By Prensa Latina,
United Nations : South African President Thabo Mbeki delivered the opening address of the special Security Council Session on conflict settlement, post conflict reconstruction and development promotion.
The head of states noted that fund shortage has limited the African Union efforts to meet the goals and prevents Africa from honoring its commitments and settle its own conflicts.
In his view, the funds to keep peace-keeping operations is basic to define and make relations between the UN and AU more efficient.
Mbeki lauded support from the UN secretary general to set up a panel to study ways to fund and support peace keeping operations and urged for similar support to cement an effective liaison between the Security Council and AU Security and Peace Councils.
He also called for thorough revision of UN experiences and that of countries that have hosted peace keeping operations to improve their effectiveness, while he linked conflict prevention, solution and peacekeeping and called world support to national efforts a must.
Mbeki hoped that at the end of this debate at the UN Security Council convened by South Africa the resulting measures help strengthen relations between the UN and regional organizations, namely the African Union.