Foreign Minister meets UN Secretary-General - Joins first Security Council debate
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has held discussions with the UN Secretary-General, Mr Antonio Guterres, on the security situation in the Sahel and West Africa.
The two discussed ways to mobilise funding sustainably for peace operations in Africa, in the closed-door engagement attended by three other senior Ghanaian Foreign Ministry officials.
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It is the first such meeting since Ghana took a seat on the 15-member Security Council on January 1, this year.
Background
Ghana was elected last June for two years, along with Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Gabon and Albania, to join five other non-permanent members, including Kenya, who have a year left of their tenure.
Restoring peace and security in the Sahel and West Africa and ending piracy in the Gulf of Guinea are two of the major problems on the continent which Ghana wants to galvanise the Security Council’s attention and international resources to resolve.
Ghana chairs the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council, as well as the Council of ECOWAS Heads of State.
Debate
Ms Botchwey also participated in the UN Security Council’s first debate of the year, the maiden one for Ghana in this fourth tenure on the council since independence in 1957.
The debate on: “Women, Peace and Security”, presided over by the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Ms Anniken Huitfeldt, addressed the threats and violence women in particular faced when, ironically, they were working for peace.
In 2020, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) verified 35 cases in which women involved in peace and security work were killed.
They included human rights activists, journalists and trade unionists in seven conflict-affected countries.
Academics, judges, youth and civil society activists also suffered violence, the report said.
Ms Botchwey said Ghana was concerned that those who gave their time to make the world a better place were rather threatened, stressing: “The council can always count on Ghana’s unwavering support.”
She said the Ghana Armed Forces and other security institutions were reviewing regulations to ensure they were women-friendly.
The debate topic is of particular relevance to Ghana because the country is the ninth leading contributor of personnel to UN peacekeeping operations in which an increasing number of Ghanaian women are deployed.
As of April 2020, more than a quarter of Ghanaian police and 14 per cent of its military personnel sent on UN and African Union peace operations were women.
“Women are usually the most adversely affected by conflict but the most marginalised in peace processes and the most punished for their peace-building efforts,” Ms Botchwey said.
“Therefore, ensuring the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in peace-building should not be reduced to mere rhetoric within the confines of the Security Council,” she added.
The Foreign Affairs Minister indicated that the world owed it to women in peace and security all over the world to convert the rhetorics into zealous and concrete actions.
Other meetings
Earlier in the week in London, Ms Botchwey had met with the British Minister for Africa, Ms Vicky Ford, and the Minister for South Asia, the UN and the Commonwealth, Lord Tariq Ahmad, for bilateral talks.
They discussed mutual co-operation on the Security Council, trade and investment promotion between Ghanaian and British businesses and COVID-19 vaccine supply.
Ms Botchwey thanked the UK government for the recent donation of 1.6 million doses of vaccines, with the reminder that sharing vaccines was key to ending further mutation of the COVID-19 virus.
