Roundup: UN, AU highlight continued partnership for Africa's peace and security

The United Nations and African Union officials Tuesday highlighted their continued cooperation and partnership in the maintenance of peace and security in the African continent, in an open debate at the UN Security Council.

"No single organization can succeed on its own in addressing the challenges that confront us," Haile Menkerios, head of the United Nations Office to the African Union and special representative to the African Union told the meeting.

Menkerios noted that the United Nations values cooperation with regional and sub-regional organizations. "In the past decade, regional and sub-regional organizations have gained greater influence over conflict dynamics and regional politics," he added.

He underscored the organizations' joint efforts to help stabilize the volatile situations across Africa, including in the Lake Chad Basin, Somalia, Burundi and the Sahel.

The debate, with a theme of "United Nations-African Union peace and security cooperation," is attended by Security Council members, dozens of other UN member states as well as officials representing the UN Secretariat, the AU Commission, UN Peacebuilding Commission and the UN Office to the African Union, respectively.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous said that strengthening global and regional partnerships in Africa is critical to maintaining peace and security in the continent.

"The African Union, directly or not, is the most important partner of the United Nations in peacekeeping. Three simple figures illustrate this: 9 out of 16 UN peacekeeping operations are in Africa, over 80 percent of all uniformed peacekeepers are deployed in UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, and almost 50 percent of all uniformed peacekeepers come from AU member states," said the UN peacekeeping chief.

The Security Council adopted a presidential statement on UN-AU cooperation at the meeting, which "stressed the importance of further strengthening cooperation and developing an effective partnership with the African Union".

Currently, the UN Secretariat and the AU Commission are finalising a Joint UN-AU Framework for an Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security that is expected to provide a blueprint for early and continuous engagement between these organisations before, during and after conflict and with a view to finding political solutions to the crises on the continent.

The framework is expected to institutionalise the strategic partnership between the AU and the UN, as well as to provide the basis for practical cooperation on peace operations.

The United Nations and the African Union has stepped up peace and security cooperation over the past decade.

In 2006, the Framework for the Ten-Year Capacity-Building Programme for the African Union was launched. The joint annual consultations of the Security Council and the AU Peace and Security Council of the African Union was launched in 2007. 2010 saw the creation of the United Nations-African Union Joint Task Force on Peace and Security.

The UN Office to the African Union was established in 2010 and progressively strengthened to enhance the strategic partnership. The Office of the Special Adviser on Africa played a major role in enhancing the coordinated integrated support of the UN system for Africa and mobilizing international support for African objectives.

"Regional organizations now occupy a central place in the international architecture of security. Therefore, they are perceived in their respective regions, as key actors in security. This reality, more than anywhere else, is clear in Africa," Tete Antonio, Permanent Observer of the African Union to the United Nations told the meeting. Endit