- Christophe Gargot, Director of the film "Doves in Zero Gravity"
- Bert Koenders, former SRSG MINUSMA and Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow, Robert Bosch Academy
- Emma Birikorang, Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre
- Arthur Boutellis, International Peace Institute
How the prolonged crisis in Mali turned peacekeepers into powerless pawns caught between local wars and global geopolitics in a changing World Order.
In 2014, the UN Security Council, following the French military intervention, established a United Nations peace operation in Mali.
The forces were there to stabilise the country, help restore state authority and keep jihadis at bay. Despite a 2015 peace agreement between the government of Mali and secessionist armed groups, jihadi groups continued to gain ground in the Sahel. In 2020, a military junta took over the state and hired Wagner Group mercenaries, leading to the departure of the French military operation Barkhane, and the expulsion of the UN mission MINUSMA in 2023.
With Member States gathering in Berlin for the UN Peacekeeping Ministerial, it is timely to consider how lessons from the past can help shape peace operations of the future.
Immersed in the heart of the operational and decision-making bodies of the United Nations mission in Mali and New York and enlightened by the testimony of those directly involved, Doves in Zero Gravity questions both the international interventionist model and lost illusions of political solutions and peace processes, at a time when multiple asymmetric conflicts with a high contagious potential stoke fears of the return of global confrontation.
This event is organized by the Center for International Peace Operations (Zentrum für Internationale Friedenseinsätze, ZIF) with the support of the Robert Bosch Academy.