South Africa is leading a renewed continental campaign at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to dismantle eight decades of African exclusion from the Security Council.
Backed by the African Union’s 2005 Ezulwini Consensus, African leaders at the 81st UNGA last week demanded an end to the post-WWII monopoly on permanent membership, framing the continent’s absence from global security decision-making not merely as a diplomatic flaw, but as a gross democratic failure.
The continent’s leaders are calling for at least two permanent seats with veto power to join the five permanent members in the UN Security Council (UNSC): the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China.
Critics say that for decades, Africa has unsuccessfully pushed for permanent representation on the Security Council, despite 70% of the Council’s agenda concerning issues on the continent.
Dr Clayton Hazvinei Vhumbunu, senior lecturer at the University of the Free State’s Department of Political Studies and Governance, this week said the numerical disparity in the UNSC creates three unfortunate legitimacy deficits that constitute an uncorrected historical injustice dating back to 1945. He characterised these deficits as the representational deficit, legitimacy deficit and democratic deficit.
“Africa accounts for approximately 28% of UN membership but it is not permanently represented in the UNSC. When the UNSC deliberates on conflicts, sanctions, peacekeeping and peacebuilding in Africa, the current set-up is that Africa has three of the 10 rotating the non-permanent seats in UNSC meaning that Africa participates without possessing a permanent institutional presence,” he said.
He described Africa’s non-permanent seat on the UNSC as a “gross injustice” for the continent.
“By the way, Africa has been the subject of 80% of UNSC resolutions over the last decade. Last year alone, the UNSC adopted a total of 44 resolutions, and of these, 51% were on Africa,” Vhumbunu said.
Itumeleng Makgetla, a political and public policy analyst at the University of Pretoria, concurred, saying African countries have advocated for better representation for decades to advance their interests politically, economically and otherwise.
“Should Africa secure a permanent seat on the Security Council, it will have necessary decision-making power and urgency that will empower it to better manage conflicts,” he said.
He said the Security Council’s current status quo grants great powers more rights than smaller nations.
“This perpetuates the primitive doctrine that ‘might is right’. Asia and Africa in particular have been working very hard since the Bandung Conference in 1955 to address this issue and will likely intensify this effort well into the foreseeable future,” Makgetla said.
Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola, who headed South Africa’s delegation to the Assembly, said trust in multilateralism cannot be restored without meaningful reform of global governance, particularly the Security Council.
“African citizens are growing weary of their continent being consigned to the periphery of global governance. Africa is home to nearly one-fifth of the world’s population and African countries together account for more than a quarter of UN member states. Yet over the past decade, 70% of UN Security Council resolutions have concerned conflicts on the African continent,” he said.
Lamola argued that a continent that will be home to a quarter of the world’s youth by 2030 deserves a bigger seat at the table.
“South Africa therefore reaffirms its support for the Ezulwini Consensus and its call to end Africa’s relegation to the margins of global decision-making. Permanent seats for Africa in the Security Council, with all the prerogatives of permanent membership, are long overdue,” he said.
Outgoing UN Secretary-General António Guterres also backed Africa’s call for a permanent seat, demanding reform of the Security Council “so that it reflects today’s world with the legitimacy and effectiveness that today’s challenges demand”.
He noted that while the Security Council was created in the wake of World War II, the world has changed fundamentally in ways the Council has yet to reflect.
“The most stunning example is Africa. When the UN was founded, most of Africa was still under colonial rule. Today, Africa still has no permanent representation on the Council. A 21st century Security Council without permanent African seats is unjust and indefensible. This must change,” Guterres said.
President of Kenya William Ruto said: “The equality proclaimed in this Assembly ends at the doors of the Security Council. That imbalance might have reflected the world of 1945. But it does not reflect the world that we know today. Africa has 54 member states, more than a quarter of this Assembly, yet no permanent voice in the body entrusted with the primary responsibility of international peace and security. We are frequently the subject of its decisions, permanently discussed, yet permanently excluded.”
Professor Piet Croucamp from the North-West University’s Political Studies School Government Studies said a body that makes binding decisions mostly about one continent, without that continent at the permanent table, has a legitimacy problem.
“People comply more readily with decisions they see as fair. African representation is not just about justice; it makes Council decisions work better on the ground,” he said.
To justify the need for permanent representation, he argued that population provides the moral case and conflict provides the practical one.
“Africa is not only large, it is where the Council’s decisions land hardest. By 2050, roughly one in four people on earth will be African.
“A Council that claims to represent the international community cannot keep them outside the permanent membership,” he said.
Croucamp said a permanent seat was less about prestige or even the veto than about agenda-setting.
“It shapes which crises get attention and how mandates are written. It would bring influence, but also exposure. South Africa would have to take a public position on every major crisis, including the ones it would rather stay neutral on,” he said.
He further cited Libya in 2011 as a lesson regarding peacekeeping, sanctions and intervention.
“African states voted to protect civilians and then watched the mandate stretch far beyond what they had agreed. A permanent African member would be better placed to insist on clear limits and a role for the AU. Most UN sanctions regimes target African states or groups. A permanent African voice could push for clearer exit criteria and more attention to humanitarian effects,” he said.
rapula.moatshe@nationalmg.co.za