Merci, Mesdames et Messieurs,

Vous allez me permettre avant de faire aussi quelques commentaires sur nos travaux aujourd’hui, que je puisse lire un petit texte que j’ai écrit moi-même, avec mon cœur. Je voudrais dire quelques mots à l’encontre de mon cher collègue et ami, Moussa Faki.

Cher Moussa, depuis le début de nos mandats respectifs en 2017, nous avons parcouru un long chemin ensemble.

Votre vision d'une Afrique intégrée, prospère et pacifique a toujours été en harmonie avec nos objectifs pour un monde plus juste, durable et digne.

Votre leadership éclairé, votre capacité à rassembler et votre engagement infatigable pour le multilatéralisme représentent une source d'inspiration pour tous.

Et votre sens du dialogue et grande expertise des enjeux globaux ont permis de faire entendre la voix de l’Afrique sur la scène internationale avec force et clarté.

Vous avez toujours été un fervent défenseur de la coopération entre l’Union africaine et les Nations Unies. Grâce à nos efforts conjoints, nous avons renforcé nos liens institutionnels, aligné nos stratégies et multiplié nos actions communes sur le terrain.

Que ce soit dans la prévention et la résolution des conflits, la lutte contre le changement climatique ou la promotion du développement durable – et dans des contextes toujours difficiles – votre contribution a été inestimable.

Cher ami, je tiens à vous exprimer ma profonde gratitude pour votre dévouement et votre humanité. Votre héritage perdurera bien au-delà de votre mandat, car vous avez posé les fondations d'un partenariat Union africaine-Nations Unies plus fort et plus efficace.

Vous incarnez l'esprit même de coopération et de solidarité internationale, et c'est avec une grande amitié que je vous adresse mes remerciements les plus chaleureux.

I am particularly happy about our session today. We have, as Chairperson Faki expressed, we have looked into our cooperation developed during these years, and how it became more than the signature of common positions, ad hoc common actions. This cooperation became an institutionalized cooperation in which all key areas of our common intervention, peace and security, sustainable development and human rights. We have common programmes, common strategies, and we work together very effectively in the perspective that unites us, and the perspective that unites us is of an African continent that is able to provide with citizens all the rights that they should enjoy.  And in the context of a world able to overcome the terrible divisions that we are facing today.

And I have to say that I came from the Summit of the Future with the conscience that there are now conditions for the international community to start providing justice to the African people.

First of all, in relation to the questions of peace and security, there is now a consensus from Member States that the Security Council must be reformed, and there is now a consensus of all Member States that the key aspect of that reform is to have two African members as permanent members of the Security Council.

On the other hand, many decisions were taken in relation to the capacity to deepen our cooperation with the African Union in areas like prevention, mediation, peace building, and the capacity to act together to address the multiple conflicts that today the African continent, as the whole world, unfortunately, are dealing with.

Then for the first time, there was the recognition that we live in an economic system and a financial system that is outdated, that is ineffective, and that is unfair.

And it is especially ineffective and unfair because of the African continent.

Africa faces enormous obstacles to its development.

First of all, they are deeply rooted in the past, deeply rooted in the colonial legacy. And I can speak totally at ease, because I come from a colonial structure.

African countries gained independence with their economies and to a certain extent, their society is distorted by the interests of the colonial powers that organize their economies to the benefits of the colonists.  

And then the African continent has had to face an enormous number of challenges. Just recently, COVID-19, the dramatic impacts in prices and the interest rates that were enhanced by the war in Ukraine, and the extremely difficult present situation in which many countries are drowning in debt and many countries do not have access to the resources, namely, to concessional finance in order to not only be able to reduce their debts, but to be able to provide to their citizens those essential actions that are necessary for their lives to be engaged.

And we managed finally to have, in the Summit of the Future, the affirmation that the international financial architecture must be corrected and must be corrected to give more voice and more power to Developing Countries in general, of course, African countries in particular, and to mobilize much more resources for the SDGs, to reduce, adapt and to create conditions for sustainable development and for climate action in mitigation and adaptation to the benefit of developing countries. And I hope that now it will be possible to implement those measures, because they are essential for justice in relation to the African continent.

And then we just decided to create the common working group with the Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union Commission to do serious research, to allow to contribute to the creation of an African strategy to bridge the digital divide and the Artificial Intelligence divide, and to overcome all the enormous structural difficulties and impediments that exist today, and to be able to claim the resources that will be necessary for it to be possible, and for the digital world and the Artificial Intelligence not to be another factor of inequality, but to be a factor to allow to catch up and for the African continent to move, as it has done in the past, more fast in development, to be able to provide the best conditions for their citizens.

And we are totally committed to have a strong African presence in the political dialogue that will now meet annually at United Nations on artificial intelligence, and on the international scientific panel that will follow in [developing] the state of the art of artificial intelligence.

We want the African continent - that is a young continent - and in relation to scientists that are young scientists - to be able to be in the first line and not to be left behind because of the construct of injustices that still today exists. 

In these circumstances, I'm sure that cooperation between the [African Union] and the United Nations, these cooperations were led by Moussa Faki - that that cooperation will remain in the future, as strong, as dynamic and as committed to our being of those that justify our action, the people of Africa and the people of the world.

Source: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/press-encounter/2024-10-21/secretary...