The Minister for Defence James Kabarebe has reiterated Rwanda’s commitment to playing its role in ensuring effectiveness of U.N. peacekeeping operations. 

Kabarebe made the remarks at two-day United Nations peace keeping Ministerial conference which ended in Vancouver, Canada on Wednesday.

He spoke at a panel on protecting those at risk, where he highlighted the status of Rwandan participation on various peacekeeping missions.

Rwanda's performance is guided by the country's strategic decision to maintain peace and security around the world and thorough training preparation of peacekeepers for peacekeeping missions, according to officials.  

The Vancouver meeting is a follow up on Heads of State meeting held in in New York in 2015, and first Ministerial conference held in London in 2016. 

This week’s conference's main purpose was to bring UN member states together to align strategic and operational objectives and to discuss ways to ensure the relevance of U.N. peacekeeping missions in the face of the increasingly complex and dangerous conflicts around the world, according to a statement. 

Rwanda has hosted one of the three preparatory meetings while the other two were hosted by Japan and Bangladesh respectively. Throughout the conference, Rwanda's peacekeepers were commended for their outstanding performance by various speakers. 

The Kigali Principles were also recommended as an important tool to effective peacekeeping operations. Member states were encouraged to endorse it. 

The Kigali Principles on the Protection of Civilians, adopted in May 2015, are a set of best practices to enhance implementation of civilian protection mandates. The recommendations provide a blueprint to strengthen the international community’s commitment to effectively protect civilians.

So far 45 countries representing 75 percent of troops and police contributing countries have already subscribed to these principles. 

Meanwhile, on the sidelines of the conference, Kabarebe had bilateral meetings with the Canadian Minister of National Defence, the UN Under Secretary General for field support, the U.N. Under Secretary General for peacekeeping operations and the Estonian Minister of Defence. 

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