Improving the Safety of UN Peacekeepers through Data-Driven Training

Abstract Peace operations personnel are often targeted while on mission by armed groups and individual actors seeking to cause harm. This paper outlines recent events driving force-protection concerns, analyzes trends in peacekeeper fatalities, and proposes steps for improving force-protection research and training in the future. Among our recommendations are continued efforts to monitor and evaluate the experiences of peacekeeping personnel, including but not limited to violent incidents on mission that result in fatalities to peacekeepers or civilians. With that, broadening access to anonymized incident data from the field would facilitate both research and training teams and ultimately allow troop contributing countries ( tcc s) to better target the specific needs of their deployed units. Our recommendations are built upon a decade of experience providing pre-deployment force protection training to tcc s through the Identifying Threats in Peacekeeping Environments program. The best way to help personnel stay safe on mission is through an understanding of current trends in the field; improving access to incident data would dramatically help stakeholders understand the points of impact for peacekeeper safety so they can ultimately help deployed personnel stay safe.