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Uhuru Kenyatta

Uhuru Kenyatta
KENYA’S commitment to multilateralism and a rule based international system is unequivocal. We support all efforts aimed at strengthening the United Nations system. We believe its effectiveness, accountability and central role in multilateralism must be enhanced to enable the organisation to fully realise its potential. It is my conviction that it is only by working together in multilateral institutions that we can achieve our aims.

There are a number of challenges and changes that have emerged globally that call for a review of the existing multilateral institutions. They are both structural and normative. It is, therefore, important to consider which challenges and changes can be absorbed within existing mechanisms and which cannot.

My government believes that more than ever before, it is imperative to reform multilateral institutions so that they are able to meet contemporary challenges and the demands of the 21st century. Many of these institutions took shape after the Second World War. They have traditionally been immune from requirements of governance that would have generally been applied to the domestic context, such as transparency and public accountability.

I probably speak for most of us in saying that our countries have occasionally come under great pressure on issues of transparency and accountability at national level. Unfortunately, in the context of governance of international institutions, this is not the case.

I am convinced that many international institutions do not meet contemporary standards. Neither do they meet expectations of legitimacy based upon accountability and democracy in their decision-making procedures and representation. When the effectiveness of multilateral institutions fails to meet performance expectations and contemporary norms, legitimacy is, in turn, in doubt.

Within the United Nations, the Security Council — the principal organ responsible for maintaining international peace and security — best exemplifies a structure that is not compatible with the current realities of the world. It does not reflect the current world power distribution and geopolitical situation. The Council’s small size and exclusive nature, its relations with the General Assembly, its working methods and undemocratic nature, have become out of step with today’s demands.

The body is antiquated and ill adapted to fulfil its tasks. Some regions of the world do not have representation on the Council. Indeed, a considerable portion of the UN’s global constituency is un-represented and unheard in the administration of global affairs. As a result, they do not have a say in the policies that directly affect them. Africa, which provides a very large share of the UN’s security agenda and is also the focus of considerable work of the organisation, has no voice in the Council.

This is not only discriminatory but unfair and unjust. We must refocus the institution towards the realisation of its founding objectives. Very often, the world has witnessed the over-represented members bargaining and haggling over their narrow national interests at the expense of the institution’s mandate, even in the midst of global humanitarian crises.

The structural and normative issues therefore obstruct the achievement of the United Nations founding objectives, and frustrates the advancement of its agenda to bring justice, sovereign equality, democracy and the protection of human rights to its neediest constituencies. The world needs to remember that our collective values as humanity are supposed to be enshrined in the UN’s supranational charter, and that these values need to be demonstrated and pursued collectively and consistently throughout the globe.

The inequality and lack of democracy in representation has led to inconsistencies, inefficiency and the marginalisation of the world’s vulnerable communities and severely betrayed it’s largest constituency — the less developed countries.

A good instance of this betrayal and marginalisation is the africanisation of tragedy. Conflict, disease, famine and natural disaster are constantly profiled as African, normal and not deserving serious global attention. This sustains the narrative of inequality between the peoples of the world, and the socio-economic and political apartheid that sees the so-called Third World casually relegated to the periphery of global affairs.

In 1994, a million people were murdered in Rwanda as the so-called superpowers quibbled on the procedural and editorial dimensions of the appropriate resolution. Recently, during the Ebola outbreak that has now claimed nearly 10,000 African lives, we have witnessed only a lacklustre global response.

It is only when the endemic globalised itself by leaping across continental barriers that we began to see the world’s important nations and institutions respond as though real people were in danger. These instances point to a tragic failure of humanity stemming from structural and normative deficiencies of our current UN framework. Reforms are inevitable if the institution is to be representative of our shared values. It is difficult for the world to see the value of democracy when it is not being practised at its most critical functions. Equality must proceed beyond mere rhetoric to reality reflected in the lives of the poorest in our societies.

We want a UN that is capable of securing world peace in a time of unique and unprecedented security challenges. Most importantly, we want a conversation that is premised on the principle of equality and in an environment that allows every voice and view to be is heard.

The UN should be the last institution on earth propagating the idea that some societies are inherently superior, or that some peoples are generally unworthy. Yet this is the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. I believe in the power of global consensus. I believe in humanity’s ability to rise to its full promise and build a supranational framework that is faithful to its dearest ideals.

Let us recognise, from now on — in each capital in our continent, in every nation — that our interest as a region is our national interest. Africa must have a voice in the UN Security Council.

· Uhuru Kenyatta is the President of Kenya. He delivered the speech at a meeting of foreign ministers of the Committee of Ten (C-10) on the United Nations Security Council Reform in Nairobi.