President William Ruto has criticised the architecture of the United Nations Security Council, calling it dysfunctional and undemocratic.

Speaking during the ongoing UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Friday, September 27, 2024, the Head of State reprimanded the Security Council, arguing that it is unaccountable and even non-inclusive.

Ruto wondered why the whole of Africa is not represented in the UN Security Council yet some of the decisions made during their meetings directly affect the continent.

“The existing international security architecture represented by the UN Security Council continues to hamper efforts to maintain international peace and security.

“The council is by all means and purposes dysfunctional, undemocratic, non-inclusive, unaccountable, autocratic, and at best opaque. An institution that excludes 54 African countries with 1.4 billion people while allowing one nation to veto decisions of the remaining 193 member states in the 21st century is simply unacceptable,” Ruto stated.

In his high-powered speech, Ruto implored the UN member states to push for Security Council reforms to make it more inclusive and representative.

“We must urgently seek to make the Security Council representative, inclusive, transparent, democratic, effective, and accountable,” Ruto emphasised.

African nations have been pushing to be given a seat at the UN Security Council. Their push has also been supported by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who recently said the composition of the UNSC has failed to keep pace with a changing world.

Guterres called for the UN Security Council to reform its outdated structure and assign Africa a permanent seat at the table, stressing that the continent is underrepresented.

“We cannot accept that the world’s preeminent peace and security body lacks a permanent voice for a continent of well over a billion people… Nor can we accept that Africa’s views are undervalued on questions of peace and security, both on the continent and around the world,” he said.

The 15-member United Nations Security Council consists of five permanent members with veto power – China, France, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom – while the remaining 10 nonpermanent seats are allocated regionally.

The 10 seats include three seats for African states; two each for Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe and other states; and one for Eastern Europe.

However, Ruto now wants Africa to be given a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, which he argued would help articulate key priority areas affecting the continent.

President @WilliamsRuto on the reform of the United Nations Security Council, advocating for a more effective and representative global governance structure that includes African countries. pic.twitter.com/2xerB0H79o

— Hussein Mohamed, MBS. (@HusseinMohamedg) September 28, 2024

Funding reforms

While pushing for UNSC reforms, Ruto told various presidents and diplomats in New York that African countries have initiated talks to restructure the financing models.

Ruto indicated that most African countries have opened talks with the World Bank and International Monetary Funds (IMF) over their financing structures, which he argued at the moment are repressive.

“Biased methodology employed by credit rating agencies further disadvantage African countries, making it more difficult to access affordable financing from international capital markets,” Ruto stated.