UNOAU participated in the inaugural Operational Technical Committee (OTC) meeting of the AU Compliance Framework (AUCF) project on 23 September. The OTC is co-chaired by the AU Director of Conflict Management Directorate and the Head of the AU Peace Support Operations Department (PSOD), the Head of Cooperation of the Delegation of the European Union (EU) to the AU, and the Director of the East Africa Regional Office (EARO) of OHCHR. The committee is tasked to provide thematic and methodological guidance, monitor implementation of the AUCF project, review and adopt quarterly work plans, and prepare for the High-Level Strategic Steering Committee (SSC) meetings.

The OTC meeting was attended by representatives from the AU, EU and the United Nations (UN), who discussed the first annual work plan for the AUCF project for 2022. The AU Project Coordinator, Mr. Kareem Adebayo, flagged several challenges that could affect the progress of the project’s implementation, including challenges in relation to the continent-wide scope of the project. He observed that the large scope of the project might lead to coordination challenges and insufficient buy-in from troop contributing countries (TCCs) at the political and strategic levels. He also cautioned against possible delays in recruitment of personnel, as the recruitment processes are not under the control of the AUCF team. The EU underscored the need for the AUCF team to work in close collaboration with all partners and requested that going forward, the budgetary allocation and usage updates should be submitted together with the project implementation reports. The OHCHR EARO Representative emphasized the need to have a broad scope of implementation of the project, including by bringing in other actors such as the UNOAU, OHCHR, UN Headquarters and the EU.