The African Union and the United Nations cooperation on peacekeeping in Africa.
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Date
2020
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Abstract
The African Union (AU) in response to the many violent conflicts that had erupted on the
continent endorsed the agreement with regards to the formation of a Peace and Security
Council (PSC) in Durban in July 2002 and this became operational as the African Union
Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) in December 2003. The AU has sought to develop
capacities for peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace building to deal with endemic conflict on
the continent, but all of these is limited in their reach and effect. The AU has noted the
challenges to its peacekeeping efforts, therefore cooperation with the United Nations has been
one way to address these challenges. The African Union and the United Nations are presently
collaborating in peace keeping missions in Somalia (AMISOM), Darfur (UNAMID) and the
Central African Republic (MINUSCA). This thesis focused on AU peacekeeping capacity and
specifically on how the cooperation between the AU and UN, has worked in practice and
contributes to the discussion on peacekeeping operations as an effective mechanism of
resolving conflicts in Africa. This thesis accessed new areas such as the strategic nature of the
African state, international interest and involvement in the AU-UN peacekeeping operations
in Darfur, Somalia and CAR, legitimacy issues, such as the local ownership of the peace
operations, impact of Armed no state actors on peacekeeping operations in Africa, using
Somalia, Sudan (Darfur) and the Central African Republic where the AU and UN are
involved in cooperative peacekeeping operations to assess that. This thesis adopted a case
study and qualitative paradigm which involved a structured gathering , presentation, analysis
of data on the effectiveness of the African Union and the United Nations peacekeeping
operations in Somalia, Sudan (Darfur) and the Central African Republic and adopted the
collective security theory as its theoretical framework. This thesis finds out that seven factors
such as funding, mandates that are clear and achievable, the doctrines of the United Nations
peacekeeping, external actors, regional dimension of the conflict, issues of legitimacy,
acceptance, local ownership, the roles of Africa’s regional economic communities and
coordination between them and the African Union, the activities of armed non-state actors
impacted significantly on the effectiveness of the peacekeeping operations of the African
Union and the United Nations in Africa. This thesis recommends increased collaboration and
coordination amongst the African Union, the United Nations and Africa’s regional economic
institutions.
Description
Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.