the floor.

Thank you very much, Steph, and a very good afternoon to all of you. Thank you. For being here. So it was just mentioned by, uh, Stefan, uh, tomorrow begins the 5th United Nations Chiefs of Police Summit, which brings together ministers, chiefs of police, and senior representatives of policing organizations to discuss how United Nations policing and national policing can mutually reinforce one another in addressing current and emerging global security challenges. So you would recall that just last month I had the privilege of sitting on this stage with Inspector Stephanie König from Germany, who is the 2025 United Nations Women Police Officer of the Year. Inspector König knew these challenges firsthand. She and her colleagues are a reminder of what UN Police do every single day: protect civilians in complex and high-risk environments. To support host government police capacity and strengthen public safety and the rule of law. An integral part of UN Police work is their partnership with national police services to help build the skills, institutions, and confidence needed for host countries to take increasing responsibility for their own security. So the goal of this summit is to ensure that our organization is aligned and prepared to support the nearly 4,500 UN Police from 77 countries who serve across our peace operations while help— while also helping shape how United Nations policing continues to evolve to meet today's increasingly complex security environment. You would also recall that we have a number of UN Police officers serving in non-peacekeeping settings. They work with countries on demand to provide support on capacity building, including through the standing police capacity that we have in Brindisi, Italy. I would also add that UN Police is working with a number of other agencies and entities within the UN system. We work with UNODC, the OCT on terrorism. We have interagency task force. So just to say that UN Police is very much a whole-of-system entity and with a high level of cooperation within the UN galaxy. The summit is also an opportunity to enhance our collaboration with national police services, recognizing that today's security challenges increasingly transcend borders and require collective responses. Now, I will let my dear colleague Faisal Chakkar, who's the head of the Police Division, go into more specifics about the very meaningful work being accomplished by our police. But before doing this, I want to emphasize once again the challenging environment in which our peacekeepers, and particularly the UN police officers, are facing. As you know, I mean, we had to cut the peacekeeping mission's capacities as a result of non-— lack of full payment of assessed contributions. And these cuts have had real impact across the board where it really matters the most, including reduced patrols in high-risk areas, longer response times to developing crises, and less opportunities to train and support local police so that they can assume full responsibility when the missions eventually wind down. Now, all of our missions, and including within the mission, the UN Police These components have made a lot of effort to elicit additional efficiencies, cost-effectiveness, but I don't think that has eliminated, and far from it, the impact of these cuts. Now, recently, the budget proposal for peacekeeping operations have been approved. So, of course, we're grateful to our member states, and now what the missions need are timely payments of assessed contributions so that we continue and our colleagues in the field can continue implementing their mandates and hopefully as well begin reversing some of the operational impacts of the contingency measures that we had to implement, uh, recently. Now, in terms of tomorrow's summit, we look forward to working with national police partners to ensure that our operations are more efficient, more prepared, better adaptable, better equipped also to meet today's and tomorrow's security challenges. So ultimately, the focus is on ensuring that we continue to invest in peace by investing in effective policing, strong partnership, and the women and men who serve on the frontlines every single day. So now I will hand over to the Chief of UN Police Commissioner Faizal Chakkar.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to be here with Under-Secretary-General Bonjour, I am Pierre Lacroix to brief you on the 5th United Nations Chief of Police Summit, UN COP 2026, taking place on 7th and 8th July at UN Headquarters here in New York. At the heart of this summit is a simple message: safety is integral to peace. For communities affected by conflict, peace is not only the silence of weapons, it is also the ability to return home.— send children to school, report violence, access justice, and trust the institutions meant to protect them. As an integral part of peacekeeping, United Nations Police often have some of the most direct and sustained contacts with the people wherever we serve. UN COPS 2026 is therefore an opportunity to focus Member States and partners on three priorities: the future of United Nations amid the ongoing transformation of peacekeeping, innovation and new technologies to advance this work, and last, international cooperation to address transnational challenges. It is also a chance to crystallize the Police Division's role as a focal point for United Nations policing and law enforcement matters, strengthen performance and capacities, and integrate policing priorities into wider peace and security discussions. This work is already visible across missions. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN Police supports civilian protection through integrated patrols, by turning emergency calls into operational interventions, and by supporting national police in high-risk areas. In Central African Republic, UN Police have helped national authorities to prepare for safe and secure elections. And in Abie, community-oriented policing, mediation, and dialogue have helped reduce tensions between communities and promote women's participation in local security arrangements. Diversity is also central to our impact. United Nations Police bring together officers from close to 100 different policing cultures, languages, and fields of expertise. This diversity helps us reach communities, build national capacities, and address complex threats including organized crime, sexual and gender-based violence, cybercrime, and digital violence more effectively. At a time of resource constraints, UN COPS is an opportunity to show why an investment in United Nations Police is an investment in peace. A modern, people-centered, rights-based, specialized, and fit-for-purpose UN Police brings tangible returns for communities, national institutions, and international peace and security. I thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll now take some questions. Gabriel, Al Jazeera.

Thank you very much for the briefing. I have a question for each of you, if you don't mind. First, for Mr. Chakkar, many people think of UN peacekeepers as military troops. I don't think a lot of our audience or readers understand that they're— the complexity of UN COPS. Can you just explain what UN COPS can do that military peacekeepers can't do and why that is so important in that role? And for USG Lacroix, my question for you is In the summit's stated goals, it said that making UN Police, quote, a system-wide service provider is one of the goals. What does that actually mean in practice, and is that about consolidating UN Police's role or expanding into missions where they are currently not operating? If you could give a little clarity on that. Thank you.

So, uh, on the first question, very relevant. Yes, the perception may be as, as you mentioned, but the main difference here is that the, the UN police is integrated into the communities. It's beyond, uh, providing security. It's community policing relations. It is, it is, uh, supporting them in different areas which may not have a war in place, but there is a distance between still peace, as I mentioned, that how they can go to the schools, how they can be educated. So it's more community-based than military. So military is, is more focused on, uh, on a task which is, uh, again, very tremendous and, and difficult one. But after that fragile peace is restored, the building of the institutions, the capacity building of— whether it's police or it's also connected to the whole criminal justice chain. So it's more community-centered, I would say. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, I believe that I kind of alluded to the system-wide provider nature of UN Police. Most of our— I mean, the vast majority of our UN police officers are deployed in peacekeeping operations, but we do have— first of all, we have UN police officers in what we call other forms of peace operation, including what we call special political missions. I mean, they're smaller missions, but we do have in many of them a number of UN police officers, like in Libya, for example. So that's number one. Number two, As I indicated earlier, the UN Police is also providing support in capacity building to countries where no mission is deployed. It's based on demand, it's based on needs. Of course, you have— we have to have the requisite funding for that, but we do that quite regularly, and we do that in particular through the standing police capacities, which which is a group of about 30-plus police officers posted in Brindisi, Italy, and basically they're deployed to provide this kind of capacity-building assistance, again, wherever needed. Sometimes it's also in peacekeeping settings, but in most cases it's in non-peacekeeping settings. Now, the third is the cooperation that I mentioned with many other UN agencies, and particularly I mentioned UNODC, Office of Drug and Crime, UNOCT. We have memorandum, the Memorandum of Understanding with those, with those entities or agencies, and we do have joint activities, joint program, basically to sort of make the best use of the skill sets in UN police to assist those entities in achieving their goals and carrying out their activities. And finally, finally, all of this is kind of organized within the— what we call the Interagency Task Force on UN Police, which basically brings together all these agencies and is chaired, I believe co-chaired by UN Police and UNODC. Exactly. So that's more or less what we mean by system-wide provider. Thank you. Frank?

Oh yeah, I just want to do—

Can you just introduce yourself, Frank?

Sorry.

Yes, Frank Iusciardo from TRT World. Thank you for doing this.

Sorry, the microphone a little closer.

Closer even. In fact, that— okay. What is the specific rule of engagement as far as peacekeepers and then as far as a police officer?

All right, well, um, first of all, I mean, we— there is a sort of general rules when it comes to what to say, the use of force, which is only in self-defense, or— and I think it's important— or in defense of the mandate, which means that if the mandate includes protection of civilians, then If you use force to protect civilians, you do it in defense of the mandate, which asks you to, or provides for, protection of civilians. Obviously, it's different from waging war, and there is a limit. I mean, probably you will see more of that when the review of peace operation is out, and we will try to suggest that, you know, robust peacekeeping, is different from enforcement for peace enforcement. Now, I believe that, uh, I will hand over to, uh, Faisal when it comes to, uh, specific issues having to do with UN Police. But, uh, it's obvious that, uh, you know, if you have an environment where, for example, you have a high density of population and they need to have, a degree of protecting environment, for example, IDP camps or urban areas, that isn't something— that is, these aren't environments where you deploy military. I mean, you can sort of have the military to sort of provide a sort of external kind of security bubble, if you wish, but inside those heavily densely populated settings, and you need to have police, not only to help provide security, which I saw many times, but also to help local actors policing themselves, if you wish. There's a lot of training going on, but I'll hand over to Faisal for more.

You know, broadly, USG has laid down— this is what it is. It can be situations where there is a protection of displaced people, Military generally stays outside so that the contact with the community is with police. It can also be in another situation to assist the host local authorities in crowd control management, public order crisis on some issues. So they also engaged with them, but it is in assistance. Except where we have an executive mandate, which we at the moment do not have in these missions where we spoke. So it's basically more closer to the community, something where military is not needed or not recommended.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Abd al-Hamid.

Thank you so much. Abd al-Hamid Sayyam from the Arabic Daily, Al Quds Al Arabi. I'm sorry for coming a bit late, so if my questions were covered in your briefing, so you can indicate that. My first question about the budget cuts and how much you were affected by that. Are you cutting down the size and the— or the mandate or the number of operations? So how you were affected by the budget cuts. The second about UNIFIL. How could— now, it's supposedly— UNIFIL is supposed to close down by the end of the year, and you can see what's going on in Lebanon. So how can an important mission that has been deployed since 1978, in the early days of UNIFIL, it can be closed down while the conflict is wide open still? And finally, it's Let them answer the first two and I'll come back.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Well, obviously the impact of cuts, again, resulting from lack of liquidity— the budgets were there, budgets are there, but if you don't have the cash to implement your budget, then budget becomes essentially a piece of paper. So we had to cut. Like I say, minus 15% cash means more or less meant minus 25% cuts in all the capacities, and that has an impact in on pretty much everything we do. And I mentioned, you know, essentially if you like reduce patrolling, then you will end up with people less likely to be protected. If you close a base— and of course that was prioritized, so the bases were closed where, you know, all things considered, and we thought, or the missions determined, that, you know, the protection of civilians' needs were less acute. But less acute doesn't mean that there aren't, uh, protection of civilian needs. So if you close the base, then population in those particular areas are likely to be less protected or not protected. Ceasefire monitoring, uh, here, let's say, for example, Cyprus or any other place where you do ceasefire monitoring, the essence is to react quickly whenever there's an incident, to de-escalate and avoid escalation, basically. So if you have less capacity to be present or less capacity to be patrolling on, on a regular basis, then you're likely to— your, your time of reaction is likely to be less, which then makes it more likely that incidents will— has the potential to escalate. So these are the kind of things that, of course, many other type of impact, including when it comes to what we do on capacity building, you know, with the host states. Now, again, we have been— and the missions have been doing a lot to elicit efficiency, do things differently, reallocate patrolling, further prioritizing them and so on and so forth. But the impact is still there. And that's why, again, I think the big question really for us in the short and medium term is about payment and the extent to which the missions will receive payments consistent, again, with the mandates that was decided by or extended by our own member states. And the budget that were also adopted by member states. I'm saying this because really it's a question of consistency for us. You know, the member states create our mandate, they extend our mandate, they vote our budget, so it's only out of consistency that we expect full payment and on time. On UNIFIL, as you know, I mean, there is expiration of mandate on 31 December, but At the same time, Secretary-General, as per the request of the Security Council, came up with options on post-UNIFIL presence, UN presence. I think you're familiar with the kind of options that were put to the Security Council. Now we expect the Security Council to make a decision. The only thing I would say is that for us, you know, it would be better to have a decision relatively soon, because that would help, and particularly in the case where the Security Council decides on any post-UNIFIL UN presence, then, you know, the sooner we have that decision, of course, the better. Now, I do understand fully that there are lots of different factors, you know, that are relevant, including the What about the implementation of the MOU between Lebanon and Israel? What about the security situation and how it will evolve on the ground? Lots of other issues, of course, that have to be factored in. But ultimately, there, you know, we're really in the hands of the Security Council.

I mean, hypothetical question. Do you have any contingency plan for Gaza in case developments evolve to include some kind of UN peacekeeping presence there?

We have all kinds of plans, but I should say that now— you know, we could really use a decision by the Security Council on those, based on the report from the Secretary-General, based on the options that were put to the Council. Thank you. I mean, the rest is very hypothetical, and I learned my lesson from Steph that we don't comment on hypotheticals. On hypotheticals, yes.

All right. Frank, you have one more question, and then I think we'll put it to a close.

I, I wanted to go over some numbers. From the beginning of the year, how many UN peacekeepers were killed? And over the past 2 years, there seems to be an uptick in incidents of UN peacekeepers being fired upon. Do you feel that may be connected to the fact of a huge lack of account— accountability for these attacks?

Yes, first of all, we— I mean, we can give you the exact numbers, but I would just recall that we had, just in Lebanon over the past couple of weeks, essentially we had 7 peacekeepers killed, a number of them injured. You would also remind— I would also remind you that we had 6 peacekeepers from Bangladesh killed in Khartoum, Sudan, as a result of a drone attack, which, you know, is the first time we had a drone attack against one of our camps. I think there are a couple of things. First of all, the lack of accountability, and maybe that's why also I very much welcome the recent resolution that was adopted on accountability for crimes against peacekeepers, because I believe that it's really a very, very critical issue on which we need to do more and the international community needs to do more as well. It's really a joint effort. That has to be made there. I believe that there are enablers which are evolving, like, you know, those drones, and that makes, you know, the threats against our peacekeepers even more dangerous, so that we have to work to counter those threats. That's exactly what we're doing right now. We have a work strand on countering drone attacks. And I also believe that The parties, I mean, those, you know, the negative actors who are careless or even regarding the safety and security of our peacekeepers, or sometimes, you know, more than careless, just literally explicitly and intentionally attacking them, I think they also have a sense that, well, our security, you know, I mean, The international community is divided, the membership are divided, and then that gives them more space to act as spoilers and potentially as, again, aggressors against our peacekeepers.

Commissioner USG, thank you very much and we wish you a good week.