United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has renewed his call for reform of the Security Council, describing the continued absence of permanent African representation as unfair and difficult to defend.
Guterres made the remarks on Tuesday, September 22, during the opening of the general debate of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York. With about 100 days remaining in his tenure, he used his final general debate speech to draw attention to what he described as growing struggles over power, inequality, peace, climate change and technology.
He said the current structure of the 15 member Security Council no longer reflects the political realities of the world today and argued that reform was necessary to make the body more representative and effective.
According to Guterres, Africa’s continued underrepresentation is particularly difficult to justify given the continent’s size, its large number of UN member states and its longstanding role in international peacekeeping. He called for the continent to have a greater voice in decisions that affect global peace and security.
The UN chief also linked global inequality to questions of access to opportunities and resources. He criticised an international financial system that, in his view, continues to place heavy debt burdens on developing countries while they also face the growing effects of climate change.
Guterres called for quicker debt relief, stronger multilateral development banks and fairer access to the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights. He argued that developing countries should not continue carrying the heaviest financial burden for crises they did little to create.
On global conflicts, he pointed to the wars and crises in the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar, saying that many ceasefires had failed to bring genuine peace because civilians continued to suffer.
Addressing the conflict in Gaza, Guterres renewed his call for compliance with orders of the International Court of Justice and warned that the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank was putting further pressure on prospects for a two state solution. He also condemned Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine as a violation of the UN Charter.
Climate change featured prominently in his address, with Guterres describing it as one of the clearest examples of an imbalance between generations. He warned that the world was moving dangerously close to exceeding the 1.5 degree Celsius temperature limit and called for stronger international action.
He urged major polluters to shoulder more of the cost and called on developed countries to significantly increase funding for climate adaptation in vulnerable nations.
Artificial intelligence was another major focus of the speech. Guterres warned that control over data, computing power and advanced algorithms was becoming increasingly concentrated while international efforts to regulate the technology were struggling to keep pace.
“The danger is not technology,” he said. “The danger is technology without accountability.”
He called for a multilateral framework to manage the risks associated with artificial intelligence, backed by independent oversight. Guterres also stressed that children should not become test subjects for poorly regulated AI systems and that decisions involving life and death should never be handed over to machines.
The UN Secretary General also warned against the development of autonomous weapons, saying that “killer robots” should have no place in the future.
Throughout the address, Guterres presented the challenges facing the international community as closely connected issues involving how power is distributed, exercised and regulated. He argued that stronger international cooperation and a more representative multilateral system were needed to address them effectively.
The 81st UN General Assembly general debate is taking place from September 22 to September 28, 2026, under the theme “Restoring trust, managing transformation: a United Nations that delivers for all.”
