Pres Ali presses for UN overhaul

President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali used Guyana’s address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to push for a Security Council that gives Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean permanent representation.

He argued that a body designed at the end of the Second World War can no longer claim to speak for the world as it is presently.

“We need a Security Council that reflects the geopolitical realities of the 21st century, not the power structures of 1945,” the Guyanese leader told the 81^st UNGA Session in New York on Wednesday.

The call carries added weight coming from Guyana, which completed a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the Council in 2025, giving it first-hand experience of how the body works.

President Ali framed reform as the answer to a deeper problem that he identified as the declining confidence in multilateralism itself.

He listed weakening of cooperation between nations among the most troubling challenges of the age, alongside war, climate change and rising inequality. He argued that the UN’s credibility now depends on its willingness to change.

“The United Nations must not be a monument to the past. It must become an instrument for the future,” he declared.

In his message, the president also called for the UN to become more transparent, accountable and responsive.

He also wants a stronger General Assembly with greater weight given to its deliberative and representative authority, since that is the one body where every member state has an equal voice. He pointed to a system too often divided by institutional rivalries and competing mandates.

He also pointed to resources that fall short of the responsibilities member states have handed the organisation.

“This is not the hour to retreat from multilateralism. This is the hour to reclaim and to renew it,” he called on world leaders.

President Ali tied the reform agenda directly to this year’s race for UN Secretary-General. He argued that institutions do not reform themselves and need leadership capable of change.

Guyana has put forward Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett for the post, and CARICOM nations have endorsed her candidacy.

The UNGA is the annual gathering where leaders of the UN’s 193 member states set out their positions to the world. This year, world leaders have gathered under the theme “Restoring trust, managing transformation: a United Nations that delivers for all.”

DPI