MObviously, this is a subject on which everyone agrees. With fifty-four countries and nearly 1.4 billion inhabitants, Africa must make its voice heard more in global political and economic governance. On a visit to Kenya at the beginning of May, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, made himself the herald: Germany “support efforts” aimed at obtaining permanent seats for Africa in the UN Security Council and the integration of the African Union (AU) into the G20, he insisted.
The leader is far from the first to sing this refrain. Even recently, figures as opposed as the American president, Joe Biden, and the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, spoke out in favor of an entry of the AU into the G20. Only South Africa today represents the continent within this group bringing together the main economies of the planet. Everyone is in agreement, therefore, which does not prevent the subject from being on the table for a long time already.
At least that membership now seems within reach. Not so in the Security Council. The idea of a permanent African member may well be supported by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, and its relevance validated by several Western countries, the dissensions between great powers, the difficulty of agreeing on an African candidate and the desire of other emerging nations, in Asia or America, to join the supreme body paralyzes any reform.
Africa is not absent from multilateral bodies. It even often finds itself at the heart of debates: the main recipient of UN peacekeeping missions; first beneficiary of the rescue plans of the International Monetary Fund, an institution where its countries hold only 6.5% of the voting rights… Not to mention the subject of African debts and their restructuring, which for months has occupied the members of the G20 .
Spectator role
The continent resents being confined to the role of spectator of its own affairs. An impression that is struggling to dispel the presence of some of his “emissaries” at the head of large institutions, such as the Ethiopian Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the World Health Organization, and the Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at the World Organization Trade.
Admittedly, the economic weight of Africa may still seem modest. Its gross domestic product barely exceeds that of France. But this region is the youngest in the world and it will be the engine of global population growth in the coming decades. It is also the site of a battle for influence between the United States, China and other industrialized nations, while its minerals could play a crucial role in the energy transition.
Africans have legitimate reasons to demand more space in international institutions. And to be annoyed, for some, to be treated like a big undifferentiated whole and not like a continent with diverse trajectories. The President of Kenya, William Ruto, expressed it in his own way during an event of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, organized at the end of April, in Nairobi, and devoted to the place of Africa in the world: “It is not smart for fifty-four African presidents to sit in front of a president from another country for a summit”complained the leader, in reference to the multiple China-Africa, Turkey-Africa or Africa-France meetings.
If the multilateral system resulting from the Bretton Woods agreements fails to give it more weight, the continent will be justified in trying to weigh in through other forums, sometimes designed as counterweights to the West. That of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) for example, this club of emerging nations that several African countries would like to join, according to South Africa, which chairs it this year. More generally, warns African studies professor Tim Murithi in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs, “Until their interests and concerns are taken seriously, African governments will continue to pursue a strategy of non-alignment”.