The African Three (A3) at the UN Security Council: Translating Agency into Influence?

ABSTRACT

African positions in multilateral organisations have become more pronounced in recent years. An emerging body of literature on African agency indicates a visible increase in coordinating African interests at international level. This article interrogates to which degree African agency has materialised at the UN Security Council (UNSC) and whether this has led to greater influence in the highest decision-making body of the UN? For this undertaking, we explore UNSC resolution voting patterns over a period of 22 years (2000–2021). This is the first time an extensive analysis of A3 voting at the UNSC has been conducted. We find that although there are qualitative signs of improved coordination, this has only partially resulted in a measurable increase in direct influence. The article connotes an agency influence gap. African countries do not effectively transfer their new found agency into greater influence. The last section of the article presents four explanatory reasons for this deficiency.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://unoau.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/signed_joint_framework.pdf