The United Nations Security Council has approved an African Resolution spearheaded by Ghana, calling for support and funding for operations addressing all threats to global peace and security in Africa.
According to an official release to the Ghana News Agency on Thursday night, this innovative Peace Support funding model goes beyond the traditional United Nations peacekeeping operations.
As outlined in the resolution, all peace support operations led by the African Union and mandated by the UN Security Council will receive funding from UN assessed contributions, covering up to 75% of their annual budgets.
The remaining funds are expected to be jointly mobilized by the United Nations and the African Union from the international community as extra-budgetary resources.
In the face of significant shortfalls in resource mobilization, the Security Council has committed to exploring all feasible options, the release noted.
“The dramatic outcome of the complex and difficult negotiations comes 10 days before the end of Ghana’s term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council,“ said the release.
“When Ghana announced its priorities at the beginning of its term in January 2022 to secure agreement of the Security Council to change its traditional response to international peace and security, especially in Africa, where violent extremism and terrorism had overtaken traditional conflicts that attracted UN peacekeeping, many had expressed skepticism.”
“Attempts in the past to agree on the use of UN assessed contributions to support African-led operations had failed in the face of opposition from some Permanent Members of the Council and other large contributors to the UN.”
During its two-year term, Ghana aspired to achieve these goals. As the President of the Council in November 2022, both President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Foreign Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey conducted high-level signature debates on the escalating threats of violent extremism and terrorism in Africa, focusing on the Sahel and coastal West Africa.
The release indicated that the leaders advocated for the funding of Africa-led operations through UN assessed contributions. Additionally, they recommended a balanced approach to funding, addressing both military operations and tackling the socio-economic and climatic root causes of conflicts.
“One key objective was to starve terrorists of conditions for radicalisation and recruitment from vulnerable communities,” the release emphasised.
“With the adoption of the framework resolution, it is understood that the plans of ECOWAS and relevant security initiatives in our region, such as the Accra Initiative and the Multi National Joint Task Force, battling Boko Haram, will potentially benefit from the needed resources and international support to defeat terrorism and violent extremism in the ECOWAS region.”
Commenting on the adoption of the Resolution, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Madam Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey declared: “Today is a great day for Africa and for diplomacy.
“Working with our partners around the world, we have taken a giant step to end the many threats to international peace and security in our region.
“Our people deserve the peace, stability and progress that successful peace support operations will bring. The distractions to our regional integration project and the pressure on development resources from our security needs would ease as we go forward.
“I congratulate President Akufo-Addo for his leadership. I also commend our team in NewYork, my own Ministry and the Multi-Stakeholder Working Group on the United Nations Security Council, which I set up to advise me.”