Let me welcome you all to this meeting of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) on “Financing AU Peace Support Operations” (PSOs) convened at the Ministerial level. Having this meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly signifies the urgency and critical importance for us to make a bold statement and call on the UN Security Council that the time for this long-standing issue of financing AU PSOs to be addressed is now, not tomorrow.
We cannot wait any longer for logistics and financial support to AU PSOs to be predictable, adequate and sustainable, using UN assessed contributions to enable robust actions to address the current complex, transnational