For eighty years, Chapter VIII of the UN Charter has provided for regional arrangements and agencies to take part in the pacific settlement of disputes and the maintenance of international peace and security. In the contest to become the next UN Secretary-General, President Macky Sall has made this provision one of his ideas. The drafters in San Francisco understood that the Organization would never hold every crisis in its own hands, and that the neighbours of a conflict are often the first to move.

Practice has outrun the framework. Regional organizations deploy first, sustain the longest political engagement and carry part of the human cost. Predictable funding, however, is what they lack, so an operation authorized one day is financed by improvisation the next.

Planning with regional organizations. President Macky Sall proposes a Secretariat that brings these organizations into planning from the outset. The convening power of the Secretariat exists for this: to bring together those who decide, those who deploy and those who pay, before a crisis becomes an agenda item.

Prevention where it costs least. Regional bodies see ruptures coming, because they know the actors and the borders as well as the languages. Their early warnings still have to trigger action. The good offices set out in the Charter and the warning capacity of regional organizations belong to a single effort, and President Macky Sall intends to make them converge.

Resources for mandates. A mandate without resources remains a promise the Organization cannot keep, for peace operations as for political missions and development mandates. The same holds for the credibility of multilateralism, which is measured by the commitments honoured.

Proposals framed as obligations. The vision statement filed with the United Nations gives its proposals the form of obligations: peace and security conceived together with development; multilateralism renewed; the governance of the Organization strengthened. Twelve years as head of state and the chairmanship of the African Union in 2022 are the foundation of these commitments.

Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.

The nominating letter and the vision statement appear in the official register of candidatures of the United Nations. Read all statements at www.mackysall.net