The contest to become the next UN Secretary-General turns on ideas, and one of them has been resting in the Charter for eighty years. Chapter VIII provides for regional arrangements and agencies to take part in the pacific settlement of disputes and the maintenance of international peace and security. The drafters in San Francisco did not treat this as a concession. They understood that the Organization would never hold every crisis in its own hands, and that the neighbours of a conflict are often the first to move.
Practice has outrun the framework. Regional organizations deploy first, sustain the longest political engagement, and carry part of the human cost. What they do not receive is predictable funding. An operation authorized one day and financed by improvisation the next produces an improvised peace.
Partners, not subcontractors. President Macky Sall proposes a Secretariat that plans with these organizations rather than informing them afterwards. The convening power of the Secretariat exists precisely for this: to bring together those who decide, those who deploy and those who pay, before a crisis becomes an agenda item.
Prevention where it costs least. Regional bodies see ruptures coming. They know the actors, the borders and the languages. Early warning that produces no early action is an archive. The good offices set out in the Charter and the warning capacity of regional organizations belong to a single effort, and President Macky Sall intends to make them converge.
A mandate without resources is a promise the Organization cannot keep. That sentence carries the proposal. It applies to peace operations, to political missions and to development mandates. It applies equally to the credibility of multilateralism, which is measured less by the texts adopted than by the commitments honoured.
Experience of multilateral negotiation. Twelve years as head of state and the chairmanship of the African Union in 2022 are the foundation of these commitments, and the reason the vision statement filed with the United Nations frames its proposals as obligations: peace, security and development conceived together; multilateralism renewed; the governance of the Organization strengthened.
Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.
The nominating letter and the vision statement appear in the official register of candidatures of the United Nations. Read all statements at www.mackysall.net