Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly this Tuesday, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez stated that “a new and fairer global contract is urgently needed.”
Díaz-Canel spoke on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, an organization of which Cuba holds the presidency for the time in 2023.
He referred to the results of the recently held Summit of Heads of State and Government of the G77 and China in Havana, where the member countries approved a political declaration that advocates changes in the international financial architecture, in a way that allows all countries to advance with greater justice on the path of the sustainable development goals (SDG) and the 2030 Agenda.
The voice of the South, diverse peoples with common problems, has been heard from Havana, said Díaz-Canel, highlighting that more than 100 representatives of The 134 countries that make up the G77 and China “demanded changes that can no longer be postponed in the unjust, irrational and abusive international economic order, which has deepened year after year the enormous inequalities between a minority of highly developed nations and a majority that cannot overcome the euphemism of developing nations.”
“We are not asking for alms or begging for favors. We demand a profound transformation of the current international financial architecture because it is deeply unjust, anachronistic and dysfunctional.”
“Cuba is the country that has endured unilateral coercive measures for the longest time.
We were not the first and we are not the last. The pressures to isolate sovereign states today also affect Venezuela and Nicaragua…”
He referred to the words of the UN Secretary General, when he stated in Havana that the G77 was founded 60 years ago to remedy centuries of injustice and neglect, and that in today’s turbulent world, these nations are entangled in a tangle of crises. world, where poverty is increasing and hunger is increasing.
The Cuban leader said that the Group of 77 was joined by need to change what has not been resolved and the condition of main victims of the current global multidimensional crisis and the current abusive unequal exchange, of the scientific technological gap and the degradation of the environment.
“But we have also been united, for more than half a century, by the unavoidable challenge and determination to transform the prevailing international order, which in addition to being exclusive and irrational is unsustainable for the planet and unviable for the well-being of all.”
The countries represented in the G77 and China, where 80% of the planet’s population lives, “We not only have the challenge of development, but also the responsibility of modifying the structures that marginalize us from global progress and turn many countries of the South into laboratories of renewed forms of domination”said Díaz-Canel before the plenary session of the General Assembly, which is celebrating its 78th session.
“A new and fairer global contract is urgently needed,” stressed the Cuban president.
He warned that, at the current pace, countries will not be able to achieve any of the 17 SDGs and more than half of the 169 goals agreed in 2015 will be unmet. “The outlook is discouraging,” she said.
“In the 21st century, it offends the human condition that almost 800 million people suffer from hunger on a planet that produces enough to feed everyone”, he stressed. “Or that in the era of knowledge and the accelerated development of new information and communications technologies, more than 760 million people, two thirds of them women, do not know how to read or write.”
He argued that “The efforts of developing countries are not enough to implement the 2030 Agenda.”
It is necessary – he stressed – that these efforts are supported with concrete actions for market access, financing with fair and preferential conditions, technology transfers and North-South cooperation.
“We are not asking for alms or begging for favors,” said Díaz-Canel, and insisted that the G77 demands rights and will continue to demand a profound transformation of the current international financial architecture, “because it is deeply unjust, anachronistic, and dysfunctional.”
«Cuba is the country that has endured unilateral coercive measures for the longest time.
We were not the first and we are not the last. The pressures to isolate sovereign states today also affect Venezuela, Nicaragua…”@DiazCanelB #Cuba #HER pic.twitter.com/rqm1byXRK4—UN News (@NoticiasONU) September 19, 2023
Díaz-Canel pointed out that The financial architecture that prevails today was designed to profit from the reserves of the South, perpetuate a system of domination that increases underdevelopment and reproduces a model of modern colonialism.
“We need and demand financial institutions in which our countries have real decision-making capacity and access to financing.
“A recapitulation of multilateral and development banks is urgently needed to radically improve their lending conditions and meet the financial needs of the South,” he stated.
The G77 countries have had to allocate $379 billion of their reserves to defend their currencies in 2022, almost double the amount of new special drawing rights assigned to them by the IMF, he said, and considered the rationalization, review and changing role of credit rating agencies.
“It is also imperative to establish criteria that go beyond GDP to define developing countries’ access to concessional financing and appropriate technical cooperation,” he added.
most of The G77 nations are forced to allocate more resources to managing the debt issue than to investments in health or education.
“While the richest countries fail to fulfill their commitment to allocate at least 0.7% of their national GDP to official development aid, the nations of the South have to spend 14% of their income to pay interest associated with external debt.”
The Cuban president stressed that the G77 reiterates its call to public, multilateral and private creditors to refinance the debt through credit guarantees, lower interests and longer maturity periods.
“We insist on the implementation of a multilateral mechanism for sovereign debt renegotiation, with the effective participation of the countries of the South, which allows for fair, balanced and development-oriented treatment.”
The president denounced onerous credits and cited that most G77 countries are obliged to allocate more to debt service than to investments in health or education. “What sustainable development can be achieved with that noose around our neck?” he asked, calling on creditors to refinance the debt under conditions that do not suffocate the progress of nations.
On the effects of climate change on developing nationsDíaz-Canel recalled that these are the main victims, while industrialized countries, “voracious predators of resources and the environment,” evade their responsibilities and fail to fulfill their commitments.
“Looking ahead to COP28, priorities for the G77 countries will be the exercise of the global balance sheet, the operationalization of the fund for losses and damages, the definition of the framework for the adaptation objective and the establishment of a new climate financing goal, with full attachment to principle of common but differentiated responsibilities“, he pointed.
He reported that the G77 is calling for a summit of Southern leaders, to be held on December 2 in the context of COP28, in Dubai. “It will be a space to articulate our group’s positions at the highest level in the context of climate negotiations.”
He added that for the G77 it is priority task to once and for all change the paradigms of science, technology and innovation that are limited to the environments and perspectives of the Northdepriving the international scientific community of considerable intellectual capital.
“The successful summit in Havana launched an urgent call to nuclear science, technology and innovation around the inalienable goal of sustainable development (…) We urge richer nations and international organizations to participate in cooperation projects,” he said when commenting on the initiatives presented during the conclave held on September 15 and 16 in the Cuban capital.
The Cuban president also criticized the imposition of unilateral punitive measures, “practices of powerful States to try to subdue sovereign States.”
He also recalled that Cuba is the country that has endured unilateral coercive measures for the longest time.
“I cannot pass by this world forum without denouncing, again, that for 60 years Cuba has suffered a suffocating economic blockade, designed to depress its income and standard of living, cause continuous shortages of food, medicine and other basic supplies and restrict its development potential,” said Díaz-Canel.
He denounced that the pressures to isolate and weaken economies also affect nations like Venezuela and Nicaragua, and that before and after they have been the prelude to invasions and overthrows of uncomfortable governments in the Middle East.
“We reject the unilateral punitive measures imposed on countries such as Zimbabwe, Syria, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Iran, among many others whose people suffer the negative impact of these.”
Regarding the policy of economic coercion and maximum pressure applied by the United States Government against Cuba, in violation of international law and the UN Charter, he emphasized that “There is not a single measure or action by Cuba to harm the United States, to harm its economic sector, its commercial activity or its social fabric.
“There is no act by Cuba that threatens the independence of the United States or its national security, that undermines its sovereign rights, interferes in its internal affairs or that affects the well-being of its people. “American conduct is absolutely unilateral and unjustified.”
He also criticized the internal destabilization plans against Cuba promoted from Washington and Florida, as well as the unjustified inclusion of the country on the list of State sponsors of terrorism.
“Despite the hostility of your Government, we will continue to build bridges with the people of the United States, as we do with all the people of the world,” he claimed.
“Cuba will not relent in its efforts to boost the creative potential, influence and leadership of the G77”, he assured when commenting on the country’s intention to present its candidacy to the UN Human Rights Council for the next period. “Our group has a lot to contribute to multilateralism, the stability, justice and rationality that the world requires today.”
