Last month, international relations and security experts from several countries gathered in Bangladesh. Dr Rajan Bhattarai, who served as foreign affairs advisor to former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, presented a paper entitled “Nepal and UN Peacekeeping: Prospects and Challenges” during the gathering.[break]
Bhattarai said that under-representation of South Asia in the UNSC, where a large section of the world population lives, is not justified. “South Asian countries including Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are always among the top contributors to UN peacekeeping. These countries contribute 30 to 40 percent of the total peacekeeping force but they have no strong say in the decision making,” he said. “This region itself is under-represented while Nepal is most of the time not represented at all.”
Sometime, one of the countries from this region is represented in the UNSC but that too only as a non-permanent member of the Council.
Nepal was UNSC non-permanent member in the late 1960s and 1980s. Bhattarai argued that Nepal and other South Asian countries are either under-represented or non-represented at the policymaking level of the bodies such as UN peacekeeping operations and other similar bodies even as they are top peacekeeping contributing countries.
He also held the governments of the countries concerned responsible for the situation as they give less priority to these issues.
Bhattarai, who recently completed his Ph. D from Jawaharlal Nehru University on International Relations, is also actively involved in research and study of the subject in the context of Nepal as well as represents Nepal in various international forums.
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