NEW DELHI: India and Africa on Thursday sought a decisive push for reform of United Nations Security Council and called on all countries to ensure that their territories were not used for cross-border terrorist activities.
In the Delhi Declaration 2015 adopted in the concluding session of the third India-Africa Forum Summit here, India and all 54 African countries demanded urgent collective action to put in place a more representative global governance architecture.
India noted the common African position and the aspirations of the African countries to "get their rightful place" in an expanded UN Security Council as new permanent members with full rights, while Africa took note of India's position and its aspirations to become a permanent member with full rights in athe security council.
"We emphasize the need for an early implementation of the UNGA Decision 69/560, so as to make a decisive push for achieving concrete outcomes on the United Nations' Security Council reform agenda," the declaration said.
The Decision 69/560 is the basis to discuss UN reforms process now and the text, prepared after several years, is considered a breakthrough by many countries including India.
India and African countries agreed to adopt the 2015 India-Africa Framework for Strategic Cooperation and agreed on the establishment of a regular formal monitoring mechanism to review its implementation and the plan of action within the agreed timeframe.
The declaration said the India and Africa will promote strengthening of the UN counter-terrorism mechanisms and called upon all states to ensure strict compliance with the UN Security Council sanctions regime on terrorism.
Calling on countries to ensure that "their territories are not used for cross-border terrorist activities," the declaration urged the international community to cooperate with urgency to adopt the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism in the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
The declaration said that India and Africa looked forward to finalizing an ambitious and comprehensive climate change agreement "based on the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibility."
The 10-page declaration covered a range of areas including economic cooperation, agriculture, energy, ocean economy, infrastructure, education, skills development and peace and security.
It said that next IAFS will be held in 2020.