UNITED NATIONS: Highlighting that externally driven approaches risk undermining Africa’s hard-won progress, Pakistan has called on the UN Security Council to match rhetoric with resolve, emphasizing that the region’s peace depends on empowering regional ownership and must be “locally owned and regionally reinforced,”.
Pakistan also called for resolute, predictable financing to strengthen the UN-African Union partnership.
Speaking at the Security Council briefing on cooperation between the United Nations and regional and subregional organizations with reference to the African Union, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, described the UN-AU relationship as “one of the most consequential partnerships of our time,” embedded in the 2017 Joint Framework for Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security.
He commended the African Union’s leadership in conflict prevention and peacebuilding, while noting that “No other region enjoys such structured engagement,” citing coordinated peace efforts as evidence that “regional voices can shape global action when guided by mutual respect and shared purpose.”
Ambassador Asim highlighted that the partnership has proven vital in addressing political and peacekeeping efforts across the continent – from Sudan and South Sudan to the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Sahel.
He, however, cautioned, that while institutional cooperation has matured, “more needs to be done to improve political coherence,” mounting accountability towards responses to African crises that are too often “filtered through extra-regional lenses — of geopolitical competition, commercial interest, and selective humanitarianism.”
He urged the Council to withdraw from externally imposed models of stabilization and instead design context-specific strategies rooted in African political will.
Proposing a shift in penholdership on African files to African members of the Council, he stressed the need for regional perspectives to guide global policymaking.
Describing the adoption of Security Council Resolution 2719 as a “watershed moment,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad placed importance on the implementation of the framework to be driven by political will, ensuring sustainable financing for future AU-led operations.
He also welcomed the African members of the Council (A3 and A3 Plus) for bridging Addis Ababa and New York, reaffirming Pakistan’s support for “African solutions to African problems” as well as its longstanding role as a significant contributor to UN peacekeeping in Africa.
Advancing the goals of the UN-AU partnership, he noted, depends on ensuring that African priorities lead global action. The success of this cooperation will be measured through ensuring that the promise of Chapter VIII — regional partnership for global peace — is fully realized into tangible peace, stability on the ground, and sustained development.
