Third South Summit: High-level Seminar on Enhancing Economic Resilience through Broader South-South Economic Cooperation
21 January 2024
H.E. President Museveni
H.E. Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Miao
Excellencies, Colleagues and Friends
It is my great pleasure to welcome all of you to today’s seminar co-hosted by UNCTAD, the Government of the People’s Republic of China, and the Republic of Uganda.
At the outset, please allow me to extend my congratulations to Uganda and to President Museveni for successfully hosting the 10th NAM Summit and the Third South Summit and to thank his team for the strong support to UNCTAD in organizing the side-event.
I also would like to express my appreciation to the Chinese Government for not only co-hosting this side-event, but also providing generous funding support through a technical cooperation project with UNCTAD that has produced very valuable material to learn from the development process of China.
2024 marks the 60th Anniversary for both UNCTAD and G77 & China and we will organize a series of events for this celebration of which you are all invited, especially President Musoveni. Ours is a unique collaboration in the multilateral system.
In 1964, the first UN Conference on Trade and Development was held in Geneva with the aim of examining the obstacles that developing countries, many of which had only recently gained their independence, were facing in building economies that could deliver on the hopes and aspirations of their populations. From the outset UNCTAD insisted that the development challenge was as much an international as a domestic one and that the rules and institutions established at the end of the Second World War to manage international economic relations would therefore need to undergo reforms to better reflect developmental aspirations.
Since its inception, UNCTAD, working closely with the G77 and China, has been a champion of South-South Cooperation.
Much has changed in 60 years but if there is just one lesson to take from that history it is that progress has been made when the South has acted together to push for reforms to the international system. And I really believe this is the time to do it again and push for a meaningful transformation
It is no coincidence that the growth of the global south as an economic force, accounting about 42 percent of all of the world’s economic output, took place in a context where South-South trade and South-South cooperation grew faster than north-north or south-north relationships. South-South trade is now considerably greater than north-north trade.
And remarkably, most of this change has taken place in the last thirty years. In the late 19th century, North-North trade accounted for around 80 percent of all global trade; one hundred years later, in the 1990s, it accounted for around 60 percent of all trade; today, barely a generation later, North-North trade only accounts for 25 percent of all trade. To say that the change has been tectonic is to sell it short. The Global South is now the most dynamic force in the world for the first time since the advent of colonialism and industrialization. China’s contribution to these outcomes has been key in the rise of the Global South and the restructuring of trade. But also, it has become an important actor in the cooperation space where the Belt and Road and the GDI stand out.
Now Africa is also playing a central role with the African Continental Free Trade Area that represent a huge opportunity to bring the continent to a next level in the international economic context.
Excellencies,
The implications of this transformation for global governance, for the future of multilateralism, and for the dynamics of sustainable development are immense. With the growth of the Global South, and the rise of South-South trade, South-South cooperation will play an increasingly important role, a role we must do more to understand, shape, and support.
The centrality of South-South cooperation is more important than ever. The world economy finds itself in uncharted waters. We have said that we are living through cascading crisis: the pandemic (that seems not to be completely over), high indebtedness, slowing growth, recurring climate disasters, geopolitical trade disruption, and growing war and human conflict. These challenges are fostering economic fragmentation and threatening the integrity of the multilateral system. The Global South voice and South-South cooperation is key to build collective self-resilience, promote more sustainable and equitable economic growth, and strengthen multilateralism.
Over the decades, developing economies have consolidated their ties; including growing financial cooperation and FDI between them, this has built on the opportunities and synergies that knowledge sharing and best practices learning. Buth there is more work to be done to move towards more integrated strategic frameworks, that address also crucial aspects like technology transfer, environmental sustainability, and social development. Our cooperation should also be about building skills, communities, and sustainable companies to diversify our economies.
Let me take this opportunity to acknowledge the efforts of the G77 and China, and of course the UAE as the host of COP28, to successfully launch a loss and damage mechanism in Dubai last month.
These cascading crises have set back progress on delivering the Agenda2030 and the Paris Agreement, particularly in the Global South. The Summit of the Future to be held at the General Assembly in September will be a test of the willingness of development partners to make real strides in getting things back on track. A strong collective voice from the South will be critical to a meaningful outcome from the Summit.
The task is an urgent one. UNCTAD was warning about the danger of a lost decade even before the Covid 19 shock and the Secretary-General Guterres has since warned that “unless we act now, the 2030 Agenda will become an epitaph for a world that might have been.”
South-south has an historic mission in this context. Voice and cooperation should provide complementary resources to traditional ODA, South- help mobilize domestic resources, contribute to crisis-response, and strengthen productive capacity through substantive economic cooperation in the areas of trade, investment, finance, and industrialization.
In this era of rapid technological advancement, South-South Cooperation is uniquely positioned to foster digital innovation. By sharing knowledge and resources in the field of digital technology, countries of the Global South can leapfrog traditional stages of development, creating a more inclusive digital economy.
Here lies the beauty of South-South cooperation. As I said in a panel on Saturday, if a country wants to learn about digital-led development, it has much more to learn from a country in the South which has leapfrogged in this area in the last decade.
If we really want to meet the SDGs in this decade of action, the only option we have is to leap-frog our way to 2030. But to learn how to leap, it is better to ask the frog. All the frogs are in the Global South.
Your excellencies,
The expanded economy of the South and the dynamic economic cooperation have gradually, but significantly, changed the international economic landscape, which has helped further build the greater confidence and solidarity of the Global South in international affairs.
We’ve seen increasing South-led initiatives such as the expanded BRICS, new development financing initiatives, regional trade and investment agreements, climate cooperation, etc. Through these concrete initiatives, the Global South is contributing to build a more inclusive global economic governance, which will be a key factor of success no matter how much and how well we do South-South cooperation. Neither the South nor the North alone can solve the great problems of our times.
Excellencies, colleagues
UNCTAD was born with the interest of the South in our DNA. This high-level seminar demonstrates our strong commitment to building on that history in support of sustainable and inclusive development. I look forward to today’s discussion, which we trust will contribute to the wider thinking that is urgently needed to build a more development friendly multilateralism, with development at its centre.
Thank you. Webale nnyo.
