African Union_Reading Memo

The study of the emergence of the African Union and ECOWAS regional organizations and their relations vis-à-vis the UN are very complex therefore fascinating, as they present a intertwined system of decentralization, questions on the prospective role assignments, legitimacy and the ideal type of the future model of African – UN cooperation.

How did the UN shape the establishment of African security agencies? Did its commitment failure actually give space for the enfoldment of African sovereignty? I argue what the texts of Begrhlom and Aning imply: that UN ignorance of African security issues in the 1990 created a vacuum of needed peacekeeping and reconstruction operations that could only be filled by the increased activity of African states, who in response, preached for African unity to successfully deal with its security problems. Therefore the development of African peace operations was created by the weaknesses of UN responses in Africa, which, in cases such as Rwanda in 1994, hopelessly failed to maintain peace and prevent genocide. These institutional and system-wide failures inspired African led initiatives to deliver security. It is striking that it was the UN neglect in Rwanda that led to the establishment of the first humanitarian-related operations of the OAU. I argue that even though the operations of the OAU can’t be today regarded as examples of good practice, the African countries needed these first experiences, including failures, to drive at the point of the 2001 establishment of the AU. The chance of independent actions and lack of western interest led to the strengthening of the international position of African regional agencies and their role in international security.

Furthermore, I believe that the decentralization trend of the UNSC added the needed legitimacy for the AU and ECOWAS and proved their utmost importance in African related operations.  The AMISOM mission in Darfur is a clear example of how the continuous rising independence and importance of the African states established the basis of future UN-AU operations. However I tried to look deeper into the AMISOM mission and the challenges faced by the AU-UN joint cooperation. While the authors mentioned especially the legal frameworks of such cooperation and their possible challenges to legitimacy and future role assignments, I believe that there is also a large capacity gap when it comes to logistics, communication and interagency-cooperation. I find it very frustrating, that even after various successful operations by the UN in the past, the UN states are not ready and willing to provide the needed financial support to the AU missions, which lacks dramatically the technology and manpower. Furthermore the lack of coordinated training by various AU troops poses a challenge for effective maneuvering. The AU's lack of financial and logistical resources undermines its ability to lead these types of operations, while it is at the same time naturally the most suited actor for conducting these operations in Africa.   As presented by Fisher, can Uganda be an inspiration for other African countries to secure positive donor relationships and through that secure funding for AU operations? Yes, to a certain degree. But the emerging question for me is, why should be the donors help conditioned by such image building practices, which do not necessarily reflect the realities of the state and for which other countries might lack the needed capacities? While the African countries should definitely lobby their cause on the international arena, I argue that systemic effort by the UNSC is needed. The UN Security Council and AU should therefore establish a long overdue mechanism for financing UN-authorized AU peace support operations.

As the articles suggest, the goal should be the use of comparative advantages of the specific abilities of the UN and AU or ECOWAS and by this, establishing an ideal type of case by case problem solving. Comparative advantage is a major factor behind UN, AU, and regional cooperation and should be the determining factor in deciding who should lead what conflict, when and how-given their comparative advantage.  But as Williams and Boutelis note, there is lack of clear division of labor, no clear criteria, and there is no agreed decision making process to debate these qualifications. Furthermore the grassroots „cultural and ethnical“ differences of the UN and AU understanding of peacekeeping is a major factor that hinder effective operations. I agree that the old-school concept of the UN Articles is too rigid to address the specifics and dynamics of African security problems. I would agree with a stronger legal mandate of the AU in peacekeeping operations, as the UN poses obstacles that prevent the AU from actions that would lead to, in my opinion, better solutions. However the argument of possible precedent for other regional organizations in the world would in the future have the possibility of a chain-reaction, allowing other organizations to independently conduct peacekeeping operations. Does it pose a more generic question of whether the whole UN system should be reformed? Yes. But why should we stick to the current state of the UN system, which was established in years with clear cut interstate conflicts, when nowadays the world presents to us so complex, challenging problems, which ask for more complex solutions? While I agree that this is a very bold statement which probably disregards many connecting factors, I generally oppose the idea that elementary change in these systems is not possible.