With the United Nations peacekeeping architecture under more strain than ever, the head of the world body’s peacekeeping operations today said 2009 would be a “critical year” for the Organization and its Member States to come up with practical ways to make sure ongoing missions were fully supported and to tackle systemic challenges that could encumber or derail future peacekeeping deployments.

After a decade of unprecedented growth, United Nations peacekeeping had essentially become a “victim of its own success”, Alain le Roy, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations told the General Assembly’s Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations.  With some 112,000 field personnel serving 18 military deployments and numerous peacebuilding and political missions, the world body was struggling with “sheer overstretch”, as a wide gap was opening between supply and demand, both for numbers and types of personnel needed for the critical enabling capabilities, and air assets that allowed United Nations peacekeepers to succeed.

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