MACKY SALL, President of Senegal, noted that for millions of people, daily life remains marked by fear, violence, poverty and inequality.  The tragedy of illegal migration is a reminder of the need to implement the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, and to relentlessly continue the fight against the criminal networks which organize this illicit trafficking of human beings.  Voicing concern over the resurgence of coups d’état in Africa, he strongly condemned any form of unconstitutional change of Government.  Further, terrorism continues to gain ground on the continent, without an appropriate reaction from the Security Council.  He noted that during its membership in the Council in 2016 and 2017, Senegal warned of the ineffectiveness of peacekeeping operations in Africa, whose mandates and equipment hardly respond to the nature of the situations.  He reiterated his Government’s support for the right of the Palestinian people to a viable State, coexisting peacefully with Israel. 

He recognized the valuable services provided by the United Nations system and Bretton Woods institutions to member countries for almost 80 years.  However, the multilateral system, a legacy of a bygone past, has become obsolete — as the United Nations Secretary-General rightly warned, a system which continues to ignore the realities of its time and the needs of more than three quarters of the Organization’s Member States, accentuates inequalities, generates the conditions for its challenge, and causes the risk of its fragmentation.  To avoid this divide, wisdom calls for reforming global political, economic and financial governance, so that it is more representative of diversity.  The international community can get there if it generates the necessary political will, as the Group of 20 (G20) showed by admitting the African Union as a full member.

Calling for a revitalized universalism, more open and more effective in tackling major challenges, he cited the climate emergency.  While extreme phenomena are increasing, Senegal remains committed to the implementation of the Paris climate accord.  Thanks to its proactive energy mix policy, renewable energies now represent 31 per cent of its electrical capacities, and with the signing last June of a Partnership for a Just Energy Transition, his country aims to increase this rate to 40 per cent by 2030.  On that note, he thanked those partner countries who are mobilizing €2.5 billion over an initial period of 3 to 5 years, starting in 2023, to finance Senegal’s projects.  At the same time, Dakar is continuing to build low-carbon and climate-resilient infrastructure, including two mass transport systems:  a regional express train and a rapid transit bus line, both electric.

With the implementation of national and continental projects, such as the Great Green Wall, “our countries are clearly committed to climate action, within their means,” he stated.   However, for the most part, green projects in Africa are financed by commercial debt, whereas they should be supported by the mobilization of $100 billion per year agreed upon since the Fifteenth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 15) in 2009 to finance climate action.  Climate justice, he stressed, would require that a continent which contributes less than 4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and which suffers the most, should not be condemned to debt to repair and prevent damage for which it is not responsible.  Senegal supports a just and equitable energy transition, taking into account the specific needs of African countries, including universal access to electricity of which more than 600 million Africans remain deprived.