AfricaAnalysis

Africa fights for influence on international governance

South Africa is seen by many as well placed to argue the case of the developing world’s desire for greater representation on the international stage

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa: unequivocal about the failings of the world’s global governance structures. Photograph: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
Bill Corcoran's picture
Bill Corcoran in Cape Town
Wed Sept 25 2024 - 05:00

During his closing remarks on Sunday at the United Nation’s Summit of the Future, South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was unequivocal about the failings of the world’s global governance structures.

“Placing the fate of the world’s security in the hands of a select few when it is the vast majority who bear the brunt of these threats is unjust, unfair and unsustainable,” he told the UN General Assembly delegates in New York, where the assembled nations adopted the Pact of the Future in advance of the summit.

The pact, which was negotiated by UN states over nine months and is designed to bring multilateralism into the 21st century, “must be inclusive”, said Ramaphosa, “and represent the views, concerns and interests of the Global South”.

But as with all multilateral agreements in the UN, the level of impact rests with its member states’ willingness and ability to implement it.

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The reform of the United Nations Security Council, which was established in 1946, has long been a priority for the African Union (AU), whose members adopted the Ezulwini Consensus, a common position on the issue, in 2005.

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Through this agreement, African nations insisted the continent should have two permanent seats on the security council, given the majority of its agenda relates to crises in Africa, which is home to 1.4 billion people.

In addition, they insisted the African countries awarded these seats should have the same privileges as the security council’s five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

This includes theright to veto all of the decisions the security council takes that are non-procedural, even though the AU is opposed to this privilege in principle. However, in the 20 years since the AU adopted the Ezulwini Consensus, the security council’s permanent members have done little more than pay lip service to its calls for reform.

International relations experts across Africa have long discussed how the AU can achieve equal representation within international governance structures.

Indeed, some observers in the West might have seen the US’s announcement earlier this month that it would consider adding two more permanent seats to the security council for African nations, albeit without veto powers, as progress in this regard.

In Africa, however, the suggestion has been met with little enthusiasm.

Writing in the Daily Maverick online news publication last week, prof Tim Murithi, a research associate at the Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy, said the proposal would only maintain the status quo.

“In the aftermath of its widespread rejection, Washington’s foreign policy establishment can throw its hands up in the air in moral lament, and castigate the Global South for rejecting a perfectly reasonable proposal,” he concluded.

From the perspective of the Global South, South Africa is seen by many as well placed to argue the case of the developing world’s desire for greater representation in the multilateral system because of its history.

The Institute for Security Studies’ AU representative, Dr Paul-Simon Handy, explained that because South Africa is a democracy, when many other Global South countries are not, it is in a much stronger position to argue the case for change.

“South Africa was one of the key countries to influence the AU’s position on the reform of international governance, particularly the security council, so there is consensus in the AU it should be the one to argue for change,” he told The Irish Times.

According to Alex Benkenstein, a programme manager at the South African Institute of International Affairs, the emergence and expansion of the Brics group of nations last year has led to concerns in the West that it represents a fundamental fracture in the global international system.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the original five Brics members, were joined last year by Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. However, Benkenstein sees several problems with the argument that Brics poses a threat.

“Firstly, the cohesion of Brics countries is overstated – there are fundamental differences in their approach to governance and management of their economies; in this sense they do not represent a coherent alternative model of economic or political governance to the West,” he said.

In addition, Benkenstein said many Brics members retain strong relationships with Global North powers, and in this sense choosing to join the group is not a decision to break with the West in any fundamental way.

“Brics has been quite explicit that its primary goal in relation to global governance institutions is to reform, rather than replace them. Brics is certainly gaining in power and influence, but to frame the group in binary opposition to ‘the West’ misrepresents its realities and ambitions as a bloc.”

Handy agrees with this view. Despite its limitations, he believes the UN will remain the world’s central governance organisation, and that no country is contesting the need for the essential work its technical agencies undertake.

“You hardly see any actor, any country, actually questioning the existence of the security council. What people want is to be part of it. They want more representation, but they are not questioning the legitimacy of the UN, which is, to me, an extremely important point.”