On the occasion of the seventy-eighth session of the General Assembly of our common institution, on behalf of my country. Togo, and His Excellency President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, allow me first of all to offer my warm congratulations to Mr. Dennis Francis of Trinidad and Tobago on his election and his skill in conducting the work of this session.
My warm congratulations also go not only to his predecessor. Mr. Csaba Korosi. who presided over our work last year, but also, and above all. to Secretary- General Antonio Guterres, who is doing the best that he can to restore the image of the United Nations as a modern institution despite the procrastination and complexity of the path of the reform.
I would also like to convey the condolences and support of the President of the Togolese Republic. Mr. Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, and the Togolese people to the brotherly peoples and Governments of the Kingdom of Morocco and Libya following the earthquake and the floods in each of their countries, respectively.
As we meet here today, it is clear that our world is not in particularly good shape. It is deeply sick, and its pathology calls on us to assume as high a level of responsibility as the United Nations.
Do our commitments match the scale of the challenges? That is the question of which we cannot lose sight if our ambition at the United Nations is truly to improve the state of the world in order to grant our peoples and our various countries greater opportunity, safety, security and assurance. Our world is increasingly less secure. Trust and solidarity among nations are almost at half-mast, and we have the high responsibility to work to repair it by rediscovering the meaning of our noblest commitments.
The choice and relevance of the theme that guides the general debate of this seventh-eighth session of the General Assembly, namely. “Rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity: accelerating action on the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all”, clearly and unmistakably conveys not only the unsustainable, disrupted and unstable state of the world, but also our determination at a higher level to do things for the better. The emergence of new sources of tension in the world must concern us.
I come from a country. Togo, and from a continent that is currently under great strain. Africa, oh. our Africa, the Africa of freedoms, the Africa of our fathers, oh. the Africa of our mothers, is wounded and bruised. Our continent. Africa, is facing multisectoral vulnerability — vulnerability due to our weak revenue and low levels of development, vulnerability due to major health crises, vulnerability due to the effects of climate change and vulnerability due to the disruption of global food supply chains. It is a vulnerability due to the encroachment of African cyberspace by cybercriminals and disinformation, vulnerability due to the recurrence of armed conflicts and the prevalence of war. and vulnerability due to the spread on the continent of international terrorism, threatening international peace and stability.
In recent years, terrorism has developed at an alarming rate on our continent in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa region and Southern Africa. Africa risks becoming a safe haven for international terrorism and remaining the weakest link in the global security system. Our coastal countries on the Gulf of Guinea, long spared, have begun to pay a heavy toll due to terrorism.
To respond effectively to the terrorist threat. Togo has therefore taken innovative multisectoral measures, as set out in its strategy document to combat violent extremism, adopted on 5 July 2022. That strategy makes it possible to balance security and development approaches by combining operational and legal measures with more flexible endogenous measures. It includes the emergency programme for the Savannah region, with an overall budget estimated at more than $324 million for the implementation of various projects in the water, energy, health, infrastructure, education and agriculture sectors by 2025. I would like to take this opportunity to express the Togolese Government’s gratitude to all our partners in the fight against terrorism, and we hope that the various partnerships will be steadily strengthened in order to put an end to that terrorist maelstrom.
Given the many situations of vulnerability and crisis in Africa, and which basically spare no country
on the continent, the Togolese Government is working at the national level to advance the development agenda through an ambitious road map 2020-2025. Togo has implemented a series of priority projects with economic, social and structural benefits for our people. Health, through the introduction of universal health coverage, food security, socioeconomic inclusion, decent work for the advancement of all and shared prosperity remain priority areas for Government action.
The Government’s efforts to make Togo a country open to the world continue. We are committed to strengthening economic, social and democratic stability, which helps to attract investors and guarantee Togo’s place as a preferred destination.
The multifaceted actions that we are taking are in line with the United Nations and African commitments of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Agenda 2063. and they are in line with the quest for sustainable development shared by all Members of the United Nations. That programme gives pride of place to environmental protection and preservation. It is the practical expression of Togo’s determination to join the international effort to combat the harmful effects of climate change.
To ensure the sustainable management and protection of marine and coastal ecosystems, the Togolese Government has therefore focused its priorities, on the one hand, on the sustainable management and protection of marine and coastal ecosystems, the regulation of fishing, the reduction of the vulnerability of people and property to extreme climatic phenomena and. on the other hand, on the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and the promotion of the blue economy.
In terms of the sustainable protection of the marine and coastal environment. Togo has set up a regional programme for integrated coastal management and combating coastal erosion. Togo aims to protect 90 per cent of its coastline by 2025.
Finally, in the context of preserving and restoring ecosystems and combating desertification. Togo has launched a major national reforestation programme to plant 1 billion trees by 2030. banned the import, marketing and use of glyphosate, and all products containing it. and promoted the use of biopesticides and biofertilizers in our country.
In the area of renewable energies, strategic and diversified partnerships have been forged to provide reliable, modern and low-cost services in rural areas. A fund for access to electricity for all. called the Tinga Fund, was therefore established in order to enable Togo to ensure universal access to reliable, sustainable, modern and affordable energy services by 2030.
Through the Cizo project, solar energy kits are supplied to vulnerable rural populations throughout the country, while the Government tirelessly continues to install photovoltaic power plants and miniature solar power plants, thereby helping to boost the contribution of renewable energy to Togo’s energy management policy.
Accordingly, we welcome the commitments and announcements made at the twenty-seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27). in particular the establishment of a specific fund to finance loss and damage to vulnerable countries hit hard by climate-related disasters. That is a major step towards the climate justice for which developing countries have been calling.
However, much remains to be done to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and the use of fossil fuels, among other things. In that regard, we hope that COP28. to be held in Dubai in November this year, will enable us to see significant progress in the implementation of the commitments that we made.
The Climate Ambition Summit, held here on 20 September, was an opportune moment to demonstrate the existence of genuine will to expedite the implementation of a just transition towards a world that is equitable and more resilient to climate change.
In the continent’s challenging environment, characterized by the spread of international terrorism and the emergence of new areas of tension. Africa is seeking its way forward, and Togo supports peace efforts in Africa. Terrorism and instability in Africa are issues of international security and must be treated as such by the United Nations. Our West African region, where several States are in transition in a volatile security context, must be supported in a spirit of active solidarity.
We must invest more in peace than we do in war. If the protagonists of the world’s various conflicts are listening to us. I would like to tell them that war is a denial of human dignity. Immanuel Kant, that great
philosopher of the Enlightenment, said that if the decision-makers in war could send their own children to the front, there would never be a war. Togo is a country of peace, and Togo opposes war for any reason. Since our independence on 27 April 1960. Togo has never waged war on its neighbours. Togo has never attacked its neighbours or any other country. Togo has never served as a rear base for any form of aggression against a brother country.
Togo is a country of peace. Peace is in the DNA of the Togolese people. Togo has always been a country of mediation that favours dialogue, negotiation and understanding among peoples and Governments. On 6 January. 49 Ivorian soldiers were released thanks to the mediation of the President of the Togolese Republic. President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, putting an end to the tension between the Governments of Cote d’Ivoire and Mali. Togo hosted various peace talks on its territory. We can cite them. There was Chad in 1982. Sierra Leone in 1991. the Liberian war in 1991. Cote d’Ivoire in 2000. et cetera, et cetera.
We call for the de-escalation and cessation of hostilities in the various hotbeds of tension in the world, in particular in West Africa. Africa has suffered too much from war. and a minimum sense of responsibility must convince us to invest in the prevention and peaceful resolution of conflicts. The bad thing about war. said our writer Immanuel Kant, is that it makes more villains than it can take away.
External interference causes conflict and crisis in Africa. It generally complicates the search for solutions to our crises and undermines African initiatives to find solutions to African crises. It is no longer welcome in an Africa that is aware of its own responsibilities in resolving the problems of peace, security and development. Africa no longer wants external interference. Africa wants to remain itself and the master of its destiny.
On the African continent for the past few months, the Sudan, a brother country, has been affected by an armed conflict that is causing a great deal of concern. Aware of the importance of peace and security for sustainable and inclusive development. Togo, which has made those one of the main axes of its development policy, hosted, under the aegis of the President of the Republic. President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, a consultative and cooperative dialogue among the political and military leaders of Darfur in Lome in July, with a view to contributing to the resolution of the Sudanese conflict.
Those consultations led to a compromise to put an end to the violence and create a humanitarian corridor. In order to achieve the full implementation of the commitments made in Lome, and thereby relieve the suffering of the civilian population, we urge the Sudanese parties to the conflict to favour the path of dialogue and consultation for a rapid settlement of the differences in the best interests of the Sudan. We hope that the Togolese approach, which supports other initiatives, will help to put an end to the conflict, which, strangely, is not receiving the attention that it should from the international community.
In West Africa and the Sahel, the recent years have also been marked by unconstitutional devolutions of power, with the setting up of transitional regimes, whose reappearance, beyond the issues that they raise, oblige us to rethink our systems of governance.
Those and many other issues will be examined at the Lome Peace and Security Forum, the first of which is scheduled for 21 and 22 October, under the theme of strengthening transitions to democratic governance in Africa. The aim is to examine how to develop strategies to meet the challenges of political transition in a coordinated, relevant and effective manner.
With the political and security crises that are transforming Africa, it is even more necessary to adopt a posture of adaptation. Thus. Togo and several other countries decided in Lome in May to create the African Political Alliance, which is intended to be a framework for consultation, political dialogue and joint action, based on the historical ties of fraternity and the principles of the sovereign equality of States, dependence and unity of action.
As far as the reform of the Security Council is concerned, we do not want to go back over it again. We have already said that Africa can no longer remain on the sidelines of the organ responsible for ensuring international peace and security. The Security Council can no longer remain merely the preserve of the victors and their allies of the Second World War. Nothing can justify maintaining the status quo. The ideological and institutional architecture of the post-war world is now obsolete. The status quo cannot continue.
We are in a new era in Africa’s and the global South’s relations with the world, and in the new dynamic Africa no longer intends to remain in the shadow of any great Power. The time is past when other entities claimed to speak on behalf of an Africa that they do not even listen to here at the United Nations and on the international stage. Africa’s partners, new and old. which are still reluctant to accept the new direction taken by Africa in the process of historical evolution, must change their attitude and approach to an Africa that has changed profoundly.
Over the past few decades, our world has undergone great silent revolutions, the profound significance of which lies in the qualitative renewal that they bring about in relations among nations, and which accompanies them throughout their own history. The reality of the world is that there are no longer monopolistic centres of gravity. The centre of the world now is here and nowhere else. No one is the centre of the world. In any case, what is clear and what I would like to recall here is that Africa now looks at its relations with the great Powers in terms of its own interests.
Last year, at this same platform. I told the Assembly that Africa no longer wanted to align itself with the great Powers, whichever they may be (see A/77/PV.11). The role assigned to Africa in the twenty-first century is evocative of the image that certain Powers of our continent still have: their zone of influence. We must be concerned about the place that Africa occupies on the world stage. Today Africa does not occupy the place that it should hold on the international scene. The great Powers want to reduce Africa to a purely instrumental entity in the service of their causes, and they obviously do not want the continent to be able to play an important role.
The fractures of the colonial era among a so-called French-. Spanish-. Portuguese-. Arabic- and English- speaking Africa have diminished, as have the postCold War ideologies that dominated the entire second part of the twentieth century. Today Africa wants to be itself. We say today, as we said last year, we prefer Africanophone.
Africa expects more equality, respect, equity and justice in its relations and partnerships with the rest of the world and with the major Powers, whichever they may be. Today Africans want to be true partners. Africa certainly does not have the same megaphones as a great Power of the world, but the voice of Africa counts, and it must count if we want to have Africa as a partner on major international issues.
The issue of the reform of the global multilateral architecture is of such concern to Africa that it will be at the heart of the 2024 ninth Pan-African Congress, to be held in Lome. For those who do not know, now is the time for an African, a pan-African. awakening. As part of the pan-African impetus, and in line with the noble objectives of the fathers of African independence. Africa and Africans are calling for. and expect, their own voices to be heard on the international stage in a sovereign, free and independent manner.
Africa knows what it wants. The peoples of Africa and the global South are frustrated because they feel insulted and dehumanized. Sometimes they ask themselves: who are you to scorn our humanity in that way? Who are you to scorn us like that? Who are you to humiliate us like that? Our continental organization, the African Union, is working to best convey the hope and voice of a healthy Africa that wishes to be sovereign, free and independent on the international stage. We are also working to that end as part of the African Political Alliance, launched in Lome.
The rivalry among the great Powers need not primarily be African rivalries. The challenge for us. as African nations, is to avoid taking part in rivalries that are not our own. We must fight our own battles, which include the struggle against neo-colonialism. the struggle against poverty, the industrialization of the continent, economic prosperity, the fight for peace, the struggle against the de-Africanization of Africa and for an African renaissance and dignity, the struggle to free ourselves once and for all from foreign subordination and the commitment to ensuring a better representation of our continent in the concert of nations and continents. Our struggles are neither those of the West nor those of the East, still less those of any one side or part of the world. We must focus on our current and future struggles.
International politics cannot be reduced to a captive field, where we are obliged to take a position in favour of one side against another. We want a reformed international system, based on values and principles that are respected by all and that are respectful of the right of peoples to freely position themselves as they see fit on the international stage. The right of peoples
to self-determination implies the right of each State to behave as it wishes on the international stage within the limits of respect for its international commitments.
On the major transnational challenges of our century, such as climate change and the fight against international terrorism, our views may intersect with those of others, but they must remain our deeply considered views, decided in accordance with our own agendas. There is no longer any question of the Africa that we want and wishing to play a secondary role in the dynamics of global change. The Africa about which I am talking is no longer prepared to accept the tendency of certain countries to make their geostrategic agendas the concerns of Africans.
The challenges facing our world are indeed great, and Africa’s new directions in terms of foreign relations are driven by the dynamics of renewal and a paradigm shift. The time has come for an African and panAfrican awakening, where our continent has regained an awareness of itself and of its responsibilities, both internally and towards the rest of the world. Africa needs a partnership that respects the full dignity of every individual. We want to be partners, not subjects. We want to serve our peoples, not foreign interests.
As we repeatedly say. that new dynamic is not directed against anyone. It is the expression of a new Africa, an African Africa, an African-speaking Africa that wants to be free, sovereign, independent and in control of itself. In short, it is clear to Africa’s youth. Those words are clear. It is this. It is that we are tired of paternalism. We are tired of contempt for our people’s views, for our people and our leaders. We are tired of the condescension. We are tired of the arrogance. We are tired, we are tired, we are tired.