AFRICAN UNITY, ORGANIZATION OF

(OAU) intergovernmental organization, established May 25, 1963, to promote unity and solidarity of African states, to eliminate all forms of colonialism from Africa, and to promote international cooperation. Membership has varied somewhat from year to year because of political disputes. Its activities include diplomacy (especially in support of African liberation movements), mediation of boundary conflicts and interstate civil wars, research in economics and communications, and other affairs. The OAU's major practical achievements were mediation in the Algerian-Moroccan dispute (196465) and in the Somalia-Ethiopia and Kenya-Somalia border disputes (196567). Efforts to mediate in the civil war in Nigeria (196870) proved unavailing. In the 1980s the OAU attempted mediation to halt the civil war in Chad and proposed economic sanctions against South Africa to protest that country's policy of racism. The OAU maintains the Africa group at the United Nations through which many of its efforts at international coordination are channeled. The OAU was instrumental in bringing about the joint cooperation of African states in the work of the Committee of 77, which acts as a caucus of developing nations within the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The principal organ of the OAU is the annual assembly of heads of state and government. Between these summit conferences, policy decisions are in the hands of a council of ministers, composed of foreign ministers of member states. The OAU's headquarters are in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.