Wednesday, April 24, 2013

UN and African Union Peace Operations

The International Peace Institute (IPI) published a paper in April 2013 titled "Peace Operations, the African Union and the United Nations: Toward More Effective Partnerships."  The authors are Arthur Boutellis, research fellow at IPI, and Paul D. Williams, associate professor in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

The paper analyzes the evolution of collaboration between the UN and AU on peace operations and asks how they can cooperate more effectively.  It looks at the AU mission in Somalia as a case study that exemplifies some of the positive and negative aspects of the UN-AU relationship.  The paper then summarizes some of the challenges that will need to be overcome if the two organizations are to optimize their collaboration and deploy legitimate and effective peace operations.  It concludes by offering some practical recommendations for enhancing UN-AU relations.