Statement at Flag Ceremony of newly elected Members of UNSC for 2022-2023

Good afternoon, let me begin by first of all thanking our colleague Ambassador Ilyassov and the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan for maintaining this very useful tradition. Also, I would like to thank the President of the Council for the month of January, for joining us and introducing us, and also for accommodating this programme.

I take this opportunity to also acknowledge the contributions, over the past two years, of the five outgone members of the Council – Estonia, Niger, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Tunisia and Vietnam – particularly their contributions towards the maintenance of international peace and security.

As Ghana formally takes her seat on the Council, 15 years after we last served on this important UN organ, we are expectedly excited by the opportunity to make a bigger contribution to the maintenance of international peace and security and honoured by the confidence that Member States of the United Nations have reposed in us. In this regard, let me convey on behalf of my Head of State, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, as well as my Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey Ghana’s deep appreciation once again to all Member States.

Ghana comes onto the Council with a burden, the burden and expectations of the estimated 2 billion people who live in fragile contexts and conflict areas around the world and the over 20% of the population of Africa who continue to endure the ravaging effects of Conflicts.

We are under no illusions of the challenges we face in resolving the prevailing conflict situations nor the enduring nature of the emerging threats to international peace and security such as violent extremism, the proliferation of terrorism, insurgencies, enhanced activities of transnational criminal organisations and the impact of climate change to the security situation of some parts of our world.

However, when we look back to 15 years ago, there were files on the agenda of the Council that today have been resolved such as those on Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire.

We are therefore hopeful that working together with all the members of the Council we can successfully resolve the many issues that continue to linger on the agenda and redeem for the peoples of the world in conflict situations the promise of the Charter for a peaceful and secure world.

During our tenure on the Council, therefore, we hope that we would be able to obtain the cooperation of other members to look at enhanced approaches and instruments for dealing with some of these conflict situations, leveraging the flexibility of the Charter’s expectation for cooperation with regional arrangements as contained in Chapter 8 of the Charter of the United Nations.

I would like to conclude by congratulating all the other members of the Council and offer our open arms of cooperation in working together.

I thank you very much for your attention.