United Nations- African Union Partnerships in Peace Operations

In recent months, the UN and member states have increased their focus on strengthening partnerships between the UN and regional and sub-regional organizations to address challenges to peace and security. In particular, there is a recognized need to address rising violent extremism and other threats to state sovereignty. Yet, because counterterrorism and peace enforcement fall outside the mandates of UN peace operations, the UN and member states are increasingly looking to other actors to fill this gap. The relationship between the UN and the African Union (AU) is of particular importance, given the AU's leadership role on the continent where many security crises are occurring. The UN and AU have partnered together in mission settings before, such as Darfur and Somalia, and lessons from these contexts are important to inform future work. The purpose of this project is to examine previous partnership models in mission settings between the UN and the AU in order to assess successes, challenges, and lessons learned. The project would consider administrative arrangements, roles and responsibilities, and sequencing, among other things. The Capstone team would also make recommendations for the future based on the current capacities and limitations of both the AU and the UN, as well as emerging security challenges.