Description
Although international organizations, specifically the United Nations, have increasingly played a significant role in conflict management, still war and conflicts have largely been inevitable. Thus, the role of regional organizations in order to resolve the conflicts of the specific region and as a support to the international organizations is salient. It was assumed that this step would share the burden of international organizations and conflict management could be done in a possible manner. Much of the increased organizational activity has been at the regional level, in terms of Africa Organization of African Unity and African Union has been taken initiatives of dealing with conflicts in the African continent. However, this act of burden-sharing has been seen passing the buck by international organizations to other regional organizations. The idea of burden-sharing somehow ended up with burden shifting.
The paper is an attempt to find out how the cooperation between the two organizations works in the conflict area; firstly; the paper looks into the purpose of the emergence of regional organizations, especially the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which later transformed in African Union (AU). Secondly, it explains the conflict in Darfur and peacekeeping initiatives by international and regional organizations. Thirdly, the paper explores, whether the expansion of organization result of a shift in the security responsibilities? From the UN to regional organizations. Lastly, it discusses whether any increase in regional conflict management as an activity has been experienced equally across all regions or has it only been concentrated among the ones in the developed world.
