(04/05/2007) During his first official trip as UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon assured Africa's leaders that the continent will remain a central priority for the organization. Africa has achieved much through "unity of purpose," he told a summit meeting of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 29 January, just four weeks after taking office. "Unity of purpose is also the foundation of Africa's partnership with the United Nations," he emphasized, "as we take on the broad range of challenges we share."
Those challenges, Mr. Ban continued, include tackling ongoing conflicts in Côte d'Ivoire, Somalia and Sudan, building peace in countries just emerging from war, combating disease and ill health, reducing poverty, promoting broad-based development and countering the impact of climate change.
"My presence here in the first month of my tenure as the Secretary-General of the United Nations is a strong sign of the growing partnership between the United Nations and the African Union and of the high priority I attach to Africa," he said. Mr. Ban's trip, his appointment of an African woman (former Tanzanian Foreign Minister Asha-Rose Migiro) as deputy secretary-general and his numerous affirmations about the continent's importance came amidst some concern within Africa that the end of the tenure of the former Ghanaian secretary-general, Kofi Annan, might bring a shift in course. As a headline in the independent daily L'Observateur Paalga of Burkina Faso expressed it: "UN: change in men, change in priorities."
Mr. Ban tacitly acknowledged this worry in his address to the AU summit. After 15 years of being led by Africans (Mr. Annan and his Egyptian predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali), the UN is now led by a non-African, observed Mr. Ban, who is from the Republic of Korea. "But like all human beings," he told the heads of state, "my origins are in the cradle of humanity, Africa, and I am proud of that."
The fundamental reasons for the UN's emphasis on Africa lie in the continent's unfortunate realities, noted then Under-Secretary-General for Africa Legwaila Joseph Legwaila. "People are constantly reminded of the carnage in places like Darfur," he told Africa Renewal. "People are reminded of the AIDS pandemic. And of course we are always described as the poorest of all continents." The challenges facing Africa will not be different because the UN now has an Asian Secretary-General, he said. "Africa will continue to experience the problems it has been experiencing."
A built-in focus
Africa became a central priority for the UN years before someone from the continent ascended to the world body's highest office. At the urging of African countries, the UN General Assembly in 1986 held a special session to find ways for the continent to overcome its unprecedented economic crisis.
In 2001 African leaders adopted the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), an African-led plan to achieve continental peace and development. "The Africans for the first time decided that they were not going to wait for the General Assembly to come up with a plan," explained Mr. Legwaila. "The Africans realized that they themselves would have to take their destiny into their own hands."
The General Assembly welcomed this African commitment. Rather than drafting another UN plan, it decided in November 2002 that the international community should instead support Africa's own efforts, through NEPAD.
For the many different parts of the UN system, Africa has become a built-in priority. Much of the UN's peacekeeping and humanitarian work concentrates on Africa. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) devotes about half of all core programme spending to Africa — some $680 mn in 45 sub-Saharan countries in 2005 alone.
Dr. Margaret Chan, who took office as the new director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) in early January, announced that her two chief goals would be to improve the health of women and of Africans. "The people of Africa," she noted, "carry an enormous and disproportionate burden of ill health and premature death." She pledged the WHO's help in strengthening Africa's weak national health systems.
Passing the torch
As his decade as Secretary-General drew to a close, Mr. Annan reflected on the accomplishments and disappointments of his tenure. Among his greatest achievements, he believed, was focusing global attention on the fight against poverty, through the Millennium Development Goals campaign.
In an address to the General Assembly in September 2006, Mr. Annan recalled that when he first took office in 1997, he felt that the world faced three main challenges: ensuring that globalization would benefit all humanity, healing the disorder of the post–Cold War period and promoting human rights.
While these challenges were global, he said, they also concerned him directly, as an African. "Africa was in great danger of being excluded from the benefits of globalization," he said. "Africa was also the scene of some of the most protracted and brutal conflicts. And many of Africa's people felt they were unjustly condemned to be exploited and oppressed, since colonial rule had been replaced by an inequitable economic order on the global level and sometimes by corrupt rulers and warlords at the local level."
Being from Africa, Mr. Annan had a particular advantage in speaking bluntly to African leaders about issues they were not always comfortable addressing. During his first year in office, he urged African leaders, in especially forceful terms, to do far more to safeguard and advance human rights. Such rights, he said, "are not a luxury of the rich countries for which Africa is not ready."
Citing the concept of a "responsibility to protect," he repeatedly encouraged African leaders to act against genocide and other massive human rights violations in neighbouring African states, contrary to their earlier tendency to remain silent about such abuses. And he strongly urged African leaders to speak out frankly and publicly about HIV/AIDS and to devote greater efforts to combating the pandemic.
Mr. Ban has pledged to build on his predecessor's legacy. Given the numerous problems and enormous potential of Africa, Mr. Ban assured Africans that their concerns will be at the top of the international agenda. "The success or failure of the United Nations in the coming years," he said in Addis Ababa, "will be determined largely on this continent."
Source: United Nations Africa Renewal