Togo, 2025

I now give the floor to His Excellency, Mr. Robert Kholan Edobuse, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Togo. Madam President of the ATF Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Excellencies, Head of State and Government, Distinguished Head of Delegations, Mr. Secretary General of the United Nations, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like, on behalf of the President of the Council of Togo, His Excellency, Foreign Minister Zimna Nyazingbi, the Government and the people of Togo, to extend our warm congratulations to Madam Annaleka on her election as President of this ATF Session of our General Assembly. Faced with the many challenges confronting our common organization, Madam President, I wish to assure you of my country's full support and express my deep conviction that your leadership and relational intelligence will enable you to successfully lead the work of this session. I also wish to pay well-deserved tribute to your predecessor, Mr. Yang, for the practical wisdom and constant availability we demonstrated in leading the work of the 79th Session. It's also particularly pleasing for me to commend the effort of the Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, to revitalize our common institution, which effectively is threatened by the return of unilateralism and the law of force to the detriment of the force of international legality. In an international context of extreme confusion, where everything is upside down, it's not easy to be Secretary General of the United Nations. That is why Togo gives you its full support. Madam President, Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen, How can I possibly talk to you about global affairs without talking about the remarkable performance of our country, Togo? Rest assured that Togo is doing fine. Togo is doing better than some. In service of our populations, my country, Togo, has in recent years notched up significant achievements, progress that has been largely recognized by many, i.e. the implementation of the SDG Agenda. The government has made Agenda 2030 not a simple reference framework, but rather the real lodestar of its public policy. More than 70% of the SDG's targets have now been integrated into national strategies, particularly through the government roadmap for 2020 to 2025. That roadmap comprises four key pillars – social development, economic development, environmental development and governance. Some examples of our work now. We have reforms that have been done to improve the public finance management system and reforms of our public investment system. To improve things on these fronts, we have done remarkable work. We have seen the digitization and simplification of tax and customs procedures. And that has led to the increased tax revenue being collected by the Togolese Tax Office. We have operationalized a one-stop shop for tax collection and for the submission of accounts. That means that people can submit digitized accounts and tax returns in one place. We have digital issuance of land deeds and we have operationalized our tax policy unit. We have public-private partnership work and that's increased public-private partnerships. We can now, in terms of improving our business climate, list the following reforms. You can have online meetings, we've reduced waiting time to process cases through the courts for business recognition, et cetera, et cetera. So various reforms have been staged by the government of Togo under the aegis of my president in the 2025 roadmap. This work has led to a number of projects that we can list before you. In Togo now, 96% of our territory can access healthcare and that's been the case since 2023. That's an increase of 19.23% on 2020. We've also seen the launch of universal health coverage for 3 million people. Now 3 million people are covered by such health insurance, including the pupils covered by school insurance. 26% of people had access to drinking water in 2024. That's a 26% increase on 2020. There is now a great deal more access to electricity and that's reduced dependency on external sources of energy and electricity. That dependency has reduced to under 50%. 24% of the population are now living below the poverty line versus 51.1% in 2020. We've seen agricultural income increase in 2025. Our maize, rice, cassava and soya sectors have all seen their revenues increase by 32%. A lot of our coastline has been protected against erosion. We've had a lot of roads tarmacked properly and restored across our territory and that had occurred by the end of 2024. We could cite more and more examples to show you, as you will see, that Togo is doing better than it ever has done. 60% of our coastline is actually protected against coastal erosion, for example. We've also planted 40 million more plants across 48,000 hectares. These various achievements all form part of our implementation of our government roadmap and all of these initiatives have allowed us to accelerate the pace of economic growth in Togo. So we increased that growth to 7% in 2025 and we brought inflation under control by way of an example, the 2024-2025 report of the UNDP on the Human Development Index emphasised how far Togo has come in terms of income, education and life expectancy. In the zone covered by the Economic Monetary Union of Western Africa, we are one of the only two countries classed as having medium human development and we are second in the region in the Human Development Index. In the ECOWAS sphere, Togo ranks fourth on the Human Development Index. These results, ladies and gentlemen, bear witness to the determination of the Togolese government to combine economic resilience, social stability and ambition for sustainable development. This in a global context beset by manifold challenges. Madam President, my country is modernising and is looking to the future with confidence. However, the efforts we have made in that regard are still at risk of being undone by the terrorist threats hovering over the Sahel and the whole of West Africa. I wish this high rostrum to pay a much-deserved tribute to all victims, both civilian and military, that paid the ultimate price in this bitterly difficult struggle. Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in 2025, the United Nations marks its 80th anniversary, 80 years since its birth. And 80 years is the age at which you can say you've become mature and begin to look back at your life and progress made. We've walked a long way together, but we need to overcome obstacles and usher in a fairer world. As such, the world cannot stand idly by and fail to heed cries we're hearing from all corners of the world to change the international order. That was an international order imposed upon us by a handful of states to serve all manner of interests eight decades ago. Ladies and gentlemen, as you are well aware, the African Union selected a theme for 2025, which was justice for Africans and African descendant persons through redress and reparations. There is a bitter thirst for justice on the African continent, which needs to be understood. And Africa's struggle for reparations should be understood through that lens. Africa is crying out for justice and redress, which is the form that justice needs to take. Africa is calling for justice as a result of having had its resources pillaged. Africa was humiliated through the yoke of slavery, the slavery of its sons and daughters for more than four centuries. More than 20 million Africans were snatched from their families. Families were torn apart and these 20 million Africans were brought to the Americas where they were enslaved. These souls of millions of men await justice. Africa is calling for justice. Justice having been, having seen its history upturned through a century of colonialism, it was thrown off its rightful cause and wants justice as a result. Africa is calling for justice because it has paid with its blood and its own resources for the prosperity of other continents. Africa is demanding justice because between 80 and 90% of its cultural heritage is today in foreign museums. Africa is demanding justice because African human remains remain in the hands of foreigners outside of the continent and that violates the most sacred laws of humankind. Africa is demanding justice because its significant contribution to the defeat of fascism in the 20th century was overlooked and cast aside when the United Nations was founded, the United Nations where we are today, in 1945. Africa is demanding justice because she was excluded and has been excluded for 80 years from the decision-making bodies across the globe. Africa is demanding justice because the Security Council needs to properly represent all the peoples of the world among it. Africa demands justice because its children continue to be victims of racism and humiliation around the world. Africa demands justice because, as has been said, there exists a unique and unprecedented moral debt to our African people which has not yet been paid. Slavery has never been so humiliated as it was through the enslavement of the Furbis and the colonization of Africa, the cradle of our human civilization. Rest assured, ladies and gentlemen, Africa is not stuck in the past. We do not invoke the memory of slavery here and of colonization to simply reawaken old wounds. We invoke slavery and colonization to build a future of justice and equity for all. Ladies and gentlemen, to illustrate the message I sought to convey above, I wish to begin by showing you a map of the world. Ladies and gentlemen, please look, if you will, at this world map. It is a map that all of us studied at school. This is the map right here. We call it a planisphere. To use a technical term, we call it the Mercator Projection. It is named after a cartographer who you all know, the cartographer Mercator. And you can see yourselves that on this map that we all use, there's a problem. If you can't see the problem, I'm going to help you to understand the problem as an African man. Candidly speaking, the Mercator Projection is something we inherited from the 16th century. It reduces the African continent to about half its genuine size. At the same time, it swells North America and Europe. Unfaithfully, Africa extends over 30 million square kilometers. In other words, three times the surface area of the United States. However, on this world map, it seems scarcely any bigger. With a surface area of 30.3 million square kilometers, including all the islands, it covers 20 percent of Africa, the land surface area. Six percent of the global surface area of the Earth, with around 1.4 billion. Soon we'll have 1.5 billion inhabitants. That's the reality in 2025 or 2030. That's where things will stand. So it accounts for about 18 percent of the global population. The size of Africa here is intentionally reduced. It's minuscule in real terms. It seems the size of Greenland and Russia are also reduced. Or it's reduced to the same size as Greenland and Russia. And it's all false. It's a distortion. Africa has 54 continents and we somehow think it's smaller than it actually is. Candidly speaking, Africa alone can contain the whole of the United States. Russia, India, France, Great Britain and China. It can contain all of those countries. It is for that reason, ladies and gentlemen, in support of the African Union, we call for Africa's depiction on world maps to be corrected. And we seek to do that with the campaign that we asked the United Nations to support. The name of that campaign is Correct the Map. Geography must be decolonized. There needs to be a new political map of Africa. You also understand why at the second African and Caribbean summit, ahead of the 7th September in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Africa and the Caribbean reaffirmed their determination to put the fraternal transcontinental partnership at the service of reparative justice for Africans and African descendants. And emphasized the need to move toward the creation of an African Union declared for justice for African and African descent people. I reach here to salute our brothers and sisters in the Caribbean who grasped the meaning of this struggle. You have understood that by standing together for the cause of reparation, we will advance in more effective. This too is the essence of the Pan-Africanism. Pan-Africanism for justice and for the cause of reparations. It was the same test for justice that promoted Togo to submit to the deliberative bodies of the African Union, the initiatives that led the decision adopted by the Assembly of Head of State and Government of our continental organization on 16 February this year to classify slavery, deportation and colonization as crimes against humanity and genocide against the people of Africa. This decision marks a major event for Africa and people of African descent for it counters the logical whereby descendants of perpetrators dictate the term of the debate and name their crimes rather than the hateful hair of the people who suffer those crimes in their flesh. Mesdames et messieurs. Ladies and gentlemen, the United Nations must not remain indifferent to reparative justice because the crimes and injustices from the past that are not met with redress and reparative justice will simply fuel crises and conflicts in our age and will fuel those to come even later still. Current crises are fueled by the injustices of the past that are not resolved because people live with the memory of their wounds. Providing reparations for the crimes and injustices of the past is part of the remedy we need to apply if we are to restore peace to our world and repair relationships between civilizations. As a consonant of resilience and hope, Africa embodies this bitter need for reparative justice. The recognition of past injustices, particularly through tangible actions to bring about reparations, is a vital step towards establishing a sustainable peace and full social cohesion. It is for this very reason that from this high rostrum and in the most solemn terms, I wish to call global public opinion to action. I wish to pique your conscience. You must show the courage, have the courage to tackle the issue of reparation. Today, Africa is standing before the world and demanding reparations. Calling for reparations is not about pointing the finger at anyone. Calling for reparations is an act of working for the good of humankind and for our own well-being, doing justice for the crimes of the past is to repair history. Repairing history is a step to lifting obstacles so that justice can flow and that more equity can come into our world. Asking for reparations is an act of dismantling systems based on exploitation that continue to influence and shape the lives of several peoples. Asking for reparations is to save the world from forgetting its own history and keeping the memory of millions of peoples alive. What we're doing in asking for reparations is seeking to correct the damage done to us in the past. We're seeking to free the world from discrimination and racism. We're seeking to step out of this relentless trap of exclusion and the denial of justice. We expect reparations from the world. There are those as a result of the Atlantic slave trade and colonization. Reparations, however, must also involve the proper reform of global trade systems and global economic and financial reforms. We must see the restructuring of debt, structural reparations to allow just an equitable representation of Africa in international bodies and the international system as a whole. The reparations that we demand from this rostrum should not simply comprise material compensation. They must also take the form of sustainable investment in education, infrastructure, healthcare, science and technology, such as to allow Africa to develop and to cease to lag behind and to fully enjoy its potential. In the resolution Pact for the Future adopted last year by heads of state and government representing the peoples of the world when they met together here in New York, we underscored the need together that there was an urgent need to reform the Security Council to make it more representative and tailored to today's world. We now need to move from word to deed. Security Council reform is a matter of reparations and is all about correcting the historic injustice done to Africa and other peoples of the world. The Security Council reform must involve granting permanent seats to Africa. Doing that is a matter of dignity and justice and must be done. It is imperative. The injustice done to Africa over centuries must be redressed. But this reform must also go hand in hand with the recognition of global current inequalities and the fact that they are rooted in historic injustices. Africa has been and is marginalised within multilateral institutions and that must be addressed. Africa has every right to expect such reparation from the world and that call will be at the heart of the 9th Pan-African Congress in Lomé, Togo on Renewing Pan-Africanism and the Role of Africa in the Reform of Multilateral Institutions. Part of our work will be to mobilise resources and reinventing ourselves for action. And this all forms part of the theme selected. I call upon the African community and its partners as well as all the goodwill of all those inspired by justice to make this meeting a historic event through reparations. Ladies and gentlemen, we will succeed in renewing the trust of our peoples in multilateral institutions, beginning here with the United Nations. Reparations will allow us to together usher in a humankind at peace with itself, doing justice, ensuring justice is done for people whose destiny has been destroyed by crimes and historic injustice is an act of repairing the world for everybody's benefit. Ladies and gentlemen, I must speak candidly. Africa has been overlooked over the last 80 years in global governance structures. It is high time to remedy that injustice. On very rare occasions, does history offer occasions as ripe as this one to change the course that the world is walking down? After so much historic injustice done to Africa, the time has come to provide reparations as an ethical imperative. To provide reparations would be to repent for past misdeeds and to rebuild a new stage on which new international relations can be established. However, this struggle is not solely an African struggle. It is a struggle for humankind. It is a struggle so that never again will the injustices of the past shape the inequalities of the present. It is for that reason that we call upon the United Nations now and for the sake of its own credibility, to classify the transatlantic trade, slave trade, colonization, slavery and deportation as not only crimes against humanity, but first and foremost, crimes of genocide against the peoples of Africa. Yes, it is a genocide, a genocide, a genocide. I thank you. Muchas gracias. I thank the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Togo. We have heard the last speaker in the general debate for this.