We’re co-organizing with Nigeria the upcoming African Counter-Terrorism Summit. We’re delivering tailored assistance to African Member States - including in the areas of prevention, legal assistance, investigations, prosecutions, reintegration and rehabilitation, and human rights protection. It includes our work through the Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact to bring together diverse United Nations agencies, Member States, regional parliaments and civil society to support joint efforts across the continent.Ībove all, it includes our ongoing close collaboration with the African Union and regional and subregional African organizations. It includes the Counter-Terrorism Committee’s 65 assessment visits to ensure compliance with Security Council requirements - which resulted in thousands of actionable recommendations to Member States to improve responses. That includes this Council’s policy guidance, technical assistance and support for sanction regimes. The United Nations stands with Africa to end this scourge. To the renewed determination of African leaders to tackle this evolving threat - as seen at the recent Extraordinary Summit of the African Union on terrorism and unconstitutional changes of government. From joint efforts in the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, Mozambique and beyond. We see this across Africa, which is home to a number of regional counter-terrorism initiatives. Just as terrorism drives people apart, countering it can bring countries together. And the online world provides a global platform to spread violent ideologies even further. The trail of terror is widening, with fighters, funds, and weapons increasingly flowing between regions and across the continent - and with new alliances being forged with organized crime and piracy groups. Community by community, they are trying to extend their reach. I am deeply concerned by the gains terrorist groups are making in the Sahel and elsewhere. Despair, poverty, hunger, lack of basic services, unemployment, and unconstitutional changes in government continue to lay fertile ground for the creeping expansion of terrorist groups to infect new parts of the continent. But the situation in Africa is especially concerning. No age, no culture, no religion, no nationality and no region is immune. And by flouting or ignoring the rule of law, from international human rights law, humanitarian law and refugee law and other international norms and standards to the values embedded in the United Nations Charter. By keeping women and girls under a constant cloud of intimidation, as well as outright sexual and gender-based violence. By promoting lies, hatred and disinformation in cyberspace. By engaging in criminal activities like money laundering and illegal mining, as well as the trafficking of arms, drugs, precious minerals, antiquities and human beings. By trading in the timeless evils of prejudice and discrimination targeting specific groups, cultures, religions and ethnicities. By exploiting inequalities and social exclusion to aggravate tensions. By preying on the fears and vulnerabilities of people facing grinding poverty, hunger and famine. Terrorism tightens its grip by seeking out and exploiting weaknesses and instability in political, economic and security systems. Terrorism is the root and result of many of the problems under discussion by this Council. I commend the Government of Mozambique for convening this timely debate. Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the United Nations Security Council open debate on “Countering Terrorism and Preventing Violent Extremism by Strengthening Cooperation between the United Nations and Regional Organizations and Mechanisms”, in New York today:
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