The President’s remarks opening the plenary joint debate on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, on the Secretary-General’s reports A/81/297 and A/81/305 and the sovereignty deficit they describe. They are reproduced in full below, as delivered, and are available as issued in PDF.
In His Words
Quoted verbatim from the speech as delivered. The full text follows below.
Africa has resources. Africa has people. Africa has ambition.
H.E. Dr. Khalilur Rahman
Joint debate on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, 12 October 2026
The Speech in Full
Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates,
It is an honour to welcome you to today’s joint debate.
From NEPAD to Agenda 2063, Africa’s journey has reflected a decisive shift: from development prescribed for Africa to transformation shaped, owned and led by Africa. That leadership is indispensable to achieving both Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda.
Today, we need to look beyond commitments and confront a practical question: are Africa’s immense assets delivering tangible results for Africa’s people?
The SG’s reports A/81/297 and A/81/305 place before us a stark finding. Africa’s development challenge is not a lack of resources. It is rather some form of a sovereignty deficit: the gap between legal ownership of strategic assets and the institutional capacity to govern the value they generate, capture a fair share of that value and reinvest it for the public good.
The scale is staggering. The Secretary-General’s report on a strategic asset management framework for Africa’s sustainable development (A/81/297) estimates that “the cost of this sovereignty deficit to be approximately 2.1 trillion dollars”. This is compared with foreign direct investment of about 97 billion dollars. Africa’s extraordinary endowment too often produces large-scale outflows, leaving the continent a net exporter of capital.
The strategic asset management approach proposed in SG’s report merits serious consideration. It encompasses four classes of assets: financial; natural and physical; and human; and technological, data and outer-space assets.
The continent should shift from short-term extraction to long-term stewardship-from exporting raw value to building productive capacity, adding value and reinvesting wealth at home.
Above all, Africa’s greatest asset is its people. Africa is the world’s youngest continent, and by 2050, one in every three young people worldwide is projected to be an African. This is an extraordinary reservoir of talent, enterprise and ambition – but its promise will be realized only through investment in health, education, skills, technology, decent work and institution building.
This requires capable institutions. African countries need adequate support for building the technical, legal and financial expertise to negotiate fair agreements, administer taxation, combat illicit financial flows and ensure that contracts serve the public interest.
Today, African States capture, on average, only about 40 per cent of the revenue their resource wealth could yield.
These are not abstract losses. They mean fewer classrooms, clinics and decent jobs. When communities bear the environmental and social costs of extraction without an equitable share of the benefits, inequality grows, trust erodes and the social contract weakens. The consequences extend beyond development.
Our efforts must reinforce African agency. This means strengthening national and regional institutions; mobilizing domestic resources; curbing illicit flows; expanding local processing and value addition; and investing in people. It means harnessing the African Continental Free Trade Area, whose full implementation could raise Africa’s real income by an estimated 7 per cent – about 450 billion dollars – by 2035.
It also demands fair partnership. External support must not retreat when fiscal space is shrinking. Preliminary OECD data show that bilateral ODA from DAC members to Africa fell to 29 billion dollars in 2025 – down 23.9 per cent from the previous year – while external debt-service obligations were projected at 88.7 billion dollars. We need more concessional finance and a fairer, faster and more effective debt-resolution architecture.
Excellencies,
Commitments repeatedly made for Africa are insufficiently implemented, which in effect weaken trust in partnerships and multilateralism itself.
Restoring trust therefore requires both delivery and reform.
Reform of our organization, in particular, not only requires serious, deep and meaningful transformations in New York, but also warrants stronger and more effective support and measurable impact on the ground.
Country teams, peacekeeping operations and sustainable development actors should work in an integrated and coherent manner – accountable to, and responsive to, national priorities. They should draw much more systematically on African institutions and qualified national professionals – including women and young people. Africa has no shortage of talent.
I saw this firsthand myself in the United Nations country team’s response to Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. As funding declined, functions previously performed by international personnel were localized. Increased involvement of qualified national personnel and institutions maintained – and in some cases improved – the quality of services at approximately one fifth of the cost.
The United Nations should apply this lesson more systematically in Africa, and elsewhere, according to country circumstances and in consultation with Governments and communities.
Excellencies,
Our objective is clear: to help enable Africa to transform its strategic assets into engines of structural transformation, inclusive and sustainable development, and lasting peace.
Africa has resources. Africa has people. Africa has ambition. Our shared responsibility is to build partnerships that will fully realize Africa’s true potential.
I thank you.