Challenges and opportunities for Ethiopian Staff officer's/military observer's Performance in United Nations peacekeeping Mission.
Creators: name: Teame, Gebrehiwot
Publisher: name: National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia
Year: 2018

description: The main objective of the study was to identify the main performance challenges and opportunities for Ethiopian staff officers and military observers in their engagement of United Nations Peacekeeping Missions and to suggest possible recommendations for the concerned body thereby on the basis of the findings propose some possible solutions and recommendations for the problem. To this effect, the methodology focuses on primary and secondary data. The primary data was collected through questionnaires, interviews, focused group discussions and field observations. Questionnaires were delivered to military officers and interviews were conducted with military experts and with those who already participated in the UNs field missions as staff officers/military observers. Focus group discussions were carried out with officers found in the FDRE MoD peacekeeping main department and others working in various levels of the institution. UN documents related to peace keeping field missions, deployment research papers conducted in various countries, FDRE peacekeeping main department directives, manual and procedures were reviewed. For convenience sake, the researcher summarizes the findings into three core aspects, that is, organizational factors, Individual performance factors and according to UN SOPs. Consequently, the results of the study on organizational factors exhibit that despite the concerted efforts such as, preparing qualified staff officers and military observers for UNs peacekeeping mission, being made by MoD in a bid to mitigate the problems it was not able to produce technically skillful and knowledgeable officers as required . The findings on Individual performance factors also indicate that even if UN Peace Keeping Mission demands highly qualified and all rounded personnel to fulfill the assigned mission, Ethiopian staff officers and military observers lack such skills and the desired qualifications for various reasons. As far as the findings on UN SOPs is concerned, the majority of Ethiopian staff officers and military observers are highly committed to accomplish the intended results, strictly respecting UNs SOP and behaving according to the mission specific code of conduct set by UNs department of peacekeeping operations. On the basis of the findings therefore, despite the observed strengths being evident, a great deal of limitations were also being identified. Just to mention some, military officers who have been nominated are unable to fully aquire the desired technical skill and professional knowledge, but not all. Based on the aforementioned findings, possible recommendations were also forwarded to the concerned bodies. For instance, the Peacekeeping Main Department need to establish a well organized experience sharing system, conduct continuous assessment both the predeployment training and post-deployment performance of its personnel hence need to prepare a workable monitoring system. It was also being recommended that, Ethiopian prospected staff officers and military observers should also exert their maximum effort to develop their capacity, knowledge, and language skills. The individual staff officers and military observers are also recommended to familiarize themselves with the UN system, technology, and procedures they are going to use in peacekeeping mission before deployment.