Lhe Senegalese Presidents Macky Sall and South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa have sounded the alarm bells in the face of an “unfair” representation of Africa on the UN Security Council. The two leaders regret that no African country is a permanent member. “It is unfair that Africa, with 54 countries, is not represented on the UN Security Council” by permanent members, said Macky Sall in Dakar, during a joint press conference with his South African counterpart. .
Cyril Ramaphosa, him, criticized “an unfair representation of the continent”. “We want the voices of 1.3 billion [d’Africains] be heard in the same way as those of others. We want Africa to be well represented. We want this to stop, ”insisted the South African leader, who attended the Forum for Peace and Security in Africa. He immediately began an official visit, his first to Senegal since coming to power in February 2018.
Real sea serpent
When the United Nations was created, after the Second World War, the objective was to prevent armed conflicts and violence. For decades, the most important UN peacekeeping and restoration missions have been deployed on the African continent. The United Nations Security Council has 15 members, including 5 permanent members (China, United States, Russia, France and United Kingdom) and 10 members elected by the General Assembly for a period of two years. With its 54 member countries and 1.3 billion inhabitants, Africa represents 25% of the members of the United Nations. However, the continent only has two to three non-permanent seats on the Security Council, currently occupied by Kenya, Tunisia and Niger. “50% of the issues on the Security Council’s agenda and 70% of those listed under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter concern Africa”, summed up, at the end of 2020, the former President of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou.
Pressures from all sides
To change the situation, the Senegalese head of state declared himself in favor of discussions with non-African countries with a view to reforms so that Africa obtains at least two permanent member seats, having all the prerogatives of permanent members. current. “We will continue to fight for the reform” of the Security Council, added the Senegalese head of state. In this battle, Senegal and South Africa are far from alone, since the African Union, through the “C10” – a group of ten countries mandated by the AU to negotiate the reform of the Security Council. United Nations – has been calling for better representation for several years in the name of a demographic rebalancing. The reform should make it possible to grant at least one permanent seat to Africa within this body. But the permanent members of the Council reluctant to reform argue the persistent political instability and the low financial contribution of Africa to the United Nations budget (0.01% in 2021, against 25% for the United States). The African Union has received strong support, like that of Germany, but not that of China, which continues to exercise a growing grip on African capitals in order to force them to align with its diplomatic interests. in the first place. Thanks to African votes, China took the head of four of the fifteen UN agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Gabon and Ghana are the two countries that will join the Security Council from 1er January 2022.
