The Seventh edition of International Partnership for Technology in Peacekeeping Symposium (PTPS) began here today. The four-day event themed Harnessing Technology for Digital Transformation will conclude on June 16.
The event hosted by the Department of Operational Support (DOS) and the Office of Information and Communications Technology (OICT), United Nations in cooperation with the government of Nepal has brought 230 participants from 47 countries including 42 UN member nations and 11 different UN peacekeeping missions together.
It is said the event is expected to be milestone in optimizing the use of technology in peacekeeping operations for world peace. It aims to share experiences about IT practices taking place in UN peacekeeping mission as per the changing context, its challenges and positive aspects among the participants.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Purna Bahadur Khadka, inaugurated the event amidst a special ceremony here today
The event supported and coordinated by the Ministry of Defence and the Nepali Army is attended by representatives from the Defence, Home, Foreign Affairs, Communications and Information Technology and the Finance Ministries as well.
The first PTPS was held in Italy in 2014 and South Africa hosted the previous one.
Nepal has been contributing to the UN peace operations since 1958 and so far 145,356 personnel have participated in such missions. So far 72 NA personnel have sacrificed their lives in course of serving to the UN peace missions while 66 have been injured.
Under Secretary General (USG) Atul Khare for the Department of Operational Support (DOS) of the United Nations has said the UN is happy with the current information and technology practices by the Nepali Army in the UN peacekeeping missions in various conflict-ridden nations.
He was speaking at a media briefing session organised after the inaugural session of the event here on Tuesday.
"I do believe that Nepal can do more than what has been doing right now in the sector of using information and communication technology and so does its use accordingly in the UN peacekeeping mission as the use of communication technology has remained one of the unconditional benchmarks to establish better and effective communication in crucial war-ridden countries," Khare said.
In another context, USG Khare said that Nepal's peace process and the exercise of multi-party democratic system is very exemplary for the rest of the world and this has been proven by the participation in the different elections and the results came from that.
According to USG Atul Khare, the UN is working on launching an inter-operable communication system called the Radio Integrated Operating System (RIOS) for all UN peacekeeping serving forces representing various nations. This system aims to bring together various communication technologies such as UHF, VHF, radio, and internet under a unified platform. The purpose of RIOS is to enhance communication among peacekeepers in the field, ensuring better, more effective, and higher quality communication.
USG Atul Khare applauded Nepal for its substantial contribution to UN peacekeeping operations as Nepal is recognized as the second largest contributor to UN peacekeeping missions and it holds the topmost positions in terms of sending women peacekeepers to the UN.
Martha Helena Lopez, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources and Bernardo Mariano, Assistant Secretary-General for Information and Communications Technology, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sewa Lamsal, joint secretary at the Ministry of Defence, Baburam Adhikar and NA Peace Operations director Santosh Ballav Poudel were among those speaking at the press conference. ---
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