Last week at the United Nations General Assembly, the focus was on implementation of two major new agreements on sustainable development and climate change.

These pacts are proof that the United Nations remains relevant. Of course, international institutions have their flaws. Rwanda knows this from its own experience.

Nevertheless, the bias towards co-operation and dialogue in the multilateral system offers an alternative to zero-sum power politics. That is why we in Rwanda are always happy to do our part, for example as the world’s fifth-largest troop contributor to peacekeeping operations.

At the same time, there is a growing sense of pessimism about the international community’s ability to deal with problems such as state collapse, violent extremism, and forced migration.

Sometimes these efforts are not only ineffectual, they actually seem to make the problems even worse. preservation of peace, security, and prosperity rests on a common vision for the future, anchored in shared values.

Yet today we are seeing the steady erosion of values-based solidarity, leading to real moral and ideological confusion and new instabilities, both within nations and in the mechanisms of international cooperation. Profound change has been underway and the world order is shifting irreversibly.

Democracy is not in decline. But because of the levelling effects of globalisation, accelerated by the spread of technology and information, as well as the greater range of experiences and approaches that have been tested, we in the developing world have greater confidence to pursue the same ends in our own ways.

We increasingly base our legitimacy on results achieved and on the views of our citizens, rather than on external validation. Some participants in the international system tend to see this shift as a challenge to their historical leadership.

They continue to assert the right to define objectives and impose outcomes, without meaningful consultation with those concerned. To justify that exceptionalism, action has to be seen in terms of moral responsibilities rather than narrow interests.

Some countries simply expect to be trusted to work in the best interest of humanity as a whole. These factors are contributing in important ways to the instability and uncertainty we face, by undermining the values-based solidarity, upon which the effectiveness of international co-operation has always depended.

What is at risk is the sense of a global community based on shared values, which the United States, Rwanda, and many others, are equally committed to. By asserting the right to define legitimacy for everyone else, trust between countries is lost, instability increases, and countries are even pushed to make bad decisions.

But one size does not fit all. The United States, for example, is huge; it may require impersonal and legalistic mechanisms to achieve adequate democratic consultation.

Slash-and-burn democratisation

In Rwanda, to take another example, we have the advantage that the relationship between citizens and leaders can unfold in a more direct and face-to-face manner.

The processes may not look the same between two different countries, but the right question is whether the substantive outcomes are comparable in terms of the quality of civic engagement and the actual results achieved in the lives of citizens. What matters is the value the system accords to each citizen, and their ability to give input and get their concerns and ideas addressed.

Nothing done against the wishes and expectations of citizens is sustainable. Supporting the persistence of the outdated norm that some can decide on behalf of others is a source of tension in international affairs. It is not right and it doesn’t work.

Moreover, the manner in which decisions of war are arrived at is truly chilling at times, as if real people don’t live in those places. It is better to work patiently to facilitate change in society and build new consensus, while containing negative effects, rather than engage in slash-and-burn democratisation.

We can’t pour gasoline on volatile situations, light a match, and hope that the fire will cleanse and renew. Countries are not national parks and people are not trees. An inefficient state is better than no state at all because it offers the greater prospect for sustainable improvement and transformation.

Yet it often seems as though chaos and disorder are required in order to convince others of the legitimacy of a system of governance. It is important to step back and learn the lessons of the past errors of judgement and analysis.

Unfortunately, there is little evidence that such introspection and course-correction are taking place. This leaves a vector of instability in world affairs that is of increasing concern and danger to all of us.

America and other major countries have the power to shape the world according to their designs. However, there is an additional power that comes from working respectfully with others and valuing the input and contributions of friends.

Rwanda did not survive by giving in

When it comes to Africa especially there is a great deal of continuity with certain negative assumptions widely shared across governments, media, and academia, not only in this country but more generally. Rwanda, for example, has experienced many contradictions in its relations with counterparts.

Perceptions often loom larger than facts, and continued engagement is conditioned on accepting erroneous perceptions as true, even when everyone involved agrees they are not.

This is not diplomacy; it is a demand for submission. But Rwanda did not survive by giving in. If provoked, we prefer to stand our ground and defend what we know to be correct, even if there is a price to be paid. This is not just a reflex of pride.

We just believe that being straightforward is the best course, especially among friends. After all, a willingness to obey is a poor predictor of reliability or virtue. Submission produces clients, but not partners. It is normal for countries, whether large or small, to pursue their interests.

The manner in which you receive information, and have it validated, is designed to sow confusion and not build understanding. There is a culture of making up one’s mind about Africa by borrowing assumptions, prejudices, and judgements from trusted intermediaries, who, by the way, tend to look the same, as you may have noticed.

Some points of view are seen as inherently balanced, neutral, factual, because of who says it, and where. But in that process many other voices are silenced.

The above is an excerpt from Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s Yale University Coca-Cola World Fund Lecture at New Haven on September 20, 2016.