Enhancing the cooperation between the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (UN), Egypt's Permanent Representative to the UN Mohamed Edrees co-chaired, along with Norway, the first meeting of a cooperative group, called the Group of Friends of the UN-AU Partnership (UN-AU GoF), at the UN headquarters in New York. The consultative forum was established to address issues of peace and security and development, in addition to strengthen the collaborative approach of the member states of the UN and AU. Speaking in the meeting, Edrees noted that the group aims to tackle African issues and priorities in the UN, including sustainable development. He asserted that the increasing need of cooperation between the UN and the AU had prompted Egypt to lead the creation of the group, adding that what makes this group more distinguished is having two headquarters both in New York and Addis Ababa with member states. Egypt, Norway, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Germany, Japan, Kenya, México Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, South Korea, and Sweden, launched in May 2019 an open-ended Group of Friends of the UN-AU Partnership in Addis Abeba. The GoF is an informal forum, supplementing the established meeting architecture and other cooperative arrangements existing between the UN and the AU. In April 2017, the UN and the AU signed a Joint UN-AU Framework for Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security. The two organisations also signed a second framework for the implementation of the Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the 30th AU Summit in January 2018 in Addis Ababa.
