🇸🇱Julius Maada BioSierra Leone · UNGA 81 speech

Mr. President of the General Assembly, Mr. Secretary-General, Excellencies, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate His Excellency Khalilur Rahman on his election as President of the 81st session of the General Assembly. President Rahman assumes this responsibility at a moment that demands principled and steady leadership. He has Sierra Leone's full support. I pay tribute to His Excellency, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is in the closing months of his mandate. He has served this organization with steadfastness, more clarity and the courage to speak difficult truths. I also commend her excellency Amina J. Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary General for her exemplary service and distinguished representation of Africa on the global stage. Mr. President, nearly 25 years ago, Sierra Leone completed disarmament and formally declared its civil war over. The formal declaration matters, of course, but peace became real in more practical ways in the families that returned home, in the communities that learned to live together again, in the citizens who chose the ballot, and in institutions that slowly returned back to confidence. The United Nations stood with us through disarmament, election, and the long walk of peace building. So, we know what international cooperation can make possible because we have lived it. The experience taught us that trust cannot be commanded by declaration. Trust grows when promises are honored, when the law protects everyone, when institutions serve their people and when citizens can see a future for themselves. Sierra Leone brings that lesson to this assembly at a moment when trust between nations, in institutions and in multilateral cooperation is under profound strain. In this year's theme, restoring trust, managing transformation, a United Nation that delivers for all. The words for all carry its defining moral weight. The words for all ask not only whether United Nations can act, but also its actions, where they reach. whose voices shape them and whose dignity they protect. An institution may act quickly and still fail those it was meant to serve. Delivery worthy of the UN Charter must reach those farthest from power and recognize the equal worth of every nation and every human life. This is the standard by which the world will judge us all. Mr. President, that standard begins with trust. Trust is the currency of multilateralism. Trust is gained when the law protects the vulnerable as firmly as it restrains the powerful. International law must not change with geography or bend according to the identity of the accused. In the Middle East, the UN Charter and international law must guide us. Civilians must be protected, humanitarian access ensured, aggression and occupation ended, and freedom of navigation safeguarded. The inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination must be realized through a viable state of Palestine living alongside the state of Israel in peace and in security. That same commitment to peace requires progress on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation through diplomacy. In Sudan, civilians continue to endure atrocities and displacement, underscoring the cost of delayed action. Sierra Leone calls for their protection, unhindered humanitarian access, accountability, and a Sudanese-led political process that safeguards the country's sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity. In the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, agreements have not yet silenced the guns or allowed millions to return home. Across West Africa and the Sahel, terrorism feeds on poverty, exclusion, unemployment, and weak institutions. These conflicts differ in origin and circumstance, but they carry a common warning. Military action may contain a threat, but it cannot by itself build lasting peace. When hunger, exclusion, and despair deepen insecurity takes root. The connection between peace and development must therefore move from our resolutions into our budgets. In 2025, global military expenditure reached about $2.9 trillion, the 11th consecutive annual increase. Of course, nations have legitimate security needs. But the speed with which the world finds resources for war compared to prevention and development reveals a grave disorder in our priorities. The credibility of international law also depends on who has the voice in applying it. The credibility weakens when institutions entrusted with the law preserve an unequal distribution of power. The Security Council still reflects the world of 1945. Africa, home to more than 1.6 billion people and the subject of most of the Council's work, still has no permanent seat. That's not fair. Africa seeks its rightful place because the Council cannot be fully legitimate or effective while an entire continent remains permanently absent from its highest level of decision-making. No doable global solution on peace, Climate, food, energy, or technology can be built without African leadership. The common African position espoused in Ezewini Consensus and SOT declaration calls for no fewer than two permanent seats with all the rights and privileges of permanent membership, including the veto if it is retained and five non-permanent seats. As coordinator of the African Union Committee of 10, Sierra Leone will continue to advance that position. Years of intergovernmental negotiation without realizing the reform has tested the credibility of the process. Before this session concludes, Member states should have a consolidated model. which we committed to in the pact for the future. Sierra Leone speaks with the authority of service. During our term on the security council in twenty twenty-four, 2025, we worked as a voice of reason and a bridge across division. We convened the Security Council's first high-level debate on redressing historical injustice against Africa, placed conflict-related food insecurity at the center of its agenda, and with Guyana, co-drafted unanimously adopted resolution 2807 on youth, peace, and security. strengthening young people's role in conflict prevention and peace building. Mr. President, representation becomes meaningful when it changes decisions and improves lives. The imbalance within the Security Council is also present in international financial institutions. whose structures still bear the imprint of an earlier age. Developing countries need fairer voting power, stronger representation, and increased capital within these institutions, together with affordable finance, concessional resources, and fairer debt treatment. They must also participate equally in shaping the rules of international taxation. Sierra Leone, therefore, supports a UN framework convention on international tax cooperation. Through ECOWAS, Sierra Leone will champion a development system that responds more effectively to Africa's priorities. Mr. President, restoring trust and delivering for all must also embrace the unfinished cause of reparatory justice. In March, this Assembly adopted a resolution led by Ghana and supported by the African Union and Caribbean Community recognizing the trafficking and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity. For Sierra Leone, this history is neither abstract nor distant. From Bonse Island in our own river estuary Thousands of Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic into enslavement. Freetown, our capital, would later become a home for formerly enslaved and liberated Africans. This history is woven into our national identity. However, The consequences did not end with abolition. Their legacy continues to be reflected in enduring disparities in wealth, power, and opportunity across our world. Reparatory justice is therefore not a plea for charity. It is a call for acknowledgement, former apology, the return of cultural heritage, fair redress, and guarantee of non-repetition. Sierra Leone stands with Africa, the Caribbean, and the wider African diaspora in advancing this cause, not to remain captive to the past, but to build a more just and equitable future. Mr. President, the same principle of fairness applies to Africa's critical minerals. Critical minerals are indispensable to the global energy transition. Yet too much value is still added elsewhere. Processing at source, fair value chains, technology transfer, and local industry would turn natural wealth into skilled work, stronger economies, and hope for our young people. The green transition must not reproduce the extractive time of the past. For the youth, this is immediate. A young person without work, opportunity, or a stake in the future becomes vulnerable to the recruiter, the smuggler, and the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. Jobs, skills, and dignity are therefore part of any serious policy for peace and development. Mr. President, Sierra Leone does not ask the world what it does not demand of itself. We carry these same principles into our work at home. Through FID alone, we are increasing domestic food production and strengthening food security. Through free quality education, we are widening the path for the circumstances of a child's birth, from a child's birth to the future that awaits that child. In 2024, we enacted the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act and subsequently championed the proclamation of 27 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Child, Early and Forced Marriage. A girl in Sierra Leone is no more or less precious than a girl anywhere else in our beautiful world. Protecting her childhood education and freedom as part of what development is supposed to mean. A gas future, like the future of every young person, will be shaped by forces already remaking our world, climate change, artificial intelligence, and the energy transition. The meaning of for all becomes more urgent as we decide how these transformations will be governed. Artificial intelligence can improve, of course, education, health, agriculture, and public administration. It can also widen the inequality if infrastructure, knowledge, and rule-making remains concentrated in a few countries. Developing nations must help shape the standards that will govern technologies affecting their people. Climate change presents the same moral question in harsher form. Who benefits? Who decides? And who pays? In Shenge on Sierra Leone's southern coast, families watch the sea take their land, fishing grounds, and the graves of their ancestors. For them, climate change is the disappearance of home in the present. Those who contributed least to the climate crisis are bearing some of its gravest, greatest cost. Accessible and predictable climate finance, support for adaptation, and effective arrangement for loss and damage are obligations of justice. They are also investment in global stability Fairness in transformation depends on the institutions that govern it. Sierra Leone, therefore, supports the UNH initiative and wider reforms that make this organization more effective, accountable, and responsive. Efficiency matters, and reform must preserve the capacity to act. Mr. President, The choice of the next Secretary-General offers another test of institutional effectiveness and equality. In 80 years, every Secretary-General has been a man. The women put forward for this office have placed their competence beyond dispute. What remains is the will of the organization to live by the equality it asks of others and entrust a woman with its highest office. Mr. President, our insistence on a capable United Nations comes from experience. For Sierra Leone, this organization is part of our living history. It stood with us when our country was broken and helped us make peace durable. In this hall, a small state has the same vote as a great power. Imperfect as it is, that quality remains one of humanity's boldest promises. Sierra Leone will continue to contribute personally to United Nations peace operations, uphold international law, support mediation and peace building, defend the right of women and girls, and serve as a bridge wherever member states seek one. We will also continue to support the institutions of international justice. In this regard, Sierra Leone has nominated Professor Charles Cherno Jallow, a distinguished international jurist, to be endorsed by and has been endorsed by the African Union and ECOWAS for election as a judge of the International Court of Justice. We respectfully seek member states' support on the 3rd of November. Mr. President, the United Nations was created in a world of unequal power, yet it rests on a radical idea. Nations differ in size and strength, but their people do not differ in human worth. A United Nations that delivers for all makes that quality felt beyond this hall. Nearly 25 years ago, Sierra Leone placed their trust in peace because they believed tomorrow could be different. People around the world are asking something similar of us now. They need reason to believe that cooperation still works, that law still matters, and that promises made here will be honored in their lives. Let this session give them that reason. The world for all should not remain at the end of this year's theme. They must become the measure of our work.

I thank you all.