Photo: Janne Jortama
A statement was given by Mr Jukka Juusti at the The UN Peacekeeping Ministerial.

The UN Peacekeeping Ministerial

Session: Training and capacity building

Friday, March 29th 2019 at UNHQ

Statement by Mr. Jukka Juusti, Head of the Finnish Delegation, Permanent Secretary (Deputy Minister) of the Ministry of Defence of Finland


Ministers, Your Excellencies, Ladies, Gentlemen

We highly value peacekeeping training. The Finnish Defence Forces International Centre. FINCENT runs a number of courses certified by the UN. For example, FINCENT was the first training centre in the world to receive UN certification for an operational level United Nations Protection of Civilians Course.

Finland is pleased to note that the UN has issued a number of new manuals and guidance in the past few years. We would like to see this as an important step to enhance TCCs to train their forces to be more effective and more interoperable in the missions.

Finland is very committed to the goal of having more women serving in UN operations.
To this end, we have taken concrete measures such as creating new and innovative
training solutions.

Based on the positive outcomes of UN Military Experts on Mission Courses on 2017 and 2018 with the majority of students being female officers, Finland will conduct one of the UN Military Experts on Mission courses with the same Gender parity concept in 2019, and offers to conduct one course with Gender parity concept also in 2020. Finland would like to thank all the sponsors and contributors of these courses.

Finland also supports UN Women's female military officer's course, which is another
good training event that prepares female officers for service in peacekeeping missions.
Finland is also planning to pledge 1 million euros over the next five years to “Elsie
Initiative Fund for Women in Peace Operations”. More female peacekeepers in the field is important for enhancing operational effectiveness and improving mission credibility
among the local population.



We furthermore support the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance
(ACOTA) Programme through UNITAR (The United Nations Institute for Training and
Research).

Within the NORDEFCO framework, Finland and Sweden have together deployed a Mobile Training Team to support training of staff officers and UN troops in MINUSMA. This Nordic Mobile Training Team is an example of regional co-operation between different nations.

Finland is willing to provide training and share our experiences to UN or any Troop
Contributing Country within our means and capabilities if so wished.