Africa is a driver of solutions: UN Secretary-General calls for greater African influence in global affairs

Africa continues to face structural inequalities rooted in history, living in a situation that is deeply unfair, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres yesterday, as he again called for permanent African representation on the UN Security Council and greater influence for African countries within international financial institutions.

“Africa is a driver of solutions, a source of innovation, and a voice of moral clarity,” said the Secretary-General, as he participated in the groundbreaking of a new conference facility at the UN Office at Nairobi, and attended the inaugural Africa Forward Summit. However, Africa’s potential is being constrained by “a deeply unequal international system that reflects last century’s power relations”, he added. 

Many global institutions were created in 1945 without African participation or presence, and continue to reflect outdated power structures, with Africa as a continent paying a huge price for that, Guterres told assembled media at the inauguration of the United Nations Nairobi Expansion Project in Gigiri. He pointed to Africa’s underrepresentation on the UN Security Council and the high borrowing costs faced by many African countries despite strong economic potential.

“It is not acceptable that African countries pay three times more than developed countries in order to obtain the loans they need for development. Many of these countries with a more solid financial situation and better development perspectives than developed countries that obtain financial resources with much lower costs.” 

There will be no justice before there will be permanent African members in the Security Council, continued the UN Secretary-General, and there will be no justice until Africa has its rightful share in the quotas of the International Monetary Fund or the capital of the World Bank, or in many other institutions for African interests to be much more seriously taken into account by international financial architecture. 

“The African continent can count on me,” said Guterres, a former Prime Minister of Portugal who became the ninth UN Secretary-General on 1 January 2017, taking the baton from South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon. “I will always be at your side to correct injustices and to make sure the world recognises that there is a price the world must pay to overcome all the injustices that Africa has suffered, and to support what is now this transformational enthusiasm that I see in the African continent.”

From its beginnings in the 1970s as the home of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the Gigiri complex has grown into one of the UN’s largest operational hubs, supporting activities across Africa and beyond. The campus now hosts more than 70 UN offices and programmes and thousands of staff. Approved by the UN General Assembly, the $340 million expansion project is the largest investment undertaken by the UN Secretariat in Africa in its 80-year history, strengthening Nairobi’s role as a global centre for diplomacy and multilateral cooperation. The project will increase conference capacity at UNON from 2,000 to 9,000 participants, including through the construction of a new assembly hall and expanded meeting facilities.

“These are more than buildings,” said the UN Secretary-General. “They are a vote of confidence in Africa’s place at the heart of international cooperation.”