I think it's an important point to remember that it's not all doom and gloom and that there are very positive elements in this overall story. Even in Mali we see hopeful signs. Agricultural land under production, under use, has increased, so they're more able to address their food insecurity as a result of the stabilizing effect that having a UN peace mission has brought. We have also seen a decline in maternal/newborn/child mortality. There are a number of positive developments in Mali, and those, in part, derive from the fact that there is a UN mission providing a stabilizing effect. We could compare Mali today to Mali in 2012. After the coup, two-thirds of the territory was ungoverned space. We know, when we look around the world, what happens when there's a sustained period of ungoverned space, like in Afghanistan, like in Iraq. You have the emergence of groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State, which become global threats. That's certainly not something we want to see repeated.
On April 19th, 2018. See this statement in context.