UN Support for Regional Peacekeeping
Expected Council Action
In October the Council will consider a report by the Secretary-General on UN assistance to the AU to improve effectiveness in deploying and managing peacekeeping operations. The foreign minister of Uganda, Sam Kutesa, will preside over the debate.
This issue has proved highly controversial in previous years. However a presidential statement is a likely outcome
Background and Key Recent Developments
On 16 April 2008, under the South African presidency, the Council held a debate on strengthening relationships between the UN and regional organisations and adopted resolution 1809 welcoming the establishment of a joint AU-UN panel to consider options for supporting AU peacekeeping operations. After its chair, former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, it became known as the “Prodi Panel”.
The Prodi Panel’s report was transmitted to the Council in December 2008. It addressed capacity building for conflict prevention in Africa and offered several recommendations involving UN funding from assessed contributions, funding to support AU peacekeeping operations and to develop AU logistics capacity.
In March 2009 the Council held a high-level debate on the Prodi report which revealed considerable reservations among members about the panel’s recommendations. The Council adopted a presidential statement requesting the Secretary-General to submit a report on practical ways to provide effective support for the AU, including “a detailed assessment of the recommendations”, particularly those on financing and establishing a joint AU-UN team.
In September 2009, the Secretary-General proposed a number of alternate ways for the UN to help the AU improve effectiveness in deploying and managing peacekeeping operations. He made several suggestions for strengthening the partnership between the UN and the AU. (For more details on the Prodi report and the Secretary-General’s assessment see our March 2009 Monthly Forecast and 22 October 2009 Update Report.)
In a presidential statement of 26 October 2009 , the Council welcomed the intentions of the UN Secretariat and the AU Commission to establish a joint task force on peace and security. The Council requested the Secretary-General to update it by 26 April and submit a progress report no later than 26 October 2010.
In May Under-Secretary-General Susana Malcorra, the head of the Department of Field Support, briefed Council members during informal consultations on UN cooperation with the AU. Members were reportedly encouraged by the efforts being made by the joint task force of the UN and AU secretariats but urged the task force to establish priorities and develop further strategic thinking on the role of regional organisations in peacekeeping.
On 1 July 2010 the General Assembly formally established a UN presence for co-operation with the AU. The new office integrates various UN peace and security presences in Addis Ababa:
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the UN Liaison Office;
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the UN’s AU Peace and Support Team;
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the UN Planning Team for the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM); and
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the administrative functions of the Joint Support and Coordination Mechanism of the AU-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur.
Through an exchange of letters between the Secretary-General and the Council on 6 and 13 August, Zachary Muburi-Muita (Kenya) was appointed as the Head of the UN Office to the AU at the level of Assistant Secretary-General.
On 9 July members of the Council held a consultative meeting at UN headquarters with the AU Peace and Security Council and top AU Commission officials. Topics discussed included enhancing cooperation between the two Councils and modalities for organising future consultations between them. Participants also focused on two specific conflict situations where the AU and the UN are partners—Sudan and Somalia. They also discussed the border dispute between Djibouti and Eritrea. A joint communiqué issued at the end of the meeting said that participants recognised the need to enhance the predictability, sustainability and flexibility of financing the AU’s peace and security capability and agreed on modalities for future meetings between the two Councils, to be conducted annually. (The theme of peacekeeping has been a recurring one since the Security Council and the Peace and Security Council began holding annual meetings in 2007, alternating between Addis Ababa and New York.)
On 25 September the UN and the AU launched a joint task force on peace and security, as part of efforts between the two organisations to enhance conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding on the African continent. The task force will meet twice a year at the senior level with the objective of reviewing immediate and long-term strategic issues and its programme of work will be mapped out in coordination with the UN Office to the AU and the AU’s Permanent Observer Mission to the UN.
Key Issues
A key issue is whether the Council is ready to move forward with decisions regarding more predictable resources for AU peacekeeping efforts.
A second issue may be whether to determine more clearly
the role of the new UN Office to the AU and its relationship with the Council and Council expectations.
A related issue may be whether to articulate a clear Council position on the UN’s and the AU’s comparative advantages in addressing peacekeeping and contributing to the maintenance of international peace and security.
Council Dynamics
Most Council members welcomed the efforts being made by the UN and AU secretariats in enhancing the state of cooperation with the AU in the area of peacekeeping operations during informal consultations on the issue in May. However, real differences remain regarding the issue of UN financial support for AU regional peacekeeping missions authorised by the UN. African countries on the Council have argued that UN financial support should be provided for AU missions, citing the primary responsibility of the UN for ensuring global peace and security and the consequent need to collaborate in a substantial way with regional peacekeeping.
The P5 and Japan have consistently expressed reservations about any generic or thematic decision related to using funds from the assessed contributions of the UN peacekeeping budget to support peacekeeping operations by regional organisations. They prefer to address this issue on a case-by-case basis such as in Darfur and Somalia. (In January 2009 the Council requested the Secretary-General to establish a trust fund to provide financial support to AMISOM, which is dependent on donor funding.)
The African Council members tried unsuccessfully to get an explicit commitment from the Council in its 18 March 2009 presidential statement to explore the use of assessed UN contributions for supporting AU peacekeeping endeavours, to be determined on a case-by-case basis. The issue is important to Uganda given the pivotal role it plays in AMISOM as a major troop-contributing country. It emphasises the need to press further the need for more predictable and sustainable funding for such missions.
Some other Council members are sympathetic because of circumstances which have driven much of the AU peacekeeping activities—operations which should ideally have been under the UN. But they are also cognisant of the fact that there is no established precedent for the UN giving financial support on a regular basis from its assessed contributions to support peacekeeping operations that are led by regional organisations. Many Council members are also conscious in that regard of the prerogative of the General Assembly on financial issues.
This nuanced appreciation of the resourcing of AU peacekeeping missions has led to some elected members advocating an incremental approach to resolving the issue of finding predictable and sustainable sources of funding for UN mandated AU peacekeeping missions, which may suggest that while some movement may be possible in October a major breakthrough is unlikely.
Selected Security Council Resolutions |
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Selected Presidential Statements |
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Selected Reports |
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Selected General Assembly Resolutions |
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Other |
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Head of the UN Office to AU |
Zachary Muburi-Muita (Kenya) |