- Forum Paper 22: “AU-NATO Collaboration: Implications and Prospects”, by the NATO Defense College and the Institute for Security Studies – edited by Brooke A. Smith-Windsor.
At the request of the African Union (AU), NATO has since 2005 provided support for AU missions and capacity-building. Such assistance has spanned the provision of airlift for the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS), strategic airlift, sealift and subject matter expertise for the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), as well as assessments of the operational readiness of the African Standby Force (ASF) brigades. In addition to directly supporting the AU, NATO has contributed to enforcement actions off the Somali coast, first in late 2008 providing maritime escort for World Food Program (WFP) vessels following the request of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and since, through counter-piracy operations in the same region in accordance with UN Security Council authorization. With its decision to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1973 to protect civilian populations in Libya, however, NATO’s contributions to peace enforcement in Africa have not been without controversy. With this backdrop, the NDC’s latest Forum Paper offers a strategic assessment of the Atlantic Alliance’s role in the whole of 21st Century Africa by a group of highly eminent as well as rising scholars resident in AU and NATO Member States.
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