The UN Secretary General hoped, on Sunday May 1, that the military juntas in Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali would be withdrawn as soon as possible, and urged the rich countries to keep their aid promises without delay. South facing the "climate emergency".

“We agreed on the importance of continuing the dialogue with the de facto authorities [in Ouagadougou, Conakry and Bamako] in order to establish the return to constitutional order as soon as possible,” Antonio Guterres said in Dakar. , after meeting the Senegalese head of state, Macky Sall, current president of the African Union (AU).

Weakened by the Sahelian crisis, West Africa was further destabilized by the military coups that occurred successively in Mali (August 2020 and May 2021), Guinea (September 2021) and Burkina Faso ( January 2022).

>> To read: "Burkina Faso destabilized by jihadist violence"

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) imposed heavy sanctions on Mali in January, after the putschists' manifest refusal to return power to civilians quickly, and threatened Conakry and Ouagadougou with the same fate if they persist in wanting to drag out the transition beyond a "reasonable" time.

But the military in power in Burkina Faso and Guinea this week dismissed the demands of ECOWAS, Ouagadougou reaffirming a three-year transition schedule when the Guinean junta announced an interim of "39 months ".

Hailing the African Union as a "model in terms of regional cooperation", Antonio Guterres, who is to go after Senegal to Niger and Nigeria, said he discussed with Macky Sall "the joint efforts against terrorism and extremism violent" in West Africa.

He said his attachment "to robust African peace and counter-terrorism operations implemented by the African Union and supported by the United Nations", on the model of several ongoing operations in Africa, in Mali in particular.

"Serious moral bankruptcy"

This country has been the epicenter of Sahelian instability since 2012.

Jihadist violence from its territory has spread to its neighbors in Burkina Faso, to the south, and Niger, to the east.

Judging that "the climate emergency [...] increases the security risk", Antonio Guterres recalled that African countries were "often the first victims" of global warming for which they are "not responsible", and that the developed countries had pledged to help the countries of the South to finance their "transition towards renewable energies and green jobs".

"It's time to take action. It's time to keep the promise of 100 billion dollars a year made in Paris," he insisted.

This commitment – ​​not kept to date – of funding of 100 billion per year from developed countries to poor countries from 2020 was made during the signing, in 2015, of the international agreement on the climate of Paris to limit global warming.

>> To read also: "Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso ... the temptation of the coup in West Africa"

In Dakar, Antonio Guterres visited the site of the future headquarters of UN regional operations as well as a manufacturing unit soon to produce vaccines against Covid-19, but also, on an experimental basis, against malaria and tuberculosis. .

Deeming "unacceptable that today, nearly 80% of the African population is still not vaccinated" against Covid-19, the UN chief called on rich countries and big pharmaceutical companies to put an end to this situation of "serious moral bankruptcy" by giving more doses and investing "in the local production of vaccines".

Antonio Guterres also addressed the issue of the consequences of the war in Ukraine on Africa, where this conflict, he said, "aggravates a triple crisis: food, energy and financial".

On this point, Macky Sall spoke of the "dramatic impacts" of the war "on the economies [...] of developing countries" and the "threats of famine" which result from it for Africa.

“We think there needs to be a de-escalation in the Ukrainian theater and [Africa] will work in this perspective,” he assured. 

To enable the countries of the continent to cope, Antonio Guterres once again urged the international financial institutions to put in place "urgently [...] debt relief measures [...] so that the governments can avoid default and invest in social safety nets and sustainable development for their people".

With AFP

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