The number of peacekeepers deployed worldwide has dropped to its lowest level in 25 years due to funding shortfalls and political deadlock between rival governments, raising fears of more conflicts but fewer ways out of them.
The number of peacekeepers in UN and non-UN missions at the end of last year was 78,633 – less than half of the number deployed in 2016 (160,505) and the lowest since 2000, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
The decline has been steady for more than a decade, but the sharpest drop of 17 per cent occurred last year, the report said. Nearly three-quarters of peacekeeping personnel were sent to five missions, four of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
The number of peacekeeping missions has also dropped over the past 10 years, from 61 in 2016 to 58 last year. Another mission will close at the end of this year, when the mandate of the UN's Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) ends as a result of US pressure at the UN Security Council.
The Sipri report said the decline in peacekeeping activity was linked to the crisis in UN funding, as donors have “failed to pay” their commitments on time or in full.
UN peacekeeping operations faced a shortfall of $2 billion at the start of their budget cycle in July 2025 – more than a third of the $5.6 billion they had expected to raise by then. This forced the UN to reduce operational expenditure by 15 per cent and cut around a quarter of its personnel.
Another problem is the “hardline demands and veto threats” from permanent members of the UN Security Council, such as those that led to Unifil's closure, the report said.
Jane Kinninmont, director of the UN Association UK, said this was part of a wider trend, with fewer peace agreements being made while governments globally work on temporary solutions.
“As we face a world with a growing number of wars and increasing impunity for war crimes, the world is also cutting funding for the tools that we have to stop wars and build peace,” she told The National.
“There are fewer peace agreements being made now. More often the trend is to find ways to temporarily reduce violence through truces or ceasefires – and we also see in some cases that a lot of killing seems to be tolerated under the label of a 'ceasefire'.”
Dr Jair van der Lijn, director of the Sipri Peace Operations and Conflict Management Programme, said multilateral peacekeeping efforts risked being sidelined due to a “perfect storm of funding, political and geopolitical factors”.
“If things continue in this way, we could see a dramatic weakening of multilateral conflict management and the near-complete sidelining of institutions like the United Nations,” he said. “The result is likely to be more conflicts, and these conflicts are likely to have even graver impacts on civilians as states abandon long-established norms.”
There were 14 missions in the Middle East and North Africa, 18 hosted by sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, five in the Americas and three in Asia and Oceania in 2025. With the UN expected to elect a Secretary General to succeed Antonio Guterres this year, there are hopes that the organisation's new leader will persuade governments to take bolder actions on peacekeeping.
“It’s important for states and the UN to be more forward-leaning and less politically risk-averse,” Ms Kinninmont said.
She pointed to the example of Ukraine, where the UN and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe were “very wary” of appointing ceasefire-monitoring or peacekeeping forces in case it signalled an acceptance that Russia would not fully withdraw.
“We need to be able to discuss the full range of options we have without being quite so sensitive about the political message sent,” she said.
No alternative to UN
Peacekeeping experts also warn that there are no “viable” alternatives to UN-led operations. No new UN missions have been mandated since 2014, leading regional organisations such as the African Union and the OSCE to launch their own.
New peacekeeping missions that attempt to sideline the UN have led to “unilateral, bilateral and ad hoc arrangements that are often more militarised and more directly influenced by the self-interest of the states involved,” the report said.
But funding shortfalls in 2025 showed these also faced limitations. Regionally led missions in Ukraine and Sudan also struggled with “deadlocked decision-making” because of rivalries between states.
“Regional organisations lack key capabilities when it comes to successful, integrated peace-building, while they are also plagued by funding shortfalls and inability to reach agreement like the UN,” said Dr Claudia Pfeifer Cruz, senior researcher in the Sipri programme. “As UN-led conflict management recedes, it is leaving a growing gap that alternative models are unable to fill.”
Dr Pfeifer Cruz said there was still widespread support for UN peace operations “in principle” but that this was not enough to salvage them without funding and political consensus. ‘To sustain multilateral conflict management, states will need to go beyond expressions of support – they will need to provide predictable funding and create enough political space to enable effective multilateral responses.”
