Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Statement by Mr.Dmitry Polyansky, First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, at the Security Council on the cooperation with the African Union

 We would like to thank Ms. Sahle-Work Zewde, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, and Mr. Smaїl Chergui, African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security, for their substantive briefings.

We share the attitude of the Secretary-General to the development and strengthening of the cooperation between the United Nations, the African Union (AU) and Africa’s subregional organizations. The challenges facing both the African continent and the international community make it essential to unite our efforts and make use of the organizations’ comparative advantages.

We see the potential for more thorough interaction. We welcome the efforts of our African partners to resolve conflicts on the continent and have been pleased to note a marked intensification in the activities of the African Union and subregional organizations in that regard, including in efforts to establish a continentwide peace-and-security architecture. There can be no question that in order to deal effectively with Africa’s crises, the continent requires first of all an approach in which Africans themselves take the leading role in determining ways to settle their various problems, combined with effective support to their efforts from the international community.

The approach we support is that of “African solutions to African problems”. We would like to focus attention on the fact that cooperation between the United Nations and the AU should be based on Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations, including such key provisions as ensuring that the peace and security activities of regional arrangements are consistent with the purposes and principles of the Charter, that peaceful means are used for settling disputes, that Security Council authorization is obtained for any enforcement action and that the Council is kept informed. Besides that, it is important to ensure that individual recipes for dealing with crises are developed for each concrete situation and geared to local specifics.

We believe that in the majority of cases, the regional stakeholders have a better understanding of situations in their area of responsibility. However, the Security Council has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, so its participation in resolving Africa’s problems is also essential.

We understand the concerns of our African partners about the provision of resources for African peacekeeping operations. It will be important to improve the predictability, reliability and flexibility of the financing for African operations and joint missions. We do not object in principle to considering the possibilities for expanding United Nations participation in such missions, and we are ready for further constructive dialogue in that regard.

However, we believe it is extremely important to maintain the current United Nations procedures for considering and approving the relevant budgetary applications, to ensure transparency and accountability in the allocation and use of funds, and to provide for the participation of United Nations personnel at every stage of the planning and practical implementation of the tasks involved.

Obviously, strengthening cooperation between our organizations will inevitably mean additional responsibilities for the regional actors that they must be fully prepared for. Russia participates actively in the logistics of peacekeeping, primarily by providing air services.

We give a great deal of attention to training police and military personnel from Africa through Russia’s specialized institutions. In particular, the All-Russian Institute of Advanced Training of Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation runs a training programme for peacekeepers. African law-enforcement officials are given the opportunity to study in higher-education programmes as well as shortterm training courses for improving their qualifications in Ministry of Internal Affairs educational institutions.

We are ready to share with our African partners our experience in counter-terrorism and to implement projects to increase the capacity of the continent’s countries to combat the threats of terrorism and extremism.