By Addis Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia

The UN has developed “concrete proposals” for funding African peacekeeping missions, the UN Security Council’s current president said Thursday.

Tekeda Alemu, Ethiopia’s permanent representative to the UN, said supporting peacekeeping would top the agenda at a meeting of the council and African Union representatives on Friday.

“We have concrete proposals to make,” he told a seminar at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa.

In February, the UN General Assembly voted to cut the $8 billion budget for global peacekeeping operations by $600 million, raising fears over the protection of vulnerable people in conflict zones in Africa and elsewhere.

As of last June, the UN was conducting 16 peacekeeping missions around the world -- nine of them in Africa. The budget for 14 of the operations was around $7.87 billion, according to the UN peacekeeping website.

The U.S. government, which provides more than a quarter of the UN’s peacekeeping budget, has suggested cutting its contribution by $1 billion.

Senior UN figures have repeatedly warned of severe budget shortfalls in recent years.

In May, UNICEF said a $220 million budget gap threatened assistance to 9 million Syrian children while the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR said it had managed to raise just $29 million of its $153 million budget for northern Syria.

Friday’s meeting in the Ethiopian capital will also address UN reform and security issues in areas such as South Sudan and Mali.