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The African Union in the United Nations

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The African Union in the United Nations Chapter 5 The African Union in the United Nations Nandi Makubalo, Madeleine O. Hosli and Michaël Lantmeeters The African Union (AU) has observer status in the UN General Assembly and a permanent office in New York. Most of its member states are also members of the official regional group, the Group of African States, the largest official regional grouping in the UN, with 28.2 percent of the UN’s membership. In terms of its activities within the UN, the AU mainly operates via the Group of African States, but this chapter focuses principally on the AU. It usually is the Group of African States rather than the AU that addresses the UNGA, but in terms of the preparation of positions within the UNGA, the AU and the Group of African States work closely together; in fact, the AU Delegation in New York supports the activities of the Group of African States by, for instance, providing logistical support and conference facilities. This chapter thus investigates the role of a regional organization that is substantially integrated with an official regional group. This chapter first discusses the AU’s composition and functioning at the UN. It then analyses AU voting cohesion within the UN General Assembly, to illus- trate the extent to which the AU acts as a united group. Competition among AU states over UN Security Council reform detracts from this picture, how- ever. The chapter then discusses some of the AU’s primary concerns within the UN, including peacekeeping, Agenda 2063, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 1 Group Composition and Functioning The African Union was established in 2002. Its predecessor was the Organization for African Unity (OAU), formed in 1963. With 55 African member states, the AU is one of the largest regional integration schemes globally. Many of the salient decisions of the AU are taken in the framework of the AU’s bi-annual meeting of member states’ heads of state and government: the Assembly of the AU. The AU’s secretariat — the African Union Commission — ensures conti- nuity of the AU’s work and is based in Addis Ababa. The AU overlaps in terms of membership with two other large groups with- in the UN, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Group of 77 (G-77). © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004384446_006 The African Union in the United Nations 77 Currently, all African states — with the exception of South Sudan and the contested territory of Western Sahara — are also members of the NAM. The NAM, the G-77 and the Group of African States are all seen as significant actors within the UN. The G-77 was established on 5 June 1964 based on the ‘Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries’, issued at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In 2019, it encompassed 134 developing nations, formed to enhance the collective negotiation capacity of its mem- bers within the UN. The G-77 has a permanent office in New York. Within the UNGA, the G-77 aims to display coordinated actions in the Second, Third and Fifth Committees.1 It also aims to act collectively in the plenary sessions of the UNGA, notably in the area of economics and of development. China par- ticipates in the G-77, but does not see itself as a member. Accordingly, official statements of the group are issued as ‘The Group of 77 and China’. In 2018, the G-77 was chaired by Egypt and in 2019, by Palestine, which is an observer state of the UN. By comparison, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) consists of a group of UN member states which do not see themselves aligned in a formal way with any major power bloc on the global level. The NAM currently encompasses 118 member and 18 observer states. The NAM organizes a summit meeting every three years, with the host country of the summit chairing the group until the next summit. The continuity of the group’s activities is provided by a ‘NAM Troika’, consisting of the current, previous and incoming chairs. Within the UNGA, the NAM coordinates its positions on topics in the realm of peace and security, but it also aims at coordination in the framework of the First, Fourth and Sixth Committees, as well as selected Third Committee issues. The perma- nent mission of the NAM chair to the UN acts as the focal point for exchanges and communication within the group. The AU is active in using both the NAM and G77 to put forward resolutions or influence negotiations that are of inter- est to the AU, both within the UNSC and the UNGA. The AU-G77-NAM ‘alliance’ is notably key to resolutions concerning core issues in development — ex- amples being agricultural technology for development, the New International Economic Order, environmental concerns related to Africa or the Developing World and resolutions relating to decolonization.2 In this sense, the aims of 1 The UNGA has six committees: 1) Disarmament and International Security; 2) Economic and Financial; 3) Social, Humanitarian and Cultural; 4) Special Political and Decolonization; 5) Administrative and Budgetary; and 6) Legal. 2 Laurent Zang, ‘The Contribution of African Diplomacy to the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77’, African Journal of International Affairs 1, no.1 (1998): 1–16. .
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