HAVANA, Cuba: The G77+China, a coalition of emerging and developing nations comprising 80% of the global population, initiated a summit in Cuba on Friday, urging for a transformation in the established norms of the international system.
This gathering occurred amidst escalating discontent with the Western-dominated global order, fueled by increasing discord regarding the Russian conflict in Ukraine, efforts to combat climate change, and challenges surrounding the global economic structure.
“After all this time that the North has organized the world according to its interests, it is now up to the South to change the rules of the game,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said at the opening of the summit.
Diaz-Canel said that developing countries were the main victims of a “multidimensional crisis” in the world today, from “abusive unequal trade” to global warming.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will be participating in a two-day summit in Havana, joining around 30 heads of state and government representing countries from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
At the opening of the meeting, he called for a world that was “more representative and responsive to the needs of developing economies,” stressing that these countries were “trapped in a tangle of global crises.”
The bloc was established by 77 countries of the global South in 1964 “to articulate and promote their collective economic interests and enhance their joint negotiating capacity,” according to the group’s website.
Today, the membership of the organization stands at 134, including China, as indicated on the website, despite China clarifying that it holds a status less than a full member. Cuba assumed the rotating presidency in January. Notable attendees at the summit included Latin American leaders like Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, and Argentina’s Alberto Fernandez, as well as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Angola’s Joao Lourenco, and Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made his arrival on Friday night. Representing China was Li Xi, a high-ranking Communist Party official, emphasizing China’s unwavering commitment to prioritize South-South cooperation in its global engagements.
Argentina’s Fernandez said that the coronavirus pandemic marked an epochal change by “exposing the inequality” in countries’ access to vaccines, noting that “90% of vaccines were in the hands of 10 countries.”
The meeting should conclude Saturday with a statement underscoring “the right to development in an increasingly exclusive, unfair, unjust and plundering international order,” the foreign minister of host Cuba, Bruno Rodriguez, told reporters Wednesday.
A draft of the closing statement underlines the many obstacles facing developing nations, and includes “a call for the establishment of a new economic world order,” he said.
Recently, Guterres participated in numerous multilateral summits, such as the Group of 20 meeting held in India and the BRICS group involving Russia.
Ahead of the Havana meeting, Guterres said “This multiplicity of summits reflects the growing multipolarity of our world.”
And he warned that “multipolarity could be a factor for escalating geostrategic tensions, with tragic consequences.”
The G77 gathering follows significant shifts in global alliances. The African Union’s inclusion in the G20, a coalition of the world’s major economies, and the expansion of the BRICS trade group to include six new members—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa—mark notable developments. Amidst Cuba’s severe economic downturn, the presence of international leaders on its soil is seen as a tacit acknowledgment of the Cuban government’s situation, according to an analyst.
“Despite the difficulties of the moment, Cuba has been recognized as a valid interlocutor,” said Cuban international relations expert Arturo Lopez-Levy, a visiting professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid.
The island governed by a communist regime remains subject to U.S. sanctions initially enforced in 1962. Diaz-Canel, in the past few months, has taken on the role of representing the G77+China at numerous international gatherings, such as a global financial summit held in Paris in June and an EU meeting in July involving Latin American and Caribbean states.
