Antonio Guterres arrived in Dakar on Saturday evening for an African tour. As the first stop, he was paid a visit to Senegal and was hosted by President Macky Sall, the current chairman of the African Union.
The visit took place as a response to the international crisis, with tension over hydrocarbon supplies and rising wheat and fertilizer prices already plaguing several countries on the continent, raising fears of an unprecedented food crisis.
This March, Macky Sall called on the World Bank to help Africa deal with the economic consequences of the Ukrainian crisis and called on Senegalese citizens to focus on domestic food production. The import of food supplies from abroad remains a hurdle on numerous African countries' path to economic independence and food safety.
Guterres again urged the international financial institutions to put in place "urgent debt relief measures [...] so that governments (of African countries – red.) can avoid default and invest in social safety nets and sustainable development for their people".
The UNSG and Macky Sall also discussed instability in the Sahel, with Antonio Guterres calling on the military juntas in Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali to hand over power to civilians "as soon as possible". We agreed on the importance of continuing the dialogue with the de facto authorities (in Ouagadougou, Conakry and Bamako) to bring about a return to constitutional order as soon as possible," he said.
He hailed the African Union as a "model for regional cooperation," of which Macky Sall is the chairman. The UNSG said he was committed to "robust African peace and counter-terrorism operations implemented by the African Union and supported by the UN", along the lines of several operations underway in Africa, notably in Mali.
In Dakar, Antonio Guterres visited the construction site of the future headquarters of the UN regional operations and a manufacturing unit that will soon produce vaccines against Covid-19 and. The site will soon produce experimental vaccines against malaria and tuberculosis.
The UN chief said it was "unacceptable that today nearly 80% of the African population is still not vaccinated" against Covid-19. He called on rich countries and big pharmaceutical companies to end this "serious moral bankruptcy" by donating more doses and investing "in the local production of vaccines".
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