1.1 Mission Employment

Case Study: Corruption and UN peace operations

In 2014, an internal UN investigation showed that eight police officers from Côte d’Ivoire had paid money to Ivorian counterparts at the UN to secure deployments to MINUSTAH and MONUSCO. The Deputy Permanent Representative of the Cote d’Ivoire mission, whose position allowed him to influence hiring, would charge $4,000 to arrange placements. Allegations of bribery in the selection process for UN peacekeepers have recurred in other troop contributing countries (TCCs), including the Philippines and Bangladesh.

Patronage and political allegiance to ruling parties appear to be important deciding factors for recruitment in some troop contributing countries such as Bangladesh, Brazil, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Morocco, Rwanda, and South Africa. In Niger, for example, the Djema ethnic group tend to be favoured by the military, and in Togo, approximately 80% of the officers are from the Kabye ethnic group whilst they only constitute 23% of the population. Most of the top 25 troop contributing countries do not have open and public recruitment processes for UN peacekeeping operations, and the criteria for selecting those who deploy are unclear.