- The NATO office in Addis Ababa was established 3 years ago when the international community asked us to support the AU mission in Sudan . The major task was then the air lift support of more than 30 000 soldiers in and out of the country, says Nymo. This has later been expanded to a capacity building programme for the African Union – primarily focused on evaluation/sertification and “lesson learned”. When the AU asked NATO to continue the airlift support for deployed AU-forces in Somalia, NATO accepted the new assignment.
“Suits, not boots”
The cooperation between NATO and AU is currently focusing on technical support for the African Standby Force (ASF).
- NATO is a small partner in this project. Our policy is “suits, not boots on the ground” and we contribute with our experience, not with equipments or financial resources. UN, EU, US and the UK are among the large contributors to the ASF. We think the ownership must be African and follow the AU slogan “African ownership – African solutions to African problems”, says Nymo.
Amani Africa 2010
The African Standby Force is ambitious when it comes to the time frame. It is a demanding task to build a peacekeeping capability within a 4-5 years perspective.
- I doubt that NATO would have succeeded if they had tried to do the same with such a time horizon, says Nymo. The standby force will be composed of 5000 strong Brigades within each of the five regional economical blocks (REC’s) and will also include police units of about 800 police and other civilian elements from each region and The exercise Amani Africa 2010 will certify and evaluate the ASF concept.
NATO’s civilian liasion
It is in NATO’s interest that AU builds its own peace support capacity. Europe ’s security depends on the security/stability outside the region. A resource / border or ecological conflict will affect us as well, says Nymo. The Africa Monitoring & Support Team at the NATO Headquarters in Portugal is the operationeal headquarter for NATO’s work in Africa . The Norwegian Embassy is the diplomatic civilian NATO liaison to the African Union in Ethiopia. You can read more about AU's African Standby Force by following the link to the right.