In a number of conflict zones across the world – stretching from Western Sahara to the Middle East – military experts, troops and police working under United Nations command are striving to foster peace and maintain order.

However, as the UN doesn’t have its own armed forces, it relies on military and police personnel contributed by member states to carry out peacekeeping operations. A total of 71 such missions have been conducted since 1948.

But a closer look at UN peacekeeping reveals that troops from relatively poor, populous countries – mostly from Africa and South Asia – account for a huge proportion of the peacekeeping forces worldwide. For instance, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Nepal together contributed over 30 percent of the total number of UN peacekeepers worldwide in 2014. Western states by comparison contributed a mere five percent.

… Apart from military personnel, South Asian nations also contribute election observers, civil reconstruction teams and development specialists. So it would be incorrect to argue that South Asia only sends its troops and not other resources, say experts. However, while some of these may be at the governmental level, others are deployed either through international NGOs or private sector, as Anit Mukherjee indicates.