The adverse impact of Ukraine conflict on fuel, food and fertilisers supply chains to developing nations and climate change have placed the world in a state of crisis and no one can predict for how long this unpredictability will last, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here on Thursday.
Sounding this note of caution, he asked the developing countries to come together to redesign global political and financial governance that can remove inequalities and enlarge opportunities.
In his address at the opening session of the two-day Voice of Global South Summit hosted by India, Modi in a virtual address referred to pressing global challenges such as food and energy security triggered by the Ukraine conflict, terrorism and climate change and said the developing countries are feeling the impact of the situation though they were not responsible for it.
“We have turned the page on another difficult year, that saw war, conflict, terrorism and geo-political tensions, rising food, fertilizer and fuel prices, climate-change driven natural disasters, and lasting economic impact of the Covid pandemic,” he said.
“It is clear the world is in a state of crisis. It is difficult to predict how long this state of instability will last,” Modi said.
He said there is a need to “re-energise” the world, and pitched for a global agenda of ‘Respond, Recognise, Respect and Reform’ to deal with the challenges. “Respond to the priorities of the Global South by framing an inclusive and balanced international agenda, and recognise that the principle of ‘Common but Differentiated Responsibilities’ applies to all global challenges,” he said.
“Respect sovereignty of all nations, rule of law and peaceful resolution of differences and disputes and reform international institutions, including the United Nations, to make them more relevant,” Modi added.
Leaders of several countries, including Bangladesh, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Guyana, Mozambique, Mongolia and Senegal, were among those who attended the summit.
The ‘global South’ largely refers to the developing countries, especially those in Asia, Africa and South America.
“As far as India is concerned, your voice is India’s voice. Your priorities are India’s priorities,” Modi asserted. He said the global south should no longer be excluded from the fruits of development and they must attempt to redesign global political and financial governance.
“For our G20 Presidency, we have picked the theme of -- ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’. This is in line with our civilizational ethos. We believe the path to realise ‘oneness’ is through human-centric development,” he said.
“People of the Global South should no longer be excluded from the fruits of development. Together we must attempt to redesign global political and financial governance. This can remove inequalities, enlarge opportunities, support growth and spread progress and prosperity,” Modi said.
He said most of the global challenges have not been created by the Global South. However, they affect us more and we have seen this in impacts of Covid pandemic, climate change, terrorism and even the Ukraine conflict. The search for solutions also does not factor in our role or our voice.”
Modi sounded optimistic in finding solutions to the problems unitedly and said our time is coming. The need of the hour is to identify simple, scalable and sustainable solutions that can transform our societies and economies,” he said.
“With such an approach, we shall overcome the difficult challenges - whether it is poverty, universal healthcare or building human capacities. In the last Century, we supported each other in our fight against foreign rule. We can do it again in this Century, to create a new World Order that will ensure the welfare of our citizens,” he said.
In his concluding remarks, Modi thanked the leaders for their “insightful statements” and said it was clear from the enunciations that human-centric development is an important priority for developing countries.
Modi said the voice of the Global South needs to set its own tone and needs to escape the cycle of dependency on systems and circumstances which are not of our making. Addressing the conclave in the virtual mode, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the International Solar Alliance, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure and Mission LiFE- a worldwide programme to promote a climate-friendly lifestyle are proof of the priorities we accord in our diplomacy.
He also said, “We have implemented development projects with 78 countries that are demand-driven, transparent, empowerment-oriented, environment-friendly, while ensuring respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
India is hosting the two-day summit to bring together countries of the global South and provide them a common platform to share their common concerns relating to various global challenges including food and energy security triggered by the Ukraine conflict. The theme of the inaugural leaders’ session is “Voice of Global South - for Human-Centric Development” while the Leaders’ concluding session will be on “Unity of Voice-Unity of Purpose”.
The summit envisages 10 sessions out of which four are on Thursday while six sessions would take place on Friday. Each session is expected to witness the participation of leaders and ministers from 10-20 countries.