🇧🇯Marc Hermanne Gninadoou ArabaBenin · UNGA 81 speech

President of the General Assembly, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Excellencies, Heads of Delegation, ladies and gentlemen, It is a great honor for me to be speaking before this august Assembly. I would like to convey to you the warmest greetings of the Beninese people and to carry before you the voice of these people, a voice resolutely committed to peace, dialogue and multilateralism, a voice which yearns to fully partake in our collective reflection about the future of our organization and the future of our world. If I may, at the outset, I would like to pay a glowing tribute to His Excellency Antonio Guterres. This is his last General Assembly as Secretary-General of the United Nations. At a time when the temptation to withdraw to turn inwards is strong, when many are saying that in the face of crises, We must do so. No nation can build lasting security and prosperity through isolation. I would like to extend to Mr. Guterres our heartfelt gratitude. Thank you for your commitment to serving humanity. I also wish to extend our heartfelt congratulations to His Excellency Khalilur Rahman, President of this 81st session. We wish you every success as you discharge your duties. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, there are moments in history where we are compelled to choose not just what we want to do, but also what we want to become. It is with this reflection in mind that Benin is taking part in this session, driven by a deep-seated conviction. You can't just wait for the future. You have to prepare for it. Now, this conviction serves as a guide for Benin. It's also inspired been in Vision 2060, which is propelling our nation towards the centenary of our independence. But this ambition does not apply only to the fate of our nation. It will also determine the way in which we view the world, the world which today stands at a crossroads. We are seeing wars dragging on, terrorist threats making inroads, persistent geopolitical tensions. worsening inequality, debt levels which are reducing the room for maneuver available to many states, as well as climate upheaval, which is hitting the most vulnerable the hardest. At the same time, we're witnessing technological transformation on a vast scale. It's accelerating. AI is already transforming knowledge, work, our economies, education and information. Never has humanity had so many different means to shape its fate. However, nor has humanity ever been so acutely aware of the need to make collective decisions about how these means should be used to serve the common good. This is why the theme of this 81st session, Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation, a UN that delivers for all, resonates so strongly. The true challenge of our time is not just managing a succession of crises, but it is restoring our collective capacity to anticipate, to make decisions, to act. before these crises become irreversible. Mr. President, Benin believes in multilateralism. We believe not because we harbor nostalgia for the world of 1945, but because in 2026, the world more than ever needs a forum where states can talk to one another, listen to one another, and act in concert. Defending multilateralism also means taking a lucid look at the United Nations Organization. Trust, indeed, is not something you can order. It takes shape when our organization can respond to the expectations of our people, the people it serves, when the organization can deliver concrete results. It is in this spirit that Benin supports the efforts undertaken within the framework of the UN80 initiative. We need to achieve greater efficiency, coherence, transparency and responsibility. Nonetheless, we should remain cognizant of a key requirement. Reforming the UN doesn't simply mean cutting costs. What it should mean is boosting the organization's impact. A more effective United Nations should be better positioned to prevent conflicts, to respond to humanitarian crises, to shore up development, and anticipate the transformations which are already shaping our future. It should also remain true to the principles which underpin its legitimacy, universality, the sovereign equality of states, solidarity, and respect for the UN Charter. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, there is one reform without which all the others will remain incomplete. the reform of the stewardship of international peace and security. The Security Council, for the most part, reflects a balance of forces, the balance of forces in a world which is no longer today's world. Africa does not have a permanent seat. This situation raises issues of justice, equity, and the legitimacy. It calls into question the very legitimacy of the entire multilateral system. Benin would like to reaffirm its unswerving support for the common African position set forth in the Izolwini Consensus and the Siet Declaration. We're not demanding a privilege. We're demanding for the stewardship of international peace and security, for that stewardship to be in keeping with the world we claim to serve. Mr. President, for Benin, the issue of security has a very concrete, a very tangible dimension. Terrorism has hit our subregion. It seeks to exploit our vulnerability, to take advantage of our borders and to progressively extend its clutches to new areas. Benin understands full well just how grave this threat is. On this note, I'd like to solemnly commend the bravery and commitment of our defense and security forces, as well as the resilience of the people of Benin. Our response is resolute. We are strengthening our defense and security capabilities. We are bolstering the surveillance of our territory and our borders. We are also stepping up our cooperation with our neighbors and our partners. However, our region's experience has taught us one very important lesson. When faced with the fast-evolving threat, we must act very quickly. before that threat becomes a crisis. For that reason, prevention, early warning and upstream action should all be part and parcel of our security policy. This requires better intelligence sharing, strengthening cross-border cooperation, improving coordination between national, sub-regional and continent-wide mechanisms. interstate solidarity, regional cooperation, the action of the African Union, the support of the United Nations. We need all of the above to be better coordinated. Education, employment, infrastructure, and the opportunities offered up to our young people are also part and parcel of our efforts aimed at preventing the vulnerabilities very vulnerabilities which terrorist groups seek to exploit. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, collective security can only last if we also have economic and financial security. There is indeed another source of fragility at the international level, and that is the fragility of development financing. Many developing countries are facing a particularly difficult equation. They must accelerate their development and at the same time fund their energy transition as well as adapt to climate change, on top of investing in health, education, the digital sphere, and meeting growing social needs. However, these requirements are piling up against the backdrop of a context where access to funding is increasingly costly, where fiscal space is shrinking. Such a situation is no more sustainable than it is equitable. Therefore, Benin calls for ongoing transformation of the international financial architecture, the objective being to allow developing countries to access more accessible, predictable financing, financing that is better tailored to their development trajectories. We must also have the ambition of investing more in development because investing in development is tantamount to investing in peace, security, and stability. Mr. President, The climate issue is an excellent illustration of this demand for justice. Africa contributes relatively little to global greenhouse gas emissions, and yet we are already bearing the full brunt of climate change. We're not asking for the right to pollute. We're asking for the right to development. We would like for adaptation. building resilience and the issue of loss and damage for all of these to be addressed urgently, given the urgency of the reality our people are already facing. We also want for the energy transition to be an opportunity to industrialize, to create jobs and bolster access to energy. The way we see it, climate justice is not about pitting development and transition against one another. It's about allowing developing countries to build a growth model that's more resilient, inclusive and sustainable. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, we must also prepare for the next great transformation, that of artificial intelligence, AI, which could become one of the greatest accelerators of human development. AI can broaden access to knowledge, improve health systems, support agricultural workers, and make state administrations more efficient. Having said that, AI can also amplify or exacerbate existing divides. If Africa was to solely consume technologies designed and controlled outside the continent, a new form of dependence could emerge linked to data infrastructure, computing power, and critical technologies. We must avoid this scenario. Therefore, Benin is in favor of international AI governance that's inclusive, responsible, and development-oriented. Africa should not just be a market for frontier technologies. It should also be a platform for design, innovation, and production. This is the prerequisite for AI to become not a new driver of divisions, but a tool for achieving emancipation, progress, and shared development. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, trust in international institutions is also linked to the trust people bestow upon their own institutions. For its part, Benin is continuing the process of consolidating our institutions and our democratic framework with full respect for our constitution and our legal order. We deem stability, public responsibility and citizen participation, we deem them essential preconditions for sustainable development. Our experience confirms our conviction: robust institutions, are one of the pillars of peace infrastructure. We stand convinced that while we might have different national trajectories, these trajectories should nevertheless converge towards the same end goal, giving all people the necessary conditions for them to be able to forge their future, living in peace, dignity, and stability. Mr. President, if I may, I would now like to address a dimension that lies at the very heart of Benin's identity. Benin is a land of memory, forged from greatness and resistance. But we also have a very tragic, painful history, that of daughters and sons torn away from their land, separated from their families, and sent to different parts of the world, scattered. This history has left very deep wounds. It also, through generations, created a diaspora. whose link with the continent has never been extinguished. We cannot rewrite this history, nor can we erase the wounds of the past, but we can decide what we do with that past. And Benin has chosen to build a bridge. We want to give all those who wish to do so the opportunity to rekindle their ties with African history, an opportunity to rebuild a thriving bond with the continent. with the land of their ancestors from which they were uprooted. The possibility, under conditions enshrined in our legislation, to acquire the nationality of Benin, that is what we're offering. And this is a dimension that goes beyond a simple administrative procedure. It is part and parcel of a desire to rebuild a relationship, to rekindle ties, and to transform a very painful memory into a forward-looking relationship. To this diaspora, living all over the world, looking to Africa, to this diaspora, Benin would like to say the following. You inherited a very painful history, but you can become the agents of a new page in our history, in which memory will not just be the memory of something we've lost, but the starting point from which you can build something new. It is with this in mind that Benin intends to reconnect with peoples of African descent. This will not be a simple return to the past, but a step towards a shared future. Benin doesn't just want to be a land of memory. We want to be a land of reunions, of transmission to future generations, a land of the future. Mr. President, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, we often tempted to look to the future with disquiet, but let's look to the future with clarity, confidence, and above all, responsibility. We already know a great deal about what the future has in store. The climate will continue to change. Technologies will continue to transform our societies and our economies. Africa will have greater weight in global demographic and economic equilibria. Security threats will continue to try and cross borders. But we know one thing more than anything. No state will be able to tackle these challenges on its own. So let's prepare. Let's prepare our countries. Let's prepare our institutions. Let's get multilateralism ready. Above all, let's prepare ourselves to pass the baton because The responsibility of a generation is not just to receive the world bequeathed to them from those who came before, it is also to have the courage, the vision, the determination to hand down a better world to those who come after you. This is the responsibility that Benin intends to shoulder for us, for Africa, and the United Nations. Let's restore trust, rebuild our capacity for working together. Let's manage these transformations, and that means deciding to prepare for them rather than simply enduring them. Let's ensure that the United Nations serves us all, which means that multilateralism once again becomes a source of strength, that it is of use for the people of the world. This is the basis for multilateralism's legitimacy, and Benin intends to contribute to this effort. I thank you.