Contributing to Africa's peacekeeping capacity : 20 years of training for peace in Africa

Since the early 1990s, the focus of the United Nations' (UN) peacemaking and peacekeeping efforts has largely been directed to Africa. In the beginning, these efforts were symbolic of the rest of the world coming to the aid of Africa. Over the last 20 years, however, Africa has developed significant capacity of its own, and today Africans make up the largest proportion of the UN's civilian, police and military peace operation staff. As of March 2015, approximately 60% of the UN's 5 200 international civilian peace operations staff and about 80% of its 11 600 local staff are African. In addition, Africa has now become the largest regional contributor of police and soldiers to UN peace operations, and contributes approximately 48% of the UN's 106 000 uniformed peacekeepers.