Upholding Standards of Training for United Nations Peacekeeping Missions from the Perspective of Officers from Ecuador

The qualitative study described in this article took place with officers from the Ecuadorian Army. Interviews included 12 officers of four ranks who had each served on a minimum of one 12-month United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission. Data was recorded and transcribed and then analyzed using a qualitative data analysis program. Information from these interviews was organized into four main themes: 1) upholding standards of training; 2) multiple diverse command and control practices; 3) a mission as a cultural exchange; and 4) journey from conflict to peace. This article focuses on the first theme on upholding standards of training. Officers discussed their own preparation and compared it to that of colleagues from other countries. They related the lack of required skills displayed by some groups of officers and spoke of the need to guide them to task completion or to shoulder extra responsibilities themselves. Participants related the need for more training in a number of areas including diplomacy, negotiations, and cross-cultural competencies. The vast majority of UN peacekeepers now come from militaries in the Global South. A multitude of analytics find that many of these countries are less peaceful, less democratic, less economically powerful, and have militaries that are less highly trained than the peacekeeping nations of the Global North, which dominated peacekeeping missions in previous decades. These men and women have not been studied to understand their perspectives on the peacekeeping missions they participated in and the leadership they experienced. Assessing the phenomenon of peacekeeping through the lens of these soldiers will aid militaries and the larger UN community to understand and meet the needs of all officers engaging on a mission.