US President Joe Biden arrives in New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly, with an eye on legacy-building efforts to strengthen ties with Africa on the other side of the Atlantic. His ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, recently announced that the United States supports creating two permanent seats for Africa on the United Nations Security Council. The White House also previewed Biden’s next visit to Angola to reporters, making good on his promise on his first trip to Africa and drawing an implicit contrast with his predecessor, who never set foot on the continent during his tenure. I drew it.
Taken together, these are milestones in U.S.-Africa relations that will help address long-standing shortcomings in U.S. engagement with the continent as geopolitical rivals gain momentum on the continent. Dew. However, there are significant challenges to fully deploying these diplomatic efforts, and they will only bear fruit if they are effectively implemented.
Inside the Security Council
The Security Council was established in 1945 with 11 members and currently has 15 members. There are five permanent members (the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China) and ten members who are elected by the people for two-year terms. General meeting. Each of the five permanent members of the Security Council can veto actions by the Security Council, including sending UN peacekeeping forces to conflict areas.
Unfortunately, the United States’ expression of support for Africa’s new permanent membership came with important limitations. That means they don’t have the all-important veto power. Although the United States has no intention of proposing institutional reforms that would upend the post-World War II geopolitical order by giving veto powers to additional countries, it remains one of the five permanent members of the Security Council. For the first time, Japan has explicitly supported becoming a permanent member of the Security Council. African countries. As for African countries, they recently confirmed the importance of extending the veto to all new member states or eliminating the veto for all.
It is interesting to note that Africa played a key role in perhaps the most important change to the Security Council, the change of permanent membership from the Republic of China (also known as Taiwan) to the People’s Republic of China in 1971. be. At the time, Mao Zedong expressed his gratitude to African countries and other developing countries that had “played a role” in attracting his country.
Africa’s growing presence on the Security Council is not surprising given the demographic growth of southern countries, many of which gained independence in the mid-to-late 20th century, and the number of United Nations member states has increased since 1945. From 51 countries to now 193 countries. Nowhere is the rise more pronounced than in Africa. It is predicted that by 2050, one in four people will be African, and that Africa will be the most populous continent on earth by the end of this century. Within the General Assembly, African countries accounted for 28% of the votes, ahead of Asia (27%), the Americas (17%) and Western Europe (15%).
Moreover, the continent is home to a number of conflicts, from Sudan to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), whose resolutions certainly require greater participation from Africans.
Calls for greater African representation on the Security Council appear to be growing more broadly among UN member states. On September 22nd, the United Nations adopted the Agreement for the Future. Among the identified reform priorities, the agreement plans to “improve the effectiveness and representativeness of the (Security) Council, including to redress the historical underrepresentation of Africa.” is required. It’s a priority. ”
However, adding African countries to the Security Council as permanent members is not a done deal. For such reforms to take effect, the United Nations Charter would need to be amended by the consent of two-thirds of the General Assembly, including the five members of the Security Council, which have veto power.
Furthermore, it is unclear how the U.S. government’s commitment will be compatible with its previously expressed desire to also support permanent Security Council membership for India, Germany, Japan, and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. be. Will the US really insist on adding six more permanent members?
Africa is an area of conflict with China
The push for a permanent seat on the African Security Council and the news of Mr. Biden’s visit to Angola have led many observers to believe that the West’s position in Africa is growing amid diplomatic and strategic offensives by China and Russia. This is seen as a sign that the United States is willing to respond positively to setbacks. A Gallup poll in April 2024 confirmed Russia’s increasing popularity on the continent (up 8% from the previous year). Additionally, across Africa, China (58% approval rating) currently has a higher approval rating than the United States (56%).
China has been a major trading partner for African countries since 2009. In 2023, trade volume will reach $282 billion, a 30-fold increase in 20 years. During this period, Chinese companies built a third of the continent’s infrastructure projects, from power plants and hospitals to presidential palaces and even the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and reports suggest that China It turned out that he had been eavesdropping.
These projects are being undertaken at the cost of high debt in countries such as Zambia, Kenya and Ethiopia, but African countries are struggling to cover some of the gap between infrastructure needs and available finance. I could have done that. Egypt and Ethiopia have joined Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the BRICS grouping of emerging economies (formerly Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). BRICS+6 currently accounts for 46 percent of the world’s population and nearly 36 percent of the world’s gross domestic product.
For Washington, all this meant that it was no longer enough to declare one’s love for Africa; proof had to be shown. The Biden administration responded by resuming high-profile U.S.-Africa summits, such as those to be held in Washington in December 2022, and mobilizing $55 billion in investment across Africa over three years. It also launched new projects (such as the Lobito Corridor for Critical Minerals), announced a digital transformation plan, and promoted the creation of a permanent member of the African Union’s Group of 20 (G20). Still, China continues to make diplomatic inroads. The China-Africa Forum brings together many African leaders, and even United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres attended one such meeting in Beijing this month.
The United States has made a bold move by declaring support for Africa’s two permanent seats on the Security Council, a step the African Union has formally called for since 2005. Both Russia and China pretend to be the best spokespeople for Africans, yet they do nothing. I went far. For many years, these two countries, as permanent members of the Security Council, have used the false name without putting anything concrete on the table or renouncing their privileges within the most powerful body of the United Nations system. has defended the Global South.
Who will serve on the Security Council?
On the African side, this new reform proposal immediately raised a series of questions: Which two African countries would participate? How are they selected?
Should we prioritize African countries with high economic growth? In this case, South Africa ($373 billion) and Egypt ($347 billion) are the continent’s two largest economies, according to the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook released in April. But for how long? Just two years ago, Nigeria was the continent’s largest economy.
But what if demography is the determining factor? According to the United Nations Population Division, Nigeria remains the continent’s most populous country, with a population of 225 million, compared to Ethiopia (127 million). should also be recognized as having a large population.
South Africa, the country of Nelson Mandela, has a story that goes beyond economics and demographics. National liberation, in which most African countries participated, has reverberated around the world, but xenophobic violence against some African immigrants has recently become an issue. After holding its first democratic elections in 1994, one of Africa’s most multiethnic countries adopted one of the most democratic constitutions in the world. Until this year, South Africa was the only African member state of BRICS. It is the only African country to participate in the G20 and will take over the rotating presidency in December. In 2010, South Africa used sports diplomacy to increase its soft power and became Africa’s first country to host the World Cup. But will a post-Mandela South Africa finally agree to look to Africa rather than the Indian Ocean? When will a pan-African strategy for the rainbow nation emerge?
Finally, there is a counterintuitive choice among African candidates for the Security Council: the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This huge country, which borders nine countries, is rich in cobalt, copper, zinc, gold and platinum, which are essential to the global energy transition. The Democratic Republic of Congo is also culturally rich and boasts 200 languages. With a population of 17 million people, Kinshasa is the world’s largest French-speaking city, larger than Paris.
But perhaps most important to the case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the fact that the Democratic Republic of the Congo has direct and devastating experience with the conflicts that the Security Council is trying to deal with from afar. After three decades of civil wars and coups, the United Nations has witnessed the ineffectiveness of the United Nations’ oldest peacekeeping mission, and is now grappling with the challenges posed by hosting more than 6.5 million internally displaced people. Congo’s plight is a long-term tragedy that no longer appears to be receiving the attention of the international community. That’s why our country needs powerful tools like the one this board seat provides. However, there is a condition that political leaders take up this challenge.
Rama Yade is senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.
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Image: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres meets with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at United Nations Headquarters in New York City, September 22, 2024. Photo by John Lamparski/NurPhoto.
