Africa marks time in quest for more global say

President William Ruto was as assertive as he has ever been on Wednesday, when he echoed the decades-long African call for meaningful representation on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the UN’s topmost decision-making organ.

In a passionate address to the UN General Assembly in New York, he blasted the organisation’s structure, which denies the continent a permanent seat at the UNSC, as “grossly unjust,” a message repeated by his African peers in equally forceful speeches.

“For two decades, Africa has spoken in one voice, demanding justice, equity, and representation in the highest organ of global governance,” Dr Ruto said during the UN’s 80th anniversary. “This demand, however, continues to be ignored, deferred, or endlessly debated to the detriment of both Africa and the legitimacy of the United Nations itself.”

The UNSC comprises 15 members, but its five permanent members – the United States, United Kingdom, China, France and Russia – with veto powers, have the most say on the organ’s resolutions.

Ruto had reflected on the “illegitimacy” of the League of Nations, the UN’s predecessor, over its helplessness in quelling and deterring conflict. This danger of a loss in credibility, Ruto added, was not off the cards for the UN if it “does not adapt” to “emerging realities,” the most relevant of which was Africa’s place in the modern world.

“You cannot claim to be the United Nations while disregarding the voice of 54 nations,” an emphatic Ruto said, pointing out Africa’s contribution to global governance, mostly through peacekeeping efforts, limited by its lack of a meaningful say at the continental stage.

The 58-year-old president had similar grievances against the global financial infrastructure, saying the governance of Bretton Woods institutions had not “kept pace with the needs of a multi-polar world,” neglecting the world’s poorest countries, concentrated in the global south.

Ruto would highlight a recent allocation of special drawing rights by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which he said was skewed to favour Western nations that did not need liquidity support, attributing this to entrenched inequality.

Africa, the second most populated continent (behind Asia) with about 1.5 billion people, mostly resourcefully young, has historically assumed a bystander role, as Ruto pointed out with remarks that the continent lacked a permanent seat at the table where decisions about its destiny are made.

But the continent would not sit idly in the hope that affirmative action would come to the rescue, the Head of State pointed out, saying that Africa was uniting its voice. There have been two instalments of the African Climate Summit (in 2023 and 2025), Ruto said, and a plan to strengthen Africa’s financial independence was well on course.

This plan included setting up an African central bank, which will eventually issue a single currency, “and free our trade from dependence on foreign money,” a monetary fund to cement financial sovereignty, Ruto said, and an investment bank to mobilise resources for Africa’s most pressing needs.

Plans for the central and investment banks were adopted in 2009, with the monetary fund agreed upon five years later. Their establishment would be a game-changer, experts agree.

In a commentary on Opinion Nigeria, Reverend Matthew Ma, a Nigerian Catholic priest who comments on social issues, proposed the expansion of these goals to include a parallel Pan-African security council, which he argued would “reshape Africa’s standing and influence in international affairs.”

“The proposed continental security council would empower Africa to articulate a unified stance on global issues,” said Rev Ma. “This unity can enhance its negotiating power and ensure that African perspectives and priorities are adequately represented on the world stage.”

Timothy Onduru, who teaches history at Moi University, argued Africa was unlikely to achieve meaningful progress in asserting itself on the world stage, evidenced by the fact that it had failed to pull together more than six decades since most of its countries gained independence.

“We had similar pushes by our founding fathers, like Kwame Nkrumah (a former president of Ghana), who dreamed of one African state, which were later carried by (former Libyan President) Muamar Gaddafi,” said Dr Onduru, terming the renewed agitation a “pipe dream.”

There has been little progress in rolling out the three bodies Ruto highlighted, exposing the enduring failure by Africa’s leaders to walk the talk on making the continent’s voice more assertive. Their weaknesses show in their inability to fund the African Union, relying on foreigners who finance 70 per cent of its annual budget, a situation that Sudanese philanthropist Mo Ibrahim termed “a farce.”

But Africa is significantly constrained by its socio-political and economic realities, as Ruto would inadvertently highlight when he once again rallied for the unlocking of climate financing at the UN event. Heavily saddled with debt and ravaged by multiple calamities, the continent struggles to fund critical sectors.

A 2023 study by the International Commission of Jurists reported that donors contributed “almost 60 per cent of the Ministry of Health development budget, with much of the funding allocated to HIV, reproductive health, immunisation, and health systems support.”

A consequence of Africa’s reliance on aid has invited projections that funding cuts by US President Donald Trump would collapse healthcare systems across the continent.

African leaders, who have constantly aired their desperation to free themselves from “colonial” influences, have shown great affinity to global powers, mostly seeking financial favours.

In his early days as president, Ruto collected standing ovations for championing Pan-African ideals on different stages. But he would later be criticised as a puppet of the West when he was hosted in May by former US President Joe Biden in the first state visit by an African leader last year, a trip Ruto said was funded by the United Arab Emirates, which also seeks to stamp its authority on the continent.

More recently, Ruto, previously cosy with Meg Whitman, Washington’s former ambassador to Kenya, has come under fire for his association with China, which, alongside Kenya, he said were “co-architects of a new world order.”

In recent months, several African countries, like Rwanda and South Sudan, have agreed to host Trump deportees, a move aimed at earning the US president’s favour. Somaliland, a state that claims autonomy from Somalia, has offered Washington its main port and a naval base, in what experts have said is geared to help its case for recognition.

The continent’s leaders have shown an eagerness to engage with the outside world at the expense of forging internal alliances, Dr Onduru argued.

“African leaders have shown a great lack of leadership with their disunity,” he said. “We don’t have that unity and will that will help us achieve financial independence.”

Integration, the kind that would amplify the continent’s voice on the global stage, has been slow in coming. Movement between some African countries is harder than it is between some of its states and those in other continents – owing to factors like visa restrictions – so much so that the subject was a campaign issue in last February’s African Union Commission chairperson elections.

Tariff and non-tariff barriers have stifled intra-African trade, which stood at a paltry 14 per cent of Africa’s total trade in 2024, according to a report by the African Export-Import Bank published last July.

Trade among neighbouring countries, such as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, has often been characterised by friction. Movement of persons, too, suffers this fate, despite the adoption of a unified East African Community (EAC) passport in 2016.

In May, political activists from Kenya and Uganda were detained and later deported from Tanzania, where they had travelled to witness the trial of opposition politician Tundu Lissu, who faces treason charges for urging a boycott of the election to push for electoral reform.

Karua, former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, and four others have since sued Tanzania over their deportation, which they argued was unlawful and contravening their free movement rights as East African citizens.

East Africa has long harboured dreams of establishing a common currency, with plans to roll it out in 2031. These plans have faced reluctance from member states that all but trust each other, a fact that offers the indication of the daunting task of establishing a continent-wide currency.

“There is no excuse for our lack of unity, which is also great among our regional communities. The issue of language barriers does not hold, as Europe, too, has similar barriers but is united,” said Dr Onduru.

Africa’s potential on the global stage cannot be understated. Although it contributes 3 per cent to the world's trade, it accounts for 30 per cent of known mineral reserves.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for instance, produces 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt, a mineral essential to the development of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and smartphones.

The strife-torn nation, which hardly benefits from its immense resources, also boasts the world’s largest coltan reserves. Similarly, coltan is essential in the manufacturing of smartphones and the automotive industry, a fact that underscores the DRC’s global importance.

“Sub-Saharan economies capture, on average, just 40% of the potential revenue from their natural resources – a gap that reflects a deeper systemic failure to unlock the full economic potential of these assets,” Octaviano Canuto, a former executive of the World Bank and IMF and Sabrine Emran, an economist, wrote in an opinion article published on Project Syndicate in April.

In their article, the two argued that African countries and global mineral industries needed to move “away from the exploitative models that have long shaped the global economy” to realise the most benefits from the resources.

African countries have long preferred exploitative methods, prioritising self-enrichment at the detriment of their citizens’ interests, reports have shown. A 2023 Al Jazeera documentary uncovered that Kamlesh Pattni, a controversial figure implicated in the Goldenberg scandal of the 1990s, bribed Zimbabwean officials in a gold smuggling scheme.

Such media reports abound in Africa, where the smuggling business thrives. Much of the DRC’s minerals have been smuggled out of the country, courtesy of years of instability  much the case in many other countries. The current tiff pitting the DRC and Rwanda significantly owes to allegations that Kigali’s coltan exports are smuggled from eastern DRC.

Kenya, too, has come under scrutiny for allegedly being a route through which gold from the DRC and Sudan is smuggled, mostly re-exported to the United Arab Emirates, according to an analysis by SwissAid, Switzerland’s international development charity, published in May.

“Corruption in Africa starts from the top. With immense financial benefits, you cannot expect our leaders to protect Africa’s resources,” said Dr Onduru, the historian.