Africa Has Provided Clear, Compelling Vision for Security Council Representation, Speakers Stress in Historic Debate on Enhancing Continent’s Participation
Africa has articulated a clear and compelling vision for its representation on the Security Council, that body heard today at a historic high-level debate on enhancing the continent’s effective participation in the United Nations organ tasked with maintenance of peace and security.
The meeting was convened by Sierra Leone, Council President for August, and chaired by that country’s President, Julius Maada Bio. Speaking in his national capacity, he said: “Today, I speak as a representative of a continent that has long been underrepresented in the decision-making process that shapes our world.” Setting out the aspirations of its fifty-plus countries and over 1 billion people, he stated: “Africa demands two permanent seats in the UN Security Council and two additional non-permanent seats, bringing the total number of non-permanent seats to five.” The African Union will choose the continent’s permanent members, he said, stressing that “Africa wants the veto abolished; however, if UN Member States wish to retain the veto, it must extend it to all new permanent members as a matter of justice.”
This is the Common African Position, as espoused in the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration, he said. As the Coordinator of the African Union’s Committee of Ten, his country has spearheaded efforts to amplify the continent’s voice on the question of its representation. Noting the bloc’s admission to the Group of Twenty (G20) as a welcome development, he said it is absurd for the UN to enter the eightieth decade of its existence without representation for his continent. It must be treated as a special case and prioritized in the Council reform process, he stressed.
Highlighting the way slavery, imperialism and colonialism have shaped current global power structures, he noted the persistent stereotype of Africa “as a passive actor” in global affairs. The continent’s inclusion in the permanent membership category will ensure that decisions affecting it are made with direct and meaningful input from those most impacted. This will not only unlock Africa's full potential; it will also improve the Council’ legitimacy, he added.
“The cracks” in the Organization’s foundation “are becoming too large to ignore”, António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations acknowledged during his briefing. The Council was “designed by the victors of the Second World War and reflects the power structures at that time,” he said, recalling that in 1945, most of today's African countries were still under colonial rule and had no voice in international affairs. As a result, there is no permanent member representing Africa in the Council and the number of elected members from the continent is not in proportion to its importance.
It is unacceptable, he underscored, that “the world's pre-eminent peace and security body lacks a permanent voice for a continent of well over a billion people”, whose countries make up 28 per cent of the membership of the UN. While Africa is underrepresented in global governance structures, it is overrepresented in the challenges these structures address. Nearly half of all country-specific or regional conflicts on the Council's agenda concern Africa, and “they are often exacerbated by greed for Africa’s resources” and further aggravated by external interference, he said.
“Reform of this Council membership must be accompanied by a democratization of its working methods,” he added, drawing attention to the need for more systematic consultations with host States and regional organizations. Enhancing Africa’s representation in the Council is not just a question of ethics; “it is also a strategic imperative that can increase global acceptance of the Council’s decisions,” he reminded that body.
Echoing that, Dennis Francis (Trinidad and Tobago), President of the General Assembly, said: “We cannot continue to take [the United Nations’] relevance for granted.” Instead, he added, “we must earn it, daily, with the actions we take”, including meaningful reform. Highlighting the Assembly’s active engagement on Council reform, he said the current draft of its input to the Pact of the Future calls for redressing the historical injustice to Africa.
The continent, he pointed out, is home to 54 of the UN’s 193 members, accounts for 1.3 billion of the world’s population and hosts the majority of UN peacekeeping operations. “The fact that Africa continues to be manifestly underrepresented on the Security Council is simply wrong,” he said. Alongside the growing calls for a Council that is more representative and transparent, he noted, there are also calls for a revitalized General Assembly. Member States are asking that body to assume a greater role in peace and security matters but also hold the Council more accountable for its actions — “and, indeed, inaction” he said.
The United Nations is clearly suffering from a legitimacy crisis, Sithembile Mbete, Senior Lecturer of Political Sciences at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria noted, adding that younger generations are witnessing its failures in “real time” on social media platforms. She described Africa’s experience of the UN system over the past 80 years as one of “misrepresentation and underrepresentation”. This has become evident in the perpetuated narratives of Africa as a continent of “backwards societies” reliant on aid as well as in the continent’s exclusion from permanent membership of the Council and inadequate representation among non-permanent members.
Detailing the historical context for this, she recalled the four centuries of European slave trade starting in 1450 and devastating Africa’s population, culture, and economies, as well as the 1884 Berlin Conference that imposed colonial States, which still impacts the continent’s economic relations with rich nations. In the 30 years since the end of the cold war, African subjects took up nearly 50 per cent of the Council’s meetings — but while Africa was on the menu, as was the case in Berlin 100 years ago, it still does not have a permanent seat at the table. By 2045, Africa will have 2.3 billion people, making up 25 per cent of the global population, she said, asking diplomats to summon “the courage” to confront the power relations that are preventing meaningful reform.
Lounes Magramane, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad of Algeria, pointed to the hotspots on his continent, from the security, development and humanitarian challenges in the Sahel region to the Sahrawi people’s struggle for their right to self-determination. Yet, Africa is the only group not represented in the permanent category, he said, reiterating the call for allocation of two permanent and two non-permanent seats. Permanent members must commit to support the reform process, he said, calling on them to participate constructively in the intergovernmental negotiations.
China’s representative was one of several speakers who traced the connection between colonialism and Africa’s under-representation. The brutal legacy of Western colonial rule, the inhumane slave trade and resource-plundering impoverished the people of that continent and artificially interrupted their development. This is the root cause of all historical injustices in Africa, he asserted. “Some Western countries still cling to the colonial mindset,” he said, interfering in Africa’s internal affairs using financial, legal, and even military means to exert their influence in currency, energy, minerals and national defence. He urged those countries “to change course and return the future of Africa to the hands of the African people”.
Eight decades ago when the Council first met, the United States’ delegate said, “its architects could not have imagined then what the world would look like today, as we cannot imagine what it will look like 70 years from now”. In 2050, one in four people on the planet will be African, she noted, adding that Africa has the fastest-growing population of any continent. “We all benefit when African leaders are at the table,” she said, adding that the upcoming Summit of the Future should be a platform for meaningful progress. At the same time, “Africa’s problems are not Africa’s alone to deal with,” she said, as she warned against the attempts of some States to obstruct Panels of Experts. They represent a critical UN tool that provides the body with credible information about security threats, she added.
General Jeje Odongo Abubakhar, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Uganda, said that despite being “the market of the world” and a leading contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, Africa has been “unjustly excluded from positions of power and influence” in the Council. A stronger presence will give the continent a “much-needed platform for engagement with the international community as an equal and significant partner,” he said. Voicing support for the intergovernmental negotiating process, he noted that “it is taking too long to conclude”.
Mozambique’s delegate noted that this topic has been long addressed in many different fora, including the negotiations on Assembly resolution 62/557 concerning “Question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and related matters”. Yet, regrettably, “the Security Council’s engagement in that process has been modest to say the least,” he said, adding that the body’s position has not changed much since the 1965 expansion that added the four elected members to the organ. To those who argue that expanding membership will diminish the Council’s efficacy, he pointed out that legitimacy and efficacy are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.
Shinsuke Shimizu, Ambassador for International Economic Affairs in Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, commended the continent’s effort to shoulder more responsibilities at the Council, highlighting the landmark resolution on financing of African Union-led Peace Support Operations. The Council must be reformed with an expansion in both permanent and non-permanent membership, he asserted. Also supporting the expansion of both categories of membership was Lord Collins of Highbury, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for the United Kingdom. In order for the Council to be as effective as it can be, it must urgently include permanent African representation, he said.
The representative of France stressed the need to strengthen the Council’s legitimacy whilst preserving its decision-making ability. The reform is “possible”, and Africa should serve as the “catalyst” for this change, she said, adding that the ambitious goal of expansion must be included in the text of the Pact of the Future. She also urged Member States to join her country’s initiative to limit the use of the veto in cases of mass atrocities.
The Council also heard from several members of the African Union’s Committee of Ten Heads of State and Government, also known as C-10, which was established in 2016. The speaker for Equatorial Guinea noted that the Common African Position has received much support from Member States in the Assembly as well as the five permanent Council members, “but we have not seen such support become a concrete reality and lead to actual reforms.” He invited them to clearly define that support and take action. Congo’s delegate said that given the five permanent Council members’ recognition of the historic injustice done to Africa, there is a real opportunity to advance this reform, encouraging Member States to consider seriously the proposals in the Common African Position.
The representative of Kenya said the “marginalization is getting worse as the powerful countries seek after their own interests” while Namibia’s delegate, who recalled the Council’s lack of support for his country during its struggle against apartheid and colonialism, underscored that enhancing Africa’s representation is “not a favor to the African continent”. The continent’s patience should not be mistaken as acquiescence, he warned. The representative of Senegal rejected “interim solutions that relegate new members to second-class roles” adding that “permanence is not a matter of privilege; it is a question of representativeness”.
While speakers expressed broad support for reforming the Council’s membership, some voiced reservations about certain aspects of the proposed reforms.
The representative of Italy, speaking for Uniting for Consensus, which he described as a reform group dedicated to achieving a more democratic Council, suggested increasing the number of seats in a reformed Council to a maximum of 27, out of which Africa would obtain 6 seats, thereby “becoming the group with the largest number of elected seats”. Intergovernmental negotiations have shown increasing convergence on the expansion of non-permanent seats based on equitable geographical distribution, he observed. At the same time, Africa’s aspiration to serve for longer periods on the Council is legitimate, he said, noting his group has proposed longer-term re-electable non-permanent seats to provide continuity of tenure. This will maintain a system of democratic accountability “without creating additional and unjustifiable privileged positions”, he said.
Along similar lines, the representative of the Republic of Korea, who reaffirmed his country’s support for Council reform, “standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Africa”, also cautioned that increasing permanent membership will mean that the vast majority of the UN membership would inevitably be further marginalized. “The Republic of Korea’s consistent and strong reservations about expanding the permanent membership are thus based on the rational and logical conclusion that this antiquity needs to be contained, not proliferated,” he underscored. The immediate priority should be expanding the non-permanent membership, he said, adding that “any fixed composition of new permanent members will serve at best as a still picture or a snapshot of one moment of history”.
Guyana’s delegate rejected the proposal for expanded permanent membership without the veto privilege, cautioning that this will create hierarchies of members in the permanent category. Moreover, it will perpetuate injustice by restricting the prerogatives of new permanent members, including from Africa. While firmly supporting the abolition of the veto, she contended that “as long as it continues to exist, all new permanent members should have the prerogative of its use”. Notwithstanding, the use of the veto must be curtailed, she stressed, adding that it should never be used to paralyze the Council in cases of mass atrocities such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
The representative of Pakistan said the veto is the principal reason for the Council’s frequent inability to take effective collective action. “The problem cannot be the solution,” he said, opposing the addition of new permanent members on the Council as demanded by four individual States, viewing it as a move to promote narrow national interests. Advocating for a “regional approach”, he expressed support for “special regional seats” to be occupied by States selected by the region and elected by the General Assembly. Similarly, the concept of longer-term and re-electable seats within each region — proposed by the Uniting for Consensus Group — can be considered as a way to achieve these objectives. While the veto cannot be abolished, it must be severely constrained, particularly in the case of the genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, he said.
The representative of the Russian Federation, however, expressed support for retaining the mechanism of veto, which ensures the adoption of realistic decisions. Describing his country as a “consistent supporter” of Security Council reform, he cautioned, however, against creating a Council that is “too broad” to maintain its “effectiveness and authority”. He also pointed to the need for the redistribution of “penholderships” which are currently dominated by former colonial Powers in the Council. All efforts to correct this situation are “sabotaged by Western countries”, he said, adding that “they are more concerned with ensuring that their NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] bloc allies are included in the permanent pool of the Council alongside countries from the Global South.”