Angola

• His Excellency Mr. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations,
• Her Excellency Ms. Annalena Baerbock, President of the 80th United Nations General Assembly,
• Excellencies, Heads of State and Government,
• Distinguished Delegates,
• Ladies and Gentlemen,

I stand before you today, in my capacity as President of the Republic of Angola and as Chairperson of the African Union, to speak of my country, to share our perspectives on the evolution of events unfolding in our increasingly turbulent world, and also to address matters concerning Africa — a continent that mobilizes our energies and strengths as we strive to find solutions to finally awaken it once and for all to development.

Allow me to congratulate Her Excellency Annalena Baerbock on her election to the high office of President of the United Nations General Assembly. I am convinced that her experience and the knowledge accumulated throughout the various functions she has so ably performed will ensure the success of the work she assumed since the beginning of this month of September. I also extend congratulations to her predecessor, His Excellency Philémon Yang, for the assertive manner in which he led the General Assembly during the last year, placing his full commitment into ensuring this body functioned with commendable efficiency — a fact deserving recognition from us all for the positive results achieved throughout his mandate.

I cannot miss to mention His Excellency António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, for the role he has played with great commitment, underpinned by his remarkable quality as a man of dialogue and peace in the midst of today's geopolitical complexities.

Madam President, Excellencies,

Eighty years have passed since, compelled by the imperatives of that era, a group of countries and their respective leaders took the wise decision to found the United Nations. Since then, amidst both tumultuous and calmer times, this Organization has succeeded in fulfilling its great role: to maintain peace and global stability, to contribute to humanity's development, and to preserve and deepen respect for human rights.

This is a great achievement of the peoples of our planet that must not be disregarded nor underestimated by any power, political leader, or other authorities, under the threat that, by exacerbating divisions and egocentric interests, we squander the benefits of peace that were handed down to us by women and men who, over time, guided us here in an environment of harmony and global conciliation.

The path has not always been linear, but in the most critical moments, wisdom prevailed over the worst impulses of large-scale conflagration — made possible through continuous dialogue as the only factor capable of smoothing differences, overcoming obstacles, and calming the most troubled and belligerent spirits. Today, these lessons of the past are of inestimable value and must be the sole reference guiding us towards solutions to conflicts in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and wherever else they may exist.

In the uncertain context in which we celebrate the UN's 80th anniversary, the theme "Better Together: 80 Years and Beyond for Peace, Development and Human Rights" takes on a dimension that invites us to reflect on the profound meaning of the President of the General Assembly's call for a renewal of multilateralism and of solidarity-based action, within a framework of common and complementary efforts carried out by a more agile, effective, and accountable United Nations, as conceived in the Secretary-General's Initiative80 roadmap.

In light of these perspectives, it is urgent that we revitalize the United Nations and bring it out of the intricate situation in which it finds itself, so that it may reclaim the active role it has always played and which proved of undeniable utility — ensuring that during the Cold War we did not feel as close to global conflagration as we do now, with the great dissonance that currently characterizes international relations. The major world powers tend to turn their backs on one another, moving away from the minimum points of convergence that would keep them bound to the commitment of privileging dialogue and concertation above all else.

The challenges of today place us before a choice: to do everything to preserve peace, or to face war with all its consequences, thus compromising the future of humanity. Those world powers that in the past played a crucial role in liberating Europe and the Europeans from the grip of Nazism and Fascism, and in liberating Africa and Africans from South Africa's apartheid regime, cannot now behave differently — by attacking other countries, invading and annexing foreign territories, or even financing and organizing subversion that can lead to the overthrow of legitimate governments, as we currently witness on our own continent. With such a dangerous precedent, no regional, continental, or global institution will henceforth have the moral authority to call to order any State that violates the principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter and in international law.

We Africans, from countries colonized for centuries, understand better than anyone the importance of peace, as we face daily struggles to provide food, drinking water, health, education, and other essential goods — giving us a heightened sensitivity to the harmful impact of insecurity and instability on the realization of our development objectives and projects.

This reality is further aggravated by the multiple conflicts and wars afflicting countries and regions of the world from which we had expected cooperation and fruitful exchange to help us overcome our difficulties and contribute, with our immense resources and capacities, to global prosperity.

It is on this basis that the Republic of Angola has sought to make an honest and genuine contribution to resolving the conflict in the Sahel region, in Sudan, and in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. With respect to the latter, our efforts created a negotiating framework with peace solutions that unfortunately did not materialize in December 2024 as expected, but which remains a valid platform for other ongoing efforts aimed at putting a definitive end to that conflict.

Madam President, Excellencies,

This conflict and so many others we recall are, to a large extent, the consequence of the passivity of United Nations Member States, which have often proven inoperative in the face of invasions of third-party territories and interference in the internal order of sovereign countries. These, in recent years, have not been met with firm, inflexible, and assertive reactions, and have thus become faits accomplis at the epicenter of the major tensions that characterize today's world.

The consequences are before our very eyes, in the Middle East, where the systematic non-compliance with relevant Security Council resolutions on the creation of the State of Palestine keeps alive a conflict that worsens daily and seems far from resolution, given Israel's disproportionate and violent retaliatory actions. While Israel has the right to exist as a State and to demand the release of those still held hostage from the tragic events of October 7, it cannot be allowed to pursue in Palestine — and particularly in Gaza — a policy of extermination of a people.

The Palestinian people cannot be equated with Hamas, for there are no "terrorist peoples," much less "terrorist children." They have exactly the same right to an independent and sovereign State, where they can assert their culture, safeguard their future, and open predictable and secure prospects for their youth. Concerns over this conflict are compounded by the silence, hesitations, and timid reactions of the international community, which appear to legitimize the expansion of war to neighboring countries, inexorably eroding the authority of the United Nations.

Nothing is worse than the exclusion of the Palestinian delegation from this forum, where it had the right to make its voice heard as a Member State under the terms of the Headquarters Agreement. The failure to guarantee the presence of the President of the Palestinian Authority at this General Assembly sends a highly negative signal, as it encourages the continuation of the genocide to which we all bear witness helplessly and with impunity, delays resolution of the problem, and complicates ongoing efforts to end this intricate conflict. We vehemently condemn this unilateral position, contrary to the principles governing the United Nations, just as we call for the unconditional lifting of the unjust and prolonged embargo against Cuba, which has had grave consequences for the Cuban economy and people, who struggle daily to resist a punishment rejected by the international community.

Cuba, which played an important role in the struggle of African peoples that led to the downfall of the racist and inhumane apartheid regime in South Africa, and which was a signatory to the New York Peace Agreement of 22 December 1988 that brought freedom to the South African people and led to Namibia's independence, cannot arbitrarily and unilaterally be considered a State sponsor of terrorism in light of the relevant United Nations resolutions.

This model of action by a small group of countries, incompatible with minimally acceptable global coexistence standards, lies at the origin of the unilateral sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe and Venezuela, which produce no other result than the suffering of their populations, who, in a spirit of great patriotism, end up uniting in defense of their nations.

Madam President, Excellencies,

The authority of this Organization, whose foundations lie in the United Nations Charter and international law, must urgently be restored, without narratives that highlight a logic of double standards, so that just solutions can be sought for the war in Ukraine or reinforced through the perspectives since the Alaska meeting. Ukraine, being a European country, after President Trump pragmatically met with President Putin — without prejudice to the need for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine — it would have been expected that European leaders, in the interest of peace and security in Europe, would have also sought dialogue not only with President Zelensky, but also with President Putin. We cannot afford to squander this opportunity; otherwise, we risk witnessing an escalation of unpredictable proportions and consequences — not only in Europe, where living forces must abandon the dangerous calculations rooted in the notion of military victory through weakening the adversary's capabilities.

Given today's difficulties and the crisis the world is going through, the UN must reemerge and become more proactive to prevent its role as the main entity of global governance from dissolving, turning it into an institution incapable of ensuring world peace. It is our responsibility as States and sovereign Nations not to let it succumb. The United Nations, in its current form, is the only organization with the capacity to act on behalf of us all in search of global consensus for peace, and with the legitimacy to call to order Member States that distort its founding principles through their conduct in the international arena. Therefore, we must preserve it at all costs and adapt it to contemporary realities, through urgent reforms.

In this very particular regard, I advocate for the reform of the Security Council, in line with the African common position enshrined in the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration, adopted twenty years ago, which call for two permanent seats and five non-permanent seats for Africa in an enlarged Security Council — one that is more representative and aligned with contemporary geopolitical reality. Without this essential step, whose delay is increasingly unjustifiable, we cannot ensure the implementation of the Pact for the Future adopted last year, which recognized the urgent need to endow the United Nations with a more democratic and balanced Security Council.

This Pact represents a major opportunity to revitalize multilateralism, making it more comprehensive, serving as a broad-based platform for discussions on sensitive issues of the contemporary world — among them, financing for development and the climate challenge. On matters relating to development aid, there is much to discuss, but it is fair to highlight the recent steps taken with the adoption of the Seville Commitment, reached at the 4th Conference on Financing for Development. This agreement calls for the urgent reform of International Financial Institutions, to make them more representative, inclusive, and capable of responding to the pressing needs of developing countries, especially those in Africa.

I am convinced that this instrument, together with the Pact for the Future, the United Nations Tax Convention, and the United Nations Debt Convention — still under discussion — will collectively function as a political, financial, and normative platform giving significant impetus to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Madam President, Excellencies,

It is essential that we address the climate crisis as the greatest existential threat of our time, against which we can only achieve results if we act together, in a coordinated and solidarity-based manner.

In light of the continuous worsening of global warming and increasingly violent and frequent natural disasters, it has become imperative that those nations that reaped the greatest benefits from past industrial and economic development fully assume their historical responsibility. In a gesture of climate justice, they must guarantee adequate financing, technology transfer, and support for adaptation and mitigation to developing countries. Those countries whose contribution to greenhouse gas emissions are residual are the ones disproportionately — and virtually alone — facing the impacts of climate change, global warming, and their devastating effects on agriculture, food security, and public health.

In the face of such evidence and the responsibilities arising therefrom, Angola remains committed to the Paris Agreement and to the implementation of adaptation and mitigation measures, aligned with the United Nations 2030 Agenda and the African Union's Agenda 2063. These frameworks embody the consensus on mobilizing predictable and accessible climate financing to ensure a just energy transition and protect the most vulnerable communities.

This cross-cutting issue, which demands ever-greater responsibility both from public agendas and from large industrial corporations, will receive due attention at COP30, to be held shortly in Brazil. Hosting, for the second time, such an event illustrates Brazil's strong commitment and engagement with environmental issues.

In 1992, in Rio de Janeiro, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was inaugurated — a paradigm that has proved immensely valuable for increasingly profound discussions that are still ongoing today, and which will surely allow us, at the upcoming Conference, to take another step forward on this long path we must travel to achieve the great climate objectives desired by humanity.

Excellencies,

Eighty years since the founding of the United Nations and after the end of the Cold War, our expectation had been to live in a world free from today's uncertainties, less dangerous than the one we currently observe.

Until 1991, we lived in the context of a pronounced division between two ideologically opposing blocs. Yet, paradoxically, this framework offered a more predictable outlook, less susceptible to sliding into large-scale confrontation. This retrospective must not lead us to believe that world stability is only possible within rigid divisions of any kind. Rather, it must push us towards building a framework of balanced interests and shared concerns on matters of global security, capable of generating complementarities and convergences of all kinds, within a multilateral environment — the only path capable of saving us from catastrophe.

Thank you.