Two messages of gratitude, published on 20 July, close the West African sequence of President Macky Sall's candidacy for United Nations Secretary-General. They are addressed to the two heads of state who had received him on 17 July.

The first goes to the President of the Republic of Senegal: "I thank H.E. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye for the audience of 17 July, and every Senegalese man and woman for a welcome I will not forget." That day, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye had received the candidate at the presidential palace. The Presidency hailed the audience as "a symbol of the continuity of the State and the permanence of institutions, beyond alternations of power." A popular welcome had accompanied him from the airport to the palace.

Gambian President Adama Barrow receives the second: "I warmly thank H.E. @BarrowPresident, President of the Republic of The Gambia, for our cordial meeting of 17 July in the context of my candidacy for the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations. I had the pleasure of sharing my vision and exchanging with him on the issues and challenges at the heart of Africa and global governance." That audience at the State House in Banjul had extended the Dakar leg the same day. The conversation on African unity thus moved from one capital to its immediate neighbour.

These thanks follow a method: each audience ends with a public message, and the decision rests with states. From capital to capital, the only declared African candidacy defends the same conviction, that of an Africa which advances united and which the United Nations gains by hearing.

Three days separate these messages from the 23 July meeting, where the candidate will present his vision to the member states; the Security Council's first straw polls are expected in the last week of the month. From Dakar and Banjul to New York, the course does not change: an integrated approach to peace, security and development; a renewed multilateralism; a streamlined governance able to do more with less. Africa at heart, the world in sight.

The full vision statement is available at www.mackysall.net.