“African voices, African insights, and African participation must be brought to bear across the council’s deliberations and actions,” the UN chief said.
UNITED NATIONS | Xinhua | UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for enhancing Africa’s effective representation in the United Nations Security Council to ensure the council’s “full credibility and legitimacy.”
In remarks at a high-level debate on “Addressing the Historical Injustice and Enhancing Africa’s Effective Representation in the Security Council,” Guterres said the Security Council has been a bedrock of global peace and security since 1945, but the cracks in its foundation are becoming “too large to ignore.”
“They are contributing to deadlock, stalemate and stagnation around today’s most pressing crises,” and are feeding “a broader crisis of credibility and legitimacy that is affecting multilateralism itself,” he said.
The UN chief noted that the world has changed, but the composition of the council “has not kept pace.”
“We cannot accept that the world’s preeminent peace and security body lacks a permanent voice for a continent of well over a billion people … making up 28 per cent of the membership of the United Nations,” he said.
“Nor can we accept that Africa’s views are undervalued on questions of peace and security, both on the continent and around the world,” he said.
The UN chief stressed that Africa is under-represented in global governance structures, but over-represented in the challenges these structures are designed to address. “Conflicts, emergencies and geopolitical divisions have an outsized impact on African countries.”
Addressing the many challenges facing Africa, including conflicts, debt burdens, flooding and droughts, Guterres said the United Nations, through the Joint United Nations-African Union Framework for Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security, is addressing complex challenges on the continent, from the Central African Republic, to Somalia, the Sahel and the crisis in Sudan.
African countries host almost half of all UN peacekeeping operations, while contributing troops of their own to global hotspots over the years, he said, adding that over 40 percent of UN peacekeepers are African.
“But African efforts and contributions are not being matched by African representation,” he pointed out.
“Ensuring this council’s full credibility and legitimacy means heeding the longstanding calls from the UN General Assembly, various geographic groups … and some permanent members of this Council itself, to correct this injustice,” he said.
Guterres urged all UN member states to attend the Summit of the Future in September, and contribute their views and ideas so that “African voices are heard, African initiatives are supported, and African needs are met.”
“African voices, African insights, and African participation must be brought to bear across the council’s deliberations and actions,” he said. ■