UN General Assembly
2023

Since I became President of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau in 2020. we have focused on dialogue, peace-building and political stability, as well as social and economic development in our country and in the West Africa subregion and beyond. Those principles also guided us during our term as Chairman of the Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States, which we accepted with determination and a heightened sense of responsibility, and which ended last July. To that end. we wish to reiterate our great concern about the recurrence of coup d’etats and reversals in democracy and the rule of law in some countries in our subregion, in flagrant violation of the populations’ freedom of choice as expressed through ballot boxes.