UN General Assembly
1999

need to be clear-sighted, creative and realistic and make innovative, broad-ranging and constructive proposals that can be translated into concrete actions taken solely in the interests of all our peoples and all our nations, which make up the family that we call humankind. In this respect, reform of the Security Council is a major test of our resolve to modernize this important body, which we need to endow with greater transparency, greater democracy, greater authority and greater legitimacy — in short, greater credibility. Many proposals have already been made, but in restructuring this key organ of the system, we need to go beyond them, demonstrating creativity and a willingness to compromise, considering only the interests of this Organization at the service of humanity. From this standpoint, in the Algiers Declaration, the States of Africa unanimously recalled the legitimate demands embodied in the Harare Declaration adopted by the Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The pressing need to adapt the United Nations system to the realities of the coming century should, 7