AU keen to occupy more dignified position

A two-day African Union meeting in Equatorial Guinea that began on Tuesday was testimony that the organisation is keen to occupy a more dignified position in the community of nations.

The meeting culminated in the fourth consultative summit of a grouping known as the AU Committee of Ten Heads of State and Government on UN reforms, whose chairman is Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma.

Before the summit, there were joint preparatory meetings from May 14 to 16 of foreign ministers and permanent representatives of member countries in New York – the UN headquarters – and at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa.

The Wednesday summit focused on the longstanding objective of pushing for reforms in the UN Security Council and among the key mandates of the C-10 is to negotiate with other UN members towards that end.

In the quest for more say at the UN, the AU has been gunning for representation in all the global agency’s decision-making organs, particularly the Security Council.

The push for greater visibility within the UN has been going on for long, and African leaders have in recent years been grumbling about the continent’s “marginalisation” at the world’s top body.

African and other Third World leaders have criticised the entire UN set-up, many of whose tenets are widely viewed as anachronistic and intrinsically designed to ignore the interests of weak nations.

'CONTINUED SUPPORT'

Gratefully, and while capturing the spirit of the summit, which was hosted by Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, a communiqué issued at its close “noted the continued support for the common African position by UN member states”.

According to the statement, the summit’s call for equitable representation at the Security Council was informed by several factors, including the current geopolitical realities.

These, according to participants, should be viewed in terms of Africa’s numerical strength, growing economic power, population dynamics and increasing role at multilateral forums.

Bearing this in mind, the summit instructed foreign affairs ministers of the C-10 to come up with a decision on “a progressive approach for advancing the common African position on UN reform”.

The decision arrived at will be tabled at the July AU Assembly, which will hopefully, among other things, review calls on the UN to redress historical injustices said to have been committed against the continent.

According to the Malabo summit, the reform of the Security Council “should be comprehensive in accordance with Decision 62/557 of the UN General Assembly.”

Determined to attain that objective, the summit stressed the critical importance of heightened engagement with the five permanent members of the council – the US, Russia, China, France and Britain – but expressed concern that past efforts had not been fruitful.

NIKKI HALEY

The current US Ambassador to the UN is Nikki Haley.

“The dividend of Africa’s effort as well as that of the intergovernmental negotiations in advocating for a comprehensive reform of the UN Security Council,” the communiqué stated, “remains minimal, disappointing and frustrating.”

Participants hoped the continent would be united on the reform of the council, speak with one voice and support the common African position.

That position relates to a demand for the allocation of two seats in the permanent category of the Security Council, “with all its prerogatives and privileges, including the right of veto”, as well as two additional seats in the non-permanent category.

Poignantly, the revamped quest for UN reforms came at a time efforts aimed at reforming the AU are picking up pace, spearheaded by Rwanda's President Paul Kagame.

The Malabo summit was attended by Koroma, Congo leader Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Namibia’s Hage Geingob and Zambia's President Edgar Lungu.

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