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African Union Peace Operations

National Security Studies Program

George Washington University

Remarks by David H. Shinn

Elliott School of International Affairs

George Washington University

7 December 2012

The Organization of African Unity (OAU) was established in 1963 in Addis Ababa,

Ethiopia. African leaders adopted a new charter in 2001 and the OAU became the African

Union (AU). The principal organs of the AU are the Assembly, the most important component

that consists of the heads of state and government from each of the 54 member states. The

Assembly meets twice a year. The Executive Council consists of ministerial-level

representatives from each country and is responsible to the Assembly. The Commission is the

secretariat that has a permanent staff and handles the day-to-day management of the AU.

The Peace and Security Council is a 15-member elected body that manages strategic and

operational decisions related to conflict. The Peace and Security Council began operations in

2004 as “a collective security and early-warning arrangement to facilitate timely and efficient

response to conflict and crisis situations in Africa.” 

The AU is different in two important respects from the former OAU. The AU charter

underscores that it will not tolerate “unconstitutional changes of government.” The OAU did not

engage on this issue until the late 1990s when it condemned coups in Burundi and Sierra Leone.

The AU also claims the right of humanitarian intervention, which the OAU charter did not

address. The AU Assembly has the right to intervene in a member state “in respect of grave

circumstances, namely: war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.”

The Peace and Security Council has been preoccupied with trying to end armed conflictsafter they break out and to reverse illegal changes of government. It has spent little time on

conflict prevention or promoting good governance. The AU Peace and Security Department

supports the Peace and Security Council. It is divided into 4 divisions: Conflict Management,

Peace Support Operations, Peace and Security Council Secretariat and Defense and Security.

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Part of the AU security architecture is the Continental Early-Warning System based in

Addis Ababa. Although it is still a work in progress, it includes a situation room to collect and

analyze data for monitoring political instability across the continent. The AU also created a

Panel of the Wise in 2007 to advise the Peace and Security Council; it held its first formal

meeting in 2009.

A critical component of the security architecture is the African Standby Force (ASF).

The ASF hopes to establish five standby lists, each with about 5,000 troops, 720 police officers

and 60 civilians. The ASF is intended to respond to six different crisis scenarios ranging from

small-scale observation at one end of the spectrum to active military intervention at the other

end. The goal was to be fully operational by mid-2010. The ASF is not a standing army; rather

the force is pre-designated and is designed to be ready to move into a particular crisis. Each

regional list of designated personnel is expected to be on standby for six months at a time.

The ASF has faced a number of problems. First, there are no clear rules on who has the

authority to deploy the ASF, in what circumstances and who needs to give approval. Second,funding is a serious issue. Other AU military operations have been largely funded with money

from outside Africa. African countries have not yet identified enough money to fund the ASF

and it remains a concept on paper. The AU has a Peace Fund to pay for conflict management

activities; it has not been a success. Implementation of the ASF will require a huge investment

of political will and commitment of financial resources.

Since 2003, however, the AU has conducted nine peace operations: a medium sized and

small one in Burundi, four relatively small ones in the Comoro Islands, a fairly large one in

Darfur followed by a hybrid mission with the UN in Darfur, and a very large one in Somalia.

The AU operations in Burundi and the Comoro Islands have generally been considered asuccess. The initial mission in Darfur accomplished very little and even the hybrid AU/UN

mission has had limited success. The large mission in Somalia had a slow and difficult start but

has done surprisingly well in the past year.

Paul Williams, a professor at George Washington University, has studied peace

operations in Africa and come to four conclusions. First, AU operations depend on the

participation of a small number of troop-contributing countries, which reflects the uneven levels

of support for peacekeeping in Africa. Second, AU peace operations depend on non-African

funding. For example, the cost of the AU mission in Somalia is conservatively estimated at $600

to $800 million annually and most of the funding comes from Western donor countries. Third,the AU has difficulty agreeing on mandates for peace operations, especially when the host state

is a member of the Peace and Security Council. Fourth, with the exception of the operations in

the Comoro Islands, the AU has designed peace operations as interim measures with the

intention of passing the operation to the better financed and equipped UN.

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The AU has struggled to marshal the required military assets for larger and more complex

operations such as those in Darfur and Somalia. To its credit, however, it has taken on the

challenge when the UN was unwilling to accept responsibility. The AU has also done a good job

of sanctioning illegal changes of government in Africa. Since 2003, mainly as a result of 

military coups, it sanctioned the Central African Republic, Togo, Mauritania (twice), the Comoro

Islands, Guinea, Madagascar and Niger. It sanctioned Eritrea for its support of insurgents in

Somalia and sanctioned the Ivory Coast when the incumbent regime refused to step down after

an electoral defeat.

The current crisis in northern Mali is now under review as a possible peace operation.

The AU has asked the UN Security Council to endorse a military intervention to free northern

Mali from Islamist extremists affiliated with al-Qaeda. The AU Peace and Security Council

endorsed a plan to send 3,300 troops to Mali to join 5,000 Malian troops. The plan envisages

600 or 700 troops from Nigeria and 500 from Niger with the remainder from other African

countries. It expects the US and/or France will provide technical, intelligence and logistical

support. No date has been set to launch this peace operation and, if it happens, it probably will

not occur until well into 2013.