What's In Blue

Briefing on the UN Office for Central Africa

On Thursday, 18 August, the Council will be briefed by video-conference by the head of the UN Regional Office on Central Africa (UNOCA), Abou Moussa. This will be followed by Council consultations on UNOCA. As UNOCA was inaugurated on 2 March, there was some expectation that its first six-monthly report would be available ahead of the briefing. However, it appears the Secretariat has taken Moussa’s arrival to Libreville in June as the beginning of the six-month period and is therefore planning a report for the end of the year.

It seems that Moussa’s briefing will cover UNOCA’s work during the first months of its operation, its priorities and its capacity to implement its mandate. Following initial hesitancy from some members about establishing UNOCA, there now seems to be wider support for it.

It appears that some Council members are particularly interested in the role UNOCA can play in addressing the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) problem and other regional threats. The Council may also want to follow up on the press statement issued after its 22 July private meeting with the permanent observer of the African Union (AU), Téte António, and the permanent representatives of the CAR, the DRC, South Sudan and Uganda on the LRA. In the press statement, Council members requested UNOCA, in coordination with the United Nations Office to African Union (UNOAU), to engage with the African Union and facilitate cooperation between the UN and the AU on countering the LRA threat. They also requested the Secretary-General to provide further information on the UN regional strategic approach to the LRA and to produce a report, to be submitted in October 2011, assessing the threat posed by the LRA as well as the regional and UN efforts to address it .

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