Peace & Stability Journal Volume 5, Issue 3 | Page 21

either, this has been disclosed to the United Nations Procurement Division in writing.23 Finally, although the U.S. shows the greatest political and financial potential to move SETM in UN PKO forward, two other top ten contributors, France and Germany, have recently developed-through a public private partnership-a solar cell almost twice as efficient as the SunPower’s® 24 percent efficient cell on the market. The French company Soitech®24 and the German research institute Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft created a prototype for a solar cell with a world record 46 percent efficiency,25 thereby almost doubling its efficiency rating of the SunPower® solar cell. For now, much doubt remains about whether the 46 percent efficient cell is ready for deployment, but the scale of the SunPower® cell, which is on the market, shows its availability as deployable. Major UN financial and troop contributors’ motivations and influence on world decisions about SETM application through UN PKO start with the UN Committee on Contributions.26 That pay to play system very clearly establishes egalitarian standards for monetary influence on decisions made in the UN. No individual member nation can assert more influence on the outcome of any joint decision than another based on amounts contributed, which are a proportionate amount in comparison with each country’s gross national product. UN DPKO is under the immediate control of the Secretary General to ensure most direct adherence to the UN mandate. Because the leading UN PKO troop contributors have been from LDCs since the original UN PKO in 1948, many leaders, under guidance of the UN DPKO, practice reducing tensions as an intuitive part of their geo-political positions. The U.S. Army is in a great position to train those LDCs’ militaries how to use U.S. SETM as a means to prepare them to bid for command positions in UN PKOs. Geopolitically, this is a great plan for the U.S. Army because it will not be over-exerting itself in proportion to its large financial contributions or its comparatively large population. Also placated would be those LDCs’ citizenry, who often place blame for many of the world’s conflicts squarely on the shoulders of the U.S. for a perceived lack of sharing resources or providing the means by which acquisition of those resources may take place by LDCs. UN acquisition policy for positioning SETM in UN PKO UN DPKO acquisition framework is the Contingency Owned Equipment (COE) policy.27 UN COE policy was recently reviewed by the UN Office of Internal Oversights’ Internal Audit Division’s, Audit Report 2013/030 that rated COE program implementation as Partially Satisfactory.28 Referencing the report’s findings could be an astute window of opportunity to incorporate new policy language taking SETM into con- 19