African Union to get a standby Peacekeeping Force

The African Union will soon be equipped with it’s own standby peacekeeping force.

The announcement was made during an open debate of the UN Security Council on the theme: “United Nations-African Union peace and security cooperation.”

The UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hervé Ladsous said that the African standby force will be operational as early as July.

Field training of the forces already began in October last year, to evaluate their readiness in peacekeeping missions.

A presidential statement on UN-AU cooperation was adopted at the meeting, which “stressed the importance of further strengthening cooperation and developing an effective partnership with the African Union”.

._AfricanUnion ‘most important partner,’ UN #peacekeeping chief tells #UNSChttps://t.co/Y0NjT49qk1 pic.twitter.com/ouiSS2GFQq

— UN News Centre (@UN_News_Centre) May 24, 2016

The 15-nation Council commended the increased contribution of the African Union to the maintenance of peace and security, and acknowledged the progress made in the ongoing cooperation between the UN and the AU.

Almost 50 per cent of all uniformed peacekeepers come from African Union member states, and more than 80 per cent of all uniformed peacekeepers are deployed in UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, making it the most important partner of the UN in peacekeeping.

The most active area of cooperation between the two bodies has been on the ground that includes the development of strategic concepts of operations for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), as well as the planning for operations in Mali and the Central African Republic.