COFFEE WITH THE AFRICA REPORT

AMINA J. MOHAMMED

UNITING NATIONS

The UN deputy secretary general chats with The Africa Report about the future of multilateralism, the social contract in the Sahel and the urgent need for solidarity

By PATRICK SMITH

Membersofthewelcomingpartyinthe lobby of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) nervously checkedtheirwatches,waitingfortheir star speaker to arrive. Just a few days earlier,SouthAfricanepidemiologists haddiscoveredtheOmicronvariantof Covid-19. Western governments were putting up the shutters and throwing international travel into chaos.

Minutes later, broad smiles broke out. UN deputy secretary general Amina J. Mohammed breezed in, resplendentinanemeraldgreenboubou. “The planes are still flying,” she said. “I left New York yesterday morning […] though I’m not quite certain when I’m going to be able to get back.”

Mohammed is zig-zagging from the UN headquarters on Manhattan’s East River to its European base in Switzerland, then 24 hours in London todeliveralectureattheRoyalAfrican Society, then more sessions in Geneva before, fingers crossed, a return flight toNewYork.Afteralmosttwoyearsof enforcedstasis,thecontinent-crossing diplomatic schedule seems simultaneously exotic and old-fashioned.

We are ushered into a quiet room in the SOAS director’s office. South African academic and activist Adam Habib took over at SOAS in January and has injected a note of internationalism and radicalism into the venerable institution.

That is also a profile with which Mohammed seems happy. After schooling in Kaduna and Maiduguri in northern Nigeria, then college in Britain, she joined an architectural practice back home and launched into community activism. That tipped her into running a social enterprise before she was recruited by three successive

‘The UN has to be more inclusive, more responsive, or it will become a relic’

presidents of Nigeria to advise on development policy.

Aftertwodecadesingovernmentand theinternationalsystem,howdoesshe deal with galloping cynicism towards the UN and tub-thumping nationalism taking hold in so many states? “Even my children ask me: ‘Why are you still at the UN?’,” she laughs, suggesting that her six globe-trotting children are notentirelyconvincedbyheranswers. One of the six, Nadine Ibrahim, has directed a film about the interior life ofa12-year-oldfemalesuicidebomber in northern Nigeria.

This growing nationalism may mean the UN has to develop its own form of transactional diplomacy. It is the convening power of the UN that matters, she says. “What are the dividends that you get for investing in an organisation like this?”

For Mohammed, in this era of pandemics, broken supply chains and climate crises, the UN’s relevance should be greater than ever. “The UN has to be more inclusive, more responsive or it will become a relic. It’s important for us to remember that we’re not far away from that.”

Rich countries have become ever more curmudgeonly on vaccines, migrationandclimatefinance.Doesn’t this widening chasm point to a dismissal of the UN’s relevance by the most powerful states? “I do think that the breaking point is going to be the response to Covid.Everyone’stalkingabout a recovery. Frankly, we’ve not had the response to guarantee thatrecovery.There’snotbeen the solidarity behind it.”

It doesn’t look the most propitious time for Mohammed and Secretary General António Guterres tolaunchtheUN’sboldest bid for reform since it was founded in1945.The‘Common Agenda’ calls on the organisation to be

more participatory and consultative, working with civil society, entrepreneurs and activists on the front line. The UN positions the report as a platform for ‘networked multilateralism’: a way of pulling together many different organisations – governmental, philanthropic and even commercial – to act in areas such as climate, health and security. Then there is Guterres’s call for the Futures Lab, ramping up the UN’s strategic forecasting and use of behavioural sciencealongsidethere-establishment of its scientific advisory board.

All this is more than the last gasp of multilateralism. Mohammed says the internationalists will win in the end. “There should be a critical mass of member states. It’s an insufficient number so far, but I think we can grow that number. We have presented our Common Agenda. There has been a good resolution that welcomed it!” One of the more positive outcomes of the pandemic, says Mohammed, was far better coordination between the UN, the IMF and the World Bank. The World Bank had initially lagged behind on climate finance; now it needs to bring in the regional and national development banks. as well as private institutions, to raise gargantuansumstofinancetheenergy transition. “They’ve got to feel the sense of urgency. We’re not getting ahead of the curve [on climate], just flatlining.” Global warming is personal for Mohammed, as it has ripped

R TA FOR U PA JEAN-MARC

‘We’re not getting ahead of the curve [on climate change], just flatlining’

acrossthelandscapeofherhomeland. “LakeChad,Igrewupthereanditwasa lake, I have to tell you! […] Today, you scarcely need a paddle boat to cross it. Farmers wake up in the morning, go to their farm and find nothing there because the sandstorm has taken it away. […] This has just exacerbated the inequities in the region.”

With that come the multiple insurgencies and banditry, with armed bands coordinating with jihadist militias across the Sahel. So what is happening to the established social structures? “I think it’s really a failure of democracy to take root and of the governing structures to have the necessary investments for a parliament, for a bureaucracy and for a justice system. The social contract with the people is breaking because we’re not able to respond adequately.”

That means radical policy and institutional changes: “I think the security situation in most of Africa probably needs a rethink. This is where the secretary general talks about peace architecture […] dealing with the root causes, having the necessary foresight and tools. […] In many of the communities,thewonderfulthingaboutAfrica isthatif youget itright,it repairsitself really quickly. But if you get it wrong, it disintegrates really quickly.”

With that apocalyptic aperçu, the deputy secretary general heads for the lecture theatre, readying herself to defend the UN project to a generation of students for whom its precepts and its foundation 76 years ago have long since faded into history.