Africa's desire to be fully represented in all decision-making organs of the United Nations (UN), particularly in the security council, is informed by three factors. First, repairing the historical injustice of its underrepresentation in global governance. Second, recognising African contributions in shaping the contemporary world order. Third, the urgency of securing the legitimacy of the UN in the face of emerging threats to international peace and security.
At the African Union's fifth ordinary session held in Sirte, Libya in 2005, African leaders adopted the Ezulwini consensus. It expressed Africa's desire
to be fully represented in all decision-making organs of the UN, particularly in the security council.
Africa's experience of the UN system over the past 80 years has been one of misrepresentation and underrepresentation.
The media, academics and global political actors portray the continent as a basket-case of backward societies that are always receiving aid, rather than as agents of progress. The continent is excluded from permanent membership of the security council, and inadequately represented as non-permanent members.
Africa's common position on UN reform calls for no less than two permanent seats,
with all the prerogatives and privileges of permanent membership including the right of veto.
Africa also wants five non-permanent seats.
Reform of the security council is long overdue. Its structure -- five permanent members with veto power and ten non-permanent elected members serving two-year terms -- is outdated. It reflects the configuration of global power at the end of the second world war.
The security council is the most powerful body of the UN. It is the primary body responsible for maintaining international peace and security. Its decisions are binding on UN member states. Africa is the only region without a permanent seat, despite representing 54 of the 193 members of the UN and 17% of the world's population.
The council faces a credibility crisis because of its failure to address the biggest conflicts of our time. Expanding representation and democratising its working methods is essential to ensuring its legitimacy, credibility and effectiveness in meeting the security challenges of the future.
Historical injustices
The goal of Africa's common position is to correct the "historical injustice" of its lack of representation and recognition. And the many injustices the continent has endured over the past 500 years.
Over four centuries, the European slave trade trafficked about 12 million to 15 million Africans across the Atlantic to produce sugar, coffee, tobacco and cotton for the global capitalist economy. As the African scholar Adekeye Adebajo argues,
the west's industrialisation was thus literally built on the back of African slavery. For Africa, the slave trade brought about devastating and irrevocable consequences in the form of depopulation, increased warfare to enslave more people, mass migration, and ecological damage that exacerbated diseases and food insecurity.
This sorry history takes us to Berlin in 1884, where European leaders parcelled out the continent among themselves.
A major consequence was the imposition of colonial states that divided communities and operated on a logic of extraction and oppression of their populations. This continues to be felt in the unmanageable governance systems on the continent that are often incompatible with democracy and the rule of law.
This has led to intractable violent conflicts. In the 30 years since the end of the cold war in 1991, African conflicts have dominated the security council agenda. African issues took up nearly 50% of the council's meetings and 70% of its resolutions. Africa is (permanently) on the menu, but Africans do not have a (permanent) seat at the table.
Berlin also laid the foundations for the neocolonialism that continues to define Africa's economic relations with the rich nations. Africa loses an estimated US$203 billion a year through illicit financial flows, profits by multinational corporations and ecological destruction.
In 1945, world leaders gathered to establish the United Nations. Of the 51 original member states only four were African: Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia and the Union of South Africa. Most of Africa was still under colonial rule.
Africa's contribution to the UN
Africa has not been a mere recipient of the UN's largesse, but an active contributor to its success.
As more African states gained their independence in the 1960s, they agitated for reform of the security council. They succeeded in its expansion from 11 to 15 members, in 1965, with the addition of elected seats for Africa.
The UN's practice and jurisprudence evolved through the activism of African states. Milestones include the declaration of apartheid as a crime against humanity in 1973 and adoption of the international apartheid convention.
Over the past 60 years Africans have contributed personnel to UN peacekeeping missions around the world. Four African countries are in the top 10 contributors of peacekeepers. African countries also took up the cause of independence for Namibia in the International Court of Justice. They have also taken leadership in the UN, including two secretaries general.
The African Union and African regional actors oversee 10 peace operations. African peace missions have upheld important UN norms by challenging unconstitutional changes of government.
Read more: South Africa's foreign policy: a unity government must be practical in a turbulent world
Within the security council, successive African members have led informal reforms like:
- sharing the penholding responsibility on African issues
- promoting closer relations between the UN and regional organisations
- ensuring security interventions respond to the needs of people in conflict situations. African states have long lobbied the council to reduce poverty and control the flow of small arms as strategies for conflict prevention.
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Ensuring legitimacy of the UN
Finally, reform of the UN is necessary to ensure its legitimacy in an uncertain future of new and evolving security threats. These include the climate crisis, novel pandemics and new technologies like artificial intelligence.
Failure to solve major conflicts in the past decade has dented the institution's credibility.
If institutions are perceived to be exclusive and unfair, members stop cooperating with them.
Looking to the future
The UN turns 100 in 2045. At that point Africa will have 2.3 billion people, making up 25% of the global population. Young Africans will be the world's work force and consumer base, fuelling the global economy. Will the membership of the security council still look like it does today?
The nature of global threats and the definition of international security have changed dramatically since 1945. Such threats can only be resolved by a security council that represents the interests and perspectives of all humanity.
This is an edited version of the author's address to the UN security council on 12 August 2024.
Sithembile Mbete, Lecturer in Political Science, University of Pretoria
