Armed militias and mercenaries are at the center of urgent discussions convened by the United Nations in Ethiopia, to explore ways of containing their unlawful activities in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Although armed militant groups remain active in Europe as well, especially in Spain and eastern Europe and the Caucasus, their activities are small when compared with the paramilitary action perpetrated on those three continents, analysts said. Much of the paramilitary violence is drug-related and at other times an offshoot of international terrorism.

Attending the conference Wednesday and Thursday will be government representatives from Colombia and Russia and some 25 African countries. Chronic economic problems have weakened African states and exposed them to paramilitary groups that resort to violence as a means of livelihood and a challenge to governments, analysts said.

In Latin America, the problem is further complicated by governmental support to militias. Colombia has accused Venezuela of sustained armed support to guerrillas who oppose the Bogota government and are involved with drug trafficking to North America and regional terrorism, analysts said.

Officials said conference delegates will pool their experience of paramilitary threats and share information with a U.N. working group on the dangers posed to sovereign states by mercenary groups.

The use of mercenaries and private military and security companies on the African continent will be in special focus, officials said. Analysts said PMSCs were a major concern because they drained scarce resources of impoverished nations on the continent.

"This regional consultation in Africa is of particular importance given that the region is becoming a key market for the security industry," said Fijian Shaista Shameem, who heads the working group. "However, PMSCs have remained largely unregulated, insufficiently monitored and rarely held accountable for the international crimes and human rights abuses they have committed."

This meeting is the fourth of a series of five regional consultations that will end with a consultation with the Western European and Others Group in Geneva in April 2010.

Shameem said the mandate was created in 1987 in a context in which the right of peoples to self-determination in Africa was often threatened by mercenary activities.

State representatives will exchange good practices and lessons learned on the monitoring and regulation of the activities of private military and security companies and in particular on the adoption of a possible draft convention regulating their activities.

The working group said it "welcomes this opportunity to build on national experience in the continent to discuss general guidelines and principles for national and international regulation and oversight of the activities of private companies with the aim of encouraging the protection of human rights."

The working group is comprised of five independent experts serving in their personal capacities: Shameem, the current chairwoman-rapporteur, Najat al-Hajjaji from Libya, Amada Benavides de Perez from Colombia, Jose Luis Gomez del Prado from Spain, and Alexander Nikitin from the Russian Federation.