By Dr Bertrand Ramcharan
Seventh Chancellor of the University of Guyana Previously: Professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute, Fellow of Harvard University and Fellow of the LSE.
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Africa will be decisive in shaping the coming international order. This is inevitable, for the reasons adduced in this essay, which draws on a book we recently published, Africa and the Universality of Human Rights (Brill, 2022). Guyana must heed the implications of the strategic importance of Africa when shaping its foreign relations with, and representation in, the continent.
In the coming period, it is estimated that Africa, with the world’s fastest growing population, will reach a continental figure of two billion. Yet, as The Economist reported in its issue of 24th June, 2023, Africa is protesting that it is being short-changed as priorities shift towards Ukraine and in dealing with climate change. There is deep African anger, that the continent has too little say in global institutions such as the Word Bank, the IMF and the UN, and that some of the proposed reforms being discussed currently could again leave Africa in the cold.
