UN-AU Cooperation on Peace and Security
Expected Council Action
In May, the Council will hold an open debate on cooperation between the UN and the AU on peace and security: Chapter VIII application and the future of the African peace and security architecture. The AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, Smail Chergui, the newly-appointed Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission Ambassador Macharia Kamau (Kenya) and a high-level UN official are expected to brief the Council.Also in May, Council members are expected to hold in New York their annual meeting with the members of the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC).
Background
With its increasing involvement in peace and security issues across the continent since its creation in 2001, the AU has become the UN’s key partner in peace operations. This partnership was a major focus of the 2015 peace operations review, highlighted in the reports by the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) and the Secretary-General.
The HIPPO report called for the UN to deepen its strategic partnership with the AU “to enable swift and effective responses to crises underpinned by mutual responsibilities and clear comparative advantages”. It stated that the UN-AU strategic partnership should be based on the following principles of cooperation: “consultative decision-making and common strategy; the division of labour based on respective comparative advantage; joint analysis, planning, monitoring and evaluation; integrated response to the conflict cycle, including prevention; and transparency, accountability and respect for international standards”.
While acknowledging that a pragmatic and case-by-case approach is needed for cooperation with regional organisations, the Secretary-General in his report also recognised a need to “move away from improvisation in how we work together” and to build on previous experience to establish standing arrangements and procedures that can be applied flexibly when operations are established. The establishment of the first AU-UN hybrid operation in Darfur in 2007, the funding for support to the AU Mission to Somalia through UN assessed contributions and the re-hatting of AU operations in Mali and the Central African Republic, illustrate the broad range of ad-hoc modalities for AU-UN cooperation on peace operations in the last decade.
To ensure the coherence of the peace and security architecture in both systems, the UN Secretariat and the AU Commission are planning, among other initiatives, to finalise in 2016 a Joint UN-AU Framework for an Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security, which is expected to provide a blueprint for early and continuous engagement between these organisations before, during and after conflict. This framework is expected to institutionalise the strategic partnership between the AU and the UN, and provide the basis for practical cooperation on peace operations.
The issue of funding has become one of the most contentious aspects of AU-UN cooperation. The lack of flexible, sustainable and predictable funding for AU peacekeeping operations authorised by the Security Council is raised frequently in the Council, mostly by African members. Building on the work of a 2008 joint AU-UN panel, known as the Prodi Report, the HIPPO report recommended the use of UN assessed contributions on a case-by-case basis to support AU peace operations authorised by the Council, including the costs associated with deployed uniformed personnel, to complement African funding. In January 2015, the AU Assembly agreed to contribute up to 25 percent of the cost of AU peace and security efforts, including peace support operations, to be fully achieved by the year 2020, envisaging that the other 75 percent of the cost of such missions would be provided by the UN through assessed contributions. In his implementation report, the Secretary-General announced a joint UN-AU review and assessment of various mechanisms currently available to finance and support AU peace operations authorised by the Council. In January, the AU appointed Donald Kaberuka, the outgoing president of the African Development Bank Group, as its High Representative for the Peace Fund.
Since 2007, PSC members have held annual consultative meetings with Council members, and peace operations have featured prominently in these discussions. The last of these meetings, which alternate between New York and Addis Ababa, took place in Addis Ababa on 12 March 2015. In recent years, there has been a joint press conference with the president of the UN Security Council and the chairperson of the PSC (something resisted in the past by certain Council members, concerned that it could be perceived as undermining the standing of the UN Security Council as the principal body responsible for maintaining international peace and security). In the last communiqué, it was agreed to conduct a joint field mission to a conflict situation or area in Africa, to be identified through consultations during 2015. Although this mission did not take place, the Council stopped in Addis after its visit to Bujumbura, Burundi in January, to have discussions about mediation efforts and the possible deployment of an AU force to Burundi.
Key Issues
A key issue is to ensure that the partnerships are effective at the strategic, operational and tactical level, and for the Council to devise an effective, sustainable and fair working relationship with the AU, including a solution to the issue of financing of Council-authorised operations.
A related issue is for African Council members to articulate concerns that African regional organisations may have regarding Council decisions.
Options
The Council could issue a joint communiqué with the AU PSC reiterating their intention to undertake a joint visiting mission with the AU PSC in 2016, as originally foreseen in 2015.
The Council could also adopt a presidential statement:
- addressing the need to enhance the predictability, sustainability and flexibility of financing for regional organisations when they are implementing Security Council mandates; and
- encouraging its ad hoc Working Group on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa to meet more regularly on topics pertaining to the efforts of African-led initiatives in support of UN-mandated operations.
Council and Wider Dynamics
In addition to the annual consultations between the Security Council and the AU PSC, the relations between the UN and the AU on peace operations have been discussed in several open debates. The last discussions took place in July 2014 (at the initiative of Rwanda) and in December 2014 (under the presidency of Chad).
Although Council members agree in general terms on the importance of partnerships with regional organisations in Africa and elsewhere in maintaining international peace and security, acting on that principle continues to be a challenge. This is the case, for example, regarding the financing of AU operations. In the negotiations over a 25 November 2015 presidential statement, Council members could not even agree on a reference to the Prodi Report by name. As a compromise, the statement merely noted the recommendations of the HIPPO report, including with respect to the strategic partnership with the AU.
| Security Council Resolutions | |
| 28 July 2014 S/RES/2167 | This resolution was on regional partnerships and peacekeeping. |
| Security Council Presidential Statements | |
| 25 November 2015 S/PRST/2015/22 | The Council took note of the recommendations of the HIPPO report and the Secretary-General’s implementation report. |
| Secretary-General’s Reports | |
| 2 September 2015 S/2015/682 | This was the Secretary-General’s report on the implementation of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations’ recommendations. |
| 1 April 2015 S/2015/229 | This report was entitled “Partnering for peace: moving towards partnership peacekeeping”. |
| Security Council Letters | |
| 17 June 2015 S/2015/446 | This was the report of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations. |
| 24 December 2008 S/2008/813 | This was the letter from the Secretary-General forwarding the AU-UN panel report on how to support AU peacekeeping operations established under UN mandate to the Council president, known as the Prodi Report. |
| Security Council Meeting Record | |
| 16 December 2014 S/PV.7343 | This was an open debate on “Peace Operations: The UN-AU Partnership and Its Evolution”. |
