The United Nations Security Council on March 18 explored ways to enhance its relationship with the Africa Union (AU) with a focus on bolstering the regional organization's capacity to carry out peacekeeping missions in Africa.

The 15-member body said it "welcomes the continued important efforts of the African Union to settle conflicts on the African continent, and expresses its support for peace initiative conducted by the AU," in a presidential statement issued Wednesday at the end of the council's open consultations to explore ways to strengthen its partnership with the AU in peacekeeping operations. Meanwhile, it encourages the UN and the AU to step up their cooperation in areas of mutual interest.

In accordance with its Resolution 1809, adopted in April last year, the UN Security Council set up a joint AU-UN panel in last September to consider the modalities of supporting peacekeeping operations established under a UN mandate. The panel, chaired by former Italian Premier Romano Prodi, in its report to the Security Council appealed for "a more effective strategic relationship between the UN and the AU." It has been reported that acute fund shortage is a major factor seriously restricting the peacekeeping operations of the AU in the African region.

It is one of the main responsibilities and missions for the United Nations to maintain international stability, according to the "World Today" (News) of Egypt in a commentary of March 19 on the stepped-up UN-AU cooperation. So, judging from this point of view, the Egyptian newspaper noted, the UN and AU can be said to "reach the same goal by different routes."

To date, almost half of the U.N. authorized peacekeeping missions worldwide are in Africa, and the AU has displayed growing flexibility and mobility over recent years in safeguarding the regional stability and maneuvering for the settlement of regional issues. So, the UN and the AU have irreplaceable, unique advantages to tap and respective roles to play on crucial, hot issues of the African continent. Against this backdrop, it is very urgent, compelling and imperative to increase UN-AU cooperation.

In view of the present situation, the information sharing, personnel exchange and provision of logistics support would be the focus of beefing up UN-AU cooperation in the years ahead. The enhanced complementariness and coordination between them will not only benefit countries on the Africa continent but will at the same time help further raise the UN capacity to resolve global and regional issues.

The release of the presidential statement on March 18, acknowledged Professor Shu Yunguo, director of the elite Center for African Studies affiliated to the Shanghai Normal University, east China, shows that the U.N. has affirmed and further improved Resolution 1809 adopted by the Security Council last year after nearly a year of practice, and it is of positive importance for the establishment of a new exchange and cooperation mechanism between the UN and the AU.

First, the UN will continue to support the AU in resolving crises on the strife-torn continent. The AU has done a great deal of work in preventing, coping with and resolving crises on the Africa continent in the past eight years since its founding in 2001, and won the recognition of the UN. Practice in recent years has given an eloquent proof that the settlement of any African issue cannot do without the involvement of AU.

Second, the United Nations is expected to conduct further cooperation with the AU. Its budget for 2008 peacekeeping in Africa reached approximately 5.2 billion US dollars, and the AU member states provided over 75 percent of all UN peacekeepers in Africa. Therefore, the aid and cooperation from the UN is absolutely indispensable in an endeavor to resolve crises in the African region.

Moreover, the cooperation between the UN and regional organizations represents a viable, effective factor that helps resolve regional crises, and the UN-AU cooperation has definitely proven its practical, striking effect and significance. So, people are fully convinced that such type of cooperation model is sure to play a bigger and greater role in coping with regional crises.

By People's Daily Online and its authors are PD resident reporters at the UN headquarters in New York Xi Laiwang and Wu Yun, and PD resident reporter in Egypt Li Xiao