UNU-GEST Researcher Dr. Anne Flaspöler reflects on her participation in the Future Force Conference 2017.
UNU-GEST Researcher Dr. Anne Flaspöler reflects on her participation in the Future Force Conference 2017.
Dr. Anne Flaspöler received her PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Leeds in 2015. Her research interests include peacekeeping training and its socialisation properties, liberal peacebuilding as well as African peace and security efforts. She has conducted fieldwork in Ghana, South Africa and Rwanda.
Anne Flaspöler, postdoctoral researcher at EDDA and UNU-GEST, participated in the Future Force Conference 2017, held in The Hague, Netherlands from 9 – 10 February 2017, in collaboration with fellow researchers from UNU-MERIT (United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology). On the second day of the conference Anne participated in the breakout panel session "Operation Peace: Challenges to Peacekeeping in the 21st Century" together with relevant representatives from the academia, diplomacy and the military entities, including the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations of the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) discussing the challenges of hybrid missions, lessons learned from stabilisation mandates, the importance of the UN Peacebuilding Commission to the peacekeeping architecture and the need to keep up with technological innovation among others.
After the conference the speakers shared their views on the current and future challenges to peacekeeping and the session itself. In her interview, Anne statedthat "we can all learn from each other – academics, diplomats and military – and I think especially in a field like peacekeeping that’s really important because it involves so many different actors, so we need to listen to each other and share our perspectives."
For further information go to the Future Force Conference website and see UNU-MERIT work.