Global Policy Forum

The United Nations Security Council has stressed the need to bolster the resources and capacity of the African Union (AU) to attain peace and security in Africa. In so doing, the council emphasised the need for a stronger partnership between with the world body and AU in the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts in the continent.

In a presidential statement issued Wednesday, the council called for increased collaboration with the AU to build its capacity to take "rapid and appropriate responses to emerging situations and to develop effective strategies for conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding". "Regional organisations such as the AU are well positioned to understand the root causes of many conflicts closer to home and to influence their prevention or solution, owing to their knowledge of the region," it stated. To this end, the 15-member body requested that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to provide "specific proposals on how the United Nations can better support arrangements for further cooperation and coordination with regional organisations". The council also said that the support would help to contribute "significantly to the common security challenges in the areas of concern". According to the statement: ``Partnerships between the UN and regional organisations in security matters should be based on their complementary capacities and comparative advantages, making full use of their experience".

Sources told PANA that the council has also recommended the designation of the newly established UN Peacebuilding Commission as the forum for coordination between the UN system and regional bodies.

Foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma of South Africa, which holds the Security Council's rotating presidency for this month, read out the statement at end of a meeting featuring 34 speakers. The meeting focused on the relationship between the UN and regional organisations, with particular emphasis on the AU. Also speaking, Hedi Annabi, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, told the council that close ties between the UN and the AU, whose member states provide over 75 per cent of all UN peacekeepers in Africa and contribute 40 per cent of all troops in peacekeeping missions around the world, was important and vital.

"The more complex the challenges of our globalised world, the more crucial partnership between our respective organisations has become for the pursuit of a security that is truly collective, effective and equitable for all men and women," Annabi noted. He also described the joint efforts towards peacemaking in Darfur by UN Special Envoy Jan Eliasson and AU Special Envoy Salim Ahmed Salim, as an important partnership between the two organisations.