Africa, with a population of more than 1 billion, is not represented by a permanent member on the UN Security Council, and this situation is unacceptable, said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres .
‘The Security Council was created by the victors of World War II and reflects the power structure of the time. The world has changed since 1945, but the composition of the Security Council, except for small transformations, has not kept pace with these changes,’ he told a Security Council meeting. of the United Nations dedicated to increasing African representation within the Council.
‘We cannot accept that the highest body responsible for peace and security does not have a permanent voice from a continent with more than a billion people, a young and rapidly growing population. »
Mr. Guterres added that “Africa is under-represented in global governance structures” but “over-represented in the problems these structures are supposed to solve.” ‘Nearly half of the national or regional conflicts on the Security Co
uncil’s agenda concern Africa,’ he noted, stressing that more than 40% of UN peacekeepers are African nationals.
‘There can be no global security without security in Africa,’ concluded the head of the world organization.
The United Nations Security Council is made up of fifteen countries, of which five (Russia, United Kingdom, China, United States and France) are permanent members and ten are non-permanent members elected for two years. As a reminder, the Secretary General of the world organization, Antonio Guterres, declared that the majority of UN countries admitted the need to reform the Security Council. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the UN Security Council should be expanded not by including more Western countries, but rather representatives from Asia, Africa and the Latin America.
Source : Burkina Information Agency