UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT SAYS TOLERANCE IS VITAL FOR PEACE AND SECURITY
▶ Tijjani Muhammad-Bande points to better education as being the long-term solution to violent extremism
Education is the key priority of the United Nations as it seeks to end conflict and promote security in some of the world’s most troubled conflict zones, the president of the UN General Assembly said.
Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, a former Nigerian ambassador to the UN who took up his post in September, said access to education within the framework of a robust curriculum was a priority for the global body.
Turning to his home region, which has suffered from the rise of Al Qaeda-linked Boko Haram as well as the wider conflict throughout the sub-Sahara, Mr Muhammad-Bande told The National that the problems of extremist activity were “still unfolding” but that the long-term solution should be focused on delivering better education.
Embedding the ideals of tolerance and respect for others is crucial to the hopes of restoring peace and security to West Africa and the sub-Saharan region, said Mr Muhammad-Bande, who is visiting France to attend President Emmanuel Macron’s Paris Peace Forum.
“When we deal with peace and security it is within the context of how you can teach tolerance, how you think you can teach respect to others,” he said.
“A good education should help us be more tolerant, more critical of any movement that pushes towards hate. We should also not conflate education with just skills – it should also still provide skills for people to find to put to good use.”
France leads the G5 task force that intervened to stabilise the region after the spread of extremism. It has the backing of the UAE and Saudi Arabia in moving to the next stage of the intervention, which seeks to restore good government and rebuild the economy.
“France and other countries played an important role,” he said. “The framework is still emerging – but the worry of course is shared – because if you know the region very well, it’s an open space. We keep asking the questions, ‘What do borders mean? Where are the borders really?’ That’s why whatever happens in the Sahel affects larger areas. It’s an unfolding situation.”
The UNGA president issued a plea for more support for the sustainable development goals and the UN’s 2030 deadline to rebalance the issues of climate change, economic development and equality of access to opportunity.
“We are not on target to achieve the target by 2030,” he said. “Inclusion and climate action, these SDGs are very important and are indivisible.
“Climate action is hugely important – a lot of people underrate what it does because it is not so sudden. You may have to wait 30 years to see how communities are affected.”
Giving an example of how communities that he grew up among were affected, Mr Muhammad-Bande said that, for many, life was no longer sustainable.
“Where it is within 30 years, is not always clear,” he said. “It might not take one community the usual two minutes to get firewood if they have to cook food. It might take an hour and a half now. Or you have to fetch water and the river is not there any more or the quality of the water isn’t adequate.”
Deadlock over the process of reform of the UN’s structure is a vital demand of any UNGA president. For Mr Muhammad-Bande the issue is even more keenly felt because Nigeria, like India or Brazil, is a key candidate for more representation. As a whole the body has forgone influence, especially in regions such as the Middle East, where the scale and weight of decision making is skewed towards the Security Council, where much of the power is concentrated.
That has implications for the long-running failure to give full representation to the State of Palestine. “Palestine is of course one of the sole points of the organisation,” he said. “No one is happy as far I am concerned. It’s a problem we should find a solution to and for some reason we’ve been unable to and the situation is not improving.
“There is a clear need to find more creative ways to resolve it. It is an old issue but a very important one.”
Meanwhile, interventions in Syria have led to the US, Russia, Iran and Turkey jockeying for position in the country.
“Collectively we should try to find ways to address the problem of the conflict in Syria to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion,” he said.
“The differences of opinion between countries that have some influence on the region have also made it more difficult for action to be taken by the council.”