The American ambassador to the United Nations, the powerful Linda Thomas-Greenfield, announced last Thursday in New York that the United States supports the creation of two permanent seats for Africa on the United Nations Security Council.
The imperative of democratization of the Security Council
Established by the Charter of the United Nations (UN) in 1945, this body is primarily responsible for maintaining international peace and security. Its presidency is held by each member in alphabetical order. Currently, Slovenia holds this presidency. It can meet at any time in the event of a threat to peace. Initially composed of 11 members (5 permanent and 6 non-permanent elected by the General Assembly for a 2-year term), it only underwent a major reform in 1963 when it increased from 6 non-permanent members to 10.
If the American initiative is successful, two African states would this time be added to the current five permanent members of the Council, namely the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia and China. While the first four joined in 1945 because of their status as victors of the Second World War, the People’s Republic of China succeeded Taiwan thanks to African support at the 26th General Assembly of the United Nations on October 25, 1971. The Chinese Mao Zedong spoke of a “debt of gratitude” towards Africa. It is true that the world no longer resembles that of 1945, the demographic superiority of the Southern states, many of which have gained their independence, bringing the number of member states from 51 to 193 today, has reinforced demands for greater democratization of the institution.
Biden’s Legacy
This announcement, which comes just days before the 79th United Nations General Assembly, is significant news. The United States has never made such a commitment before.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield presented it as an important part of the legacy of President Joe Biden, who announced, in the process, his upcoming visit to Angola, his first trip to Africa, confirming an old promise, supposed to distinguish him from his predecessor who had never set foot on the continent.
However, many observers saw in these commitments the desire of the United States to respond to the loss of momentum of the West in Africa. Faced with the offensive of China and Russia, it was indeed becoming urgent for the Americans to react. A poll by the American institute Gallup in April 2024 confirmed that Russia is recording an increase in popularity (+8% in one year on the continent). As for that of China, it now exceeds (58%) the United States (56%).
Africa, a field of rivalry with China
It must be said that China has been the leading trading partner of African countries since 2009: in 2023, the amount of their trade amounted to 282 billion dollars, a thirty-fold increase in twenty years, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Over this period, Chinese companies have built a third of the infrastructure on the continent. We remember the statements by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in January 2020 detailing these achievements: “6,000 kilometers of railways, 6,000 kilometers of roads, twenty ports, 80 power plants, 130 hospitals and clinics, 45 stadiums”, airport terminals, presidential palaces, parliaments and the well-known headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, which we learned in January 2017 had been bugged by the Chinese.
Although these achievements were possible at the cost of high indebtedness of several African countries, including Zambia, Kenya and Ethiopia, they have allowed African countries to make up for some of their equipment gap. Added to this is the rise of the BRICS, whose acronym refers to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, to which must be added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which joined them in the wake of the Johannesburg Summit in August 2023. The BRICS+6 now constitute 46% of the world’s population and 30% of the world’s gross domestic product.
For the United States, it seems that since Joe Biden’s arrival at the White House, declarations of love were no longer enough: it was necessary to show proof. Despite the resumption of US-Africa summits such as the notable one in December 2022 in Washington, the various announcements such as the mobilization of 55 billion over three years, the launch of new projects such as the Lobito corridor, the digital transformation plan or the creation of a permanent seat at the G20 for the African Union, the China-Africa forums continued to attract people, including the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, present at the 9th Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing in early September 2024.
Russia and China challenged
By announcing its support for two permanent seats on the UN Security Council for Africa, the United States is striking hard. Neither Russia nor China, now taken at their word, had gone so far. For years, these two countries, themselves permanent members of the Security Council, had been champions of the misnamed “Global South”, without putting anything concrete on the table, nor ceding their own prerogatives within the most powerful body in the UN system.
As for Africa, it had indeed been demanding these two seats for years. We remember that in 2005, the African Union formalized Africa’s demands through the Ezulwini Consensus, named after this valley in Eswatini, demanding 2 new permanent seats with veto power and 2 non-permanent seats. If it was necessary to have participated in defeating the Nazis in 1945 to be on the Council, would not Africans deserve to be there just as much as the others? After all, did not the French launch the Gaullist resistance from Brazzaville, leading battalions of riflemen to the European front of the war?
Africa, 28% of the votes at the UN
This demand is legitimate. One in four human beings will be African by 2050. At the end of the century, it is predicted that Africa will be the most populated continent on the planet. It is home to the world’s youth (42%). Within the United Nations General Assembly itself, Africans represent the largest group, with 28% of the votes, ahead of Asia (27%), and well above the Americas (17%), and Western Europe (15%). Finally, does not the large number of conflicts on the continent, from Sudan to the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, call for greater participation by Africans in their resolution?
The American announcement was, however, accompanied by an important limitation: no right of veto! It must be said that with the right of veto, it is sufficient, according to Article 27 of the United Nations Charter, “that one of the five permanent members among the 15 members of the Security Council casts a negative vote for a resolution or decision to be unable to be adopted”, regardless of the majority of the Council.
Nor is it a decision, since in order to enter into force it required a revision of the United Nations Charter, which itself can only be obtained with the agreement of two-thirds of the General Assembly, including the five Council States with the right of veto.
Moreover, it is unclear how this commitment by Washington is compatible with its previously expressed willingness to also support the entry of India, Germany and Japan into the same body.
Who will sit on the Security Council?
On the African side, while the continent is already facing the formidable question of the modalities of engagement of the African Union with the G20 of which it has become a permanent member since September 2023, this new reform has immediately triggered a cascade of questions: which two African states would be concerned? How to choose them?
Should we give priority to high-growth African countries? In this case, South Africa (with $373 billion) and Egypt, the continent’s two largest economies according to the International Monetary Fund’s latest report on world economic prospects in April 2024, should accede to the Security Council. But for how long? Just last year, Nigeria was the continent’s largest economy.
Nigeria, precisely. With 223 million inhabitants according to the United Nations Population Division, it is the continent’s leading demographic power. And what if demography made the difference? The bonus would also go to Ethiopia (126 million).
The country of Nelson Mandela
And then there is South Africa, another contender for the permanent seat, which has the advantage of having given Africa its most illustrious recent son, Nelson Mandela. Despite recent concerns about xenophobic violence against some African migrants, South Africa has a universal audience due to its history of national liberation in which most African countries took part. After its first democratic elections in 1994, one of the most multiracial countries in Africa adopted one of the most democratic constitutions in the world. Since then, South Africa has been the only African country to be a member of BRICS until 2024 and the only African in the G20, which it will hold the presidency on December 1. In 2010, it was also the first African country to host the FIFA World Cup, using its sports diplomacy to boast its soft power. But will post-Mandela South Africa finally agree to look towards Africa instead of the Indian Ocean? When will there be a pan-African strategy for the Rainbow Nation?
“Oh! Congo”
Finally, there is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Who would think of it, if not Leopold Sédar Senghor, inaugural president of the Republic of Senegal?
“Oh! Congo lying in your forest bed, queen over tamed Africa,
Let the phalluses of the mountains carry high your flag…»
It is quite counter-intuitive to place the DRC among the African contenders for the Security Council. Besides, it has not dared to think about it for itself.
Bordering nine countries, this country is nevertheless rich in its soil of cobalt, copper, zinc, gold, platinum, essential to the global energy transition, and also in its culture with its two hundred languages. Kinshasa, with its seventeen million inhabitants, is also the largest French-speaking city, before Paris. At the Council, Congo will be able to address the three hundred million French speakers in the world and… the thirty million Lingala speakers in Africa. Fascinated, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, whom I received at the Atlantic Council three years ago during her first interview after taking office, told me this: “Every time I see the film Black Panther, I think it’s Congo. And I know it was a fantasy story, but imagine a DRC where the resources that are available there are used to build the country, are used to educate the people, are used to provide health care and services to the people of the DRC, and we would have a Wakanda in the making.”
But the most important reason why the DRC should be a permanent member of the Security Council lies less in its strengths than in its weaknesses: thirty years of civil wars, political coups, the impotence of the oldest UN mission, the plight of 4.5 million displaced people. The Congo is a long tragedy that does not even seem to bother the international community.
And that is why the country needs a powerful lever, this seat on the Council, so that attention remains on its misfortunes and that resolute action is finally undertaken. The DRC would consecrate what Bertrand Badie calls the “power of the weak”. One condition, however: that its political leaders live up to such a claim.
Rama Yade / Africa Director – Atlantic Council
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