NEW DELHI: African leaders attending the U.N. General Assembly in September reiterated their demand for a reform of the powerful Security Council that would include permanent seats for countries from the continent in the global body’s highest decision-making structure.
Many African heads of state who addressed the meeting since it began on September 23 have decried the continent’s lack of permanent representation in the Security Council as it navigates global security issues that directly and indirectly affect their populations and governments.
The 15-member Security Council has five permanent members — the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and China — that hold veto power. Other nations, which do not, are elected by the General Assembly rotate in and out every two years on a staggered basis. Africa holds three of those nonpermanent seats.
According to most African leaders, the unfair representation in the Security Council has created doubt about the credibility of the organization and its oft-trumpeted commitment to multilateralism and equality among nations.
“Every nation is sovereign and equal under the (U.N.) charter. Yet, on the gravest question of war and peace, five nations possess a permanent power that the other 188 do not. The equality proclaimed in this assembly ends at the doors of the security council,” Kenyan President William Ruto told delegates. Liberia’s president, Joseph Nyuma Boakai said that “the historical injustice is no longer tenable.”
Botswana President Duma Boko was among the leaders calling for African nations to be included in the discussions on Artificial Intelligence. Reform is not an attack on the United Nations, said Somalia’s president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.
Namibia President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said: “The time has come for us to recognize that we have been negotiating for too long.”
At least two seats Most leaders are sticking to the initial demands contained in the African Union’s position on the issue adopted in 2005, which includes a demand for at least two permanent seats on the Security Council.
