Africa-Press – Uganda. Kenyan President William Ruto on Wednesday called for immediate reforms to the UN Security Council’s membership process, arguing for the inclusion of the African continent with at least two permanent seats, with veto power, and two non-permanent seats.
Speaking on this topic before the UN General Assembly, President Ruto stated: “Reforming the Security Council is not a favor to Africa or to anybody. It is a necessity for the United Nations’ own survival.”
Despite representing 54 of the 193 members of the UN and accounting for approximately 17 percent of the world’s population, Africa remains under-represented at the Security Council, a reality that analysts have criticized as outdated and reflective of the older power dynamics of 1945, when most of Africa was still under colonial rule and therefore excluded from post-World War II international forums. Although Africa is under-represented in the Security Council’s governance structure, nearly half of the world’s armed conflicts are in Africa.
Prominent instances when the Security Council has acted in Africa include responses to the situation in Namibia (the former South West Africa mandate), the apartheid era in South Africa, the arms embargo and petroleum sanctions against the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) for its involvement in the Angolan civil war, and the three-year South African military attacks against Botswana.
In addressing Kenya’s role in providing assistance to Haiti to combat raging gang violence, President Ruto described the UN Security Council-authorized Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission as an example of the fallacy of global security governance, as the mission continues to be underfunded and operates below 40 per cent of its personnel strength. He emphasized that a wider, more meaningful impact can be made if the UN had acted in solidarity with Haiti, stating that he hoped the successes of the MSS mission would be consolidated.
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