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 Undersecretary G for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix and the UN Police Advisor Faisal Sahar.
They are here to brief you on UN cops 2026.
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.
It was just mentioned by Stephan tomorrow begins the fifth United Nations Chiefs of Police Summit, which brings together ministers, chiefs of police and senior representatives of policing organization to discuss how United Nations policy and national policy 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 Koury from Germany, who is the 2025 United Nations Woman Police Officer of the Year.
Inspector Kerns 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, 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 country to take increasing responsibility for their own security.
The goal of this summit is to ensure that our organization is aligned and prepared to support the nearly 4,500 UN police for 77 countries who serve across our peace operations, while also helping shape how United Nations policing continues to evolve to meet today's increasingly complex security environment.
You will 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 Brdisi, 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, OCT on terrorism.
We have an interagency task force.
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 Chaka, who's the head of the police division, go into more of the 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, we had to cut the peacekeeping missions capacities as a result of 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 higher risk areas, longer response times to developing crisis 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 mission and including within the mission, the UN police 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.
Of course, we're grateful to our member states.
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 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, 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 policy, strong partnership and the women and men who serve on the front lines every single day.
So now I will hand over to the chief of UN Police Commissioner Fiser Chaka.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to be here with Under Secretary-General Jean-Pierre Lacroix to brief you on the fifth United Nations Chief of Police Summit, UN Cops 2026, taking place on seventh in eight 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 the 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 support 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 Abe, 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 P is an investment in peace.
A modern, people centered, right 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.
Sakar, many people think of UN peacekeepers as military troops.
I don't think a lot of our audience or our readers understand that 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? For USG Lacroix, my question for you is in the um In the summit stated goals, it said that making UN police 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're currently not operating? If you could give a little clarity on that.
Thank you.
So on the first question, very relevant.
Yes, the perception may be as you mentioned.
But the main difference here is that the UN police is integrated into the communities.
It's beyond providing security, it's community policing relations.
It is supporting them in different areas which may not have a war in place, but there is a distance between still peace, as I mentioned, how they can go to the schools, how they can Uh, be educated.
So it's more community based than military.
Military is more focused, 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, uh, um, 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 alluded to the system wide provider nature of UN police.
The vast majority of our UN police officers are deployed in peacekeeping operations, but first of all, we have UN police officers in what we call other forms of peace operation including what we call special political missions.
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, 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 is a group of about 30 plus police officer, posted in Bendis, 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, the Office of Drug and Crime, UNOCT we have memorandum of understanding with those a with those entities or agencies, and we do have joint activities joint program basically to make the best use of the skill sets in UN police to assist those entities in achieving their goals and carrying out their activities.
Finally, finally, All of this is organized within what we call the interagency task force on UN P, which basically brings together all these agencies and this chair diabetic co chaired by UN police and UNODC and UNODC, exactly.
That's more or less what we mean by system wide provider.
Thank you.
Frank? Oh, yeah.
I just wanted to do can verify introduce yourself, Frank, sorry.
Yes.
Frank Uo from TRT World.
Thank you for doing this.
Sorry, the microphone a little closer.
Closer even.
In fact, okay.
What is the specific rule of engagement as far as peacekeepers and then as far as a police officer? All right.
Well, first of all, I mean, there is a general rules when it comes to what we say the use of force, which is only in self defense, 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.
So obviously, it's different from waging war and there is a limit.
I probably you will see more of that when the review of peace operation is out and we will try to suggest that robust peacekeeping is different from peace enforcement.
Now, I believe that I will hand over to Faisal when it comes to specific issues having to do with UN police, but it's obvious that 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 these are an environment where you deploy military.
I mean, you can have the military to provide a 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.
Broadly, USG has laid down this is what it is.
It can be situations where there is a protection of displaced people, military journalist 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.
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.
It's basically more closer to the community, something where military is not needed or not recommended.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Abdel Hamid.
Thank you so much, Abdul Hamid Sam from the Arabic Daily Al Kutz 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 or the mandate or the number of operations or how you were affected by the budget cuts.
The second about UNIFIL How could now it's U supposed to close down by the end of the year and you can see what's going on in Lebanon.
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? Finally, it the first.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Well, obviously, the impact of cuts, again, resulting from lack of liquidities.
The budgets were there, budgets are there, but if you don't have the cash to implement your budget and budget becomes essentially a piece of paper.
We had to cut, like I say, -15% cash means more or less meant -25% cuts in all the capacities and that has an impact on pretty much everything we do.
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, all things considered and we thought all the missions determined that, you know, the protection of civilians need were less acute, but less acute doesn't mean that there aren't protection of civilian needs.
So if you close a base, then population in those particular areas are likely to be less protected or not protected.
Cease fiire 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 a regular basis, then your time of reaction is likely to be less, which then makes it more likely that incidence has the potential to escalate.
These are the kind things that Of course, many other type of impact including when it comes to what we do on capacity building with the host states.
Now, again, emissions 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 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.
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 Unal as you know, 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 postal UN presence.
Um, I think you're familiar with the 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, it would be better to have a decision relatively soon because that would help, particularly in the case where the Security Council decides on any post unifal 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 that are relevant, including, 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, we're really in the hands of the Security Council.
Microphone.
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 kind 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 option that were put to the council.
Um Thank you.
I mean, the rest is very hypothetical and I learned my lesson from Stef that we don't comment on.
On hypotheticals, yes.
All right.
Frank, I have one more question and then I think we'll put it to a close.
I wanted to go over some numbers.
From the beginning of the year, how many UN peacekeepers were killed and over the past two years, there seems to be an uptick in incidence of UN peacekeepers being fired upon.
Do you feel that may be connected to the fact of a huge lack of accountability for these attacks? Yes.
First of all, I mean, we can give you the exact numbers, but we just recall that just in Lebanon over the past couple of weeks, essentially, we had seven peacekeepers killed, a number of them injured.
I would also remind you that we had six peacekeepers from Bangladesh killed in Kadugli, Sudan as a result of a drone attack, which is the first time we had a drone attack against one of our camps.
I think there are a couple of things that.
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.
I also believe that the parties, the negative actors who are careless or even regarding the safety and security of our peacekeeper or sometimes more than careless, just literally explicitly and intentionally attacking them.
I think they also have a sense that, international committee is divided, the membership are divided and that gives them more space to act as spoilers and potentially aggressors against our peacekeepers.
Commissioner USG, thank you very much, and we wish you a good week.