Germany’s Commitment to the United Nations
Germany makes an active and quite considerable contribution to conflict prevention as well as to multinational peace missions: by providing peacekeeping forces, police and qualified civilian personnel, financial support and items of equipment.
German participation in multinational peace missions still focuses, as it has for some time now, on the Balkans and Afghanistan. Germany is still one of the major troop-contributing nations to the NATO missions in Bosnia und Herzegovina which are mandated by the Security Council. In addition, German police forces are deployed in Kosovo as part of a UN police mission (UNMIK).
Germany contributes most troops to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and thus plays a decisive role in stabilizing the Kabul region. After the ISAF mandate had been extended to cover the whole of Afghanistan, Germany established the first “provincial reconstruction team” in Kunduz at the end of the year 2003; this is under ISAF command and covers four provinces in the North of the country. Germany also participates in “blue-helmet” missions under the command of the UN itself. German soldiers are presently based as military observers in Georgia as well as in the border area between Ethiopia and Eritrea.