18th September 2023

President Díaz-Canel, speaking in his capacity as pro tempore president of the G77+China, has expressed the hope that its 15-16 September summit in Havana will pave the way for practical action, enabling participating nations to “find and design together possible solutions to the most serious problems facing our world.” 

In doing so he made clear that Cuba is hoping to achieve a consensus among the nations of the south on solutions to pressing development problems facing members of the group. Granma quoted him as saying that an “unjust international economic order” had “exacerbated the marginalisation of many countries …. with serious consequences for the nations of the South.”

The summit, which began as Cuba Briefing went to press and which was described by Díaz-Canel as a “survival summit,” had as its theme ‘The current challenges of development: role of science, technology and innovation’.

Providing more detail before its opening, Cuba’s Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, said that Cuba hoped that the event would foster “a high-level, substantial debate, with forceful pronouncements on the most pressing political and economic issues for developing nations” at a time of systemic international crisis.

Granma reported that Cuba’s principal objective in hosting the summit is to strengthen the unity of what is a very diverse but mainly non-aligned group of nations around collective and practical actions in international fora in relation to the delivery of UN’s seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed in 2015.

Meeting with the press before the event, Rodríguez described the draft final declaration, which was expected to be approved on the second day of the Havana summit, as a “progressive text” that  provides a general and critical outline of the main obstacles to the development of the nations of the South. Cuba hoped, he told the media, that the final text approved would call for the establishment of a new international economic order, and the profound reform of the world’s financial architecture.

The draft also seeks, he said, adequate treatment of growing external debt, and compliance with international commitments regarding official development aid, which he described as “a moral obligation of industrialised countries.” It would also, he said, address financing to confront climate change and contain proposals in relation to periodic meetings in the field of science, technology, and innovation. As such they will be  “a part of historical and new claims from the countries of the South,” Rodríguez told journalists

Speaking shortly after his arrival in Havana, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said that his presence demonstrated  the UN’s “very strong commitment to the efforts of the Group of 77, so that there is more justice in international economic and financial relations.” In a press conference before his departure from New York, Guterres had said that the event will serve as a preview before the forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals Summit this month, enabling the UN and government to learn about the needs and objectives of the largest group of nations within the UN. The G77+China comprises 80% of the world’s population

In New York, the Secretary General had highlighted that that the Havana summit would be of vital importance to the future path of the SDGs. “Unless we act now, the SDGs could become an epitaph for a world that could have been. It is an issue of vital importance for the bloc that brings together the global voice of the South, he said.

Guterres also emphasised that diplomacy had become more important than ever to navigate tensions in an emerging multipolar world and that dialogue remained the only way to find joint approaches and common solutions to  global threats and challenges.

Speaking in Havana, the resident coordinator of the United Nations System in Cuba, Francisco Pichón, was quoted by Cubadebate as saying that “The visit of the UN Secretary General to Cuba to participate in the Summit of the Group of 77 and China has strategic importance.” As the Group77+China constituted two-thirds of the Member States of the UN, he said, “It is a very important voice from the South, without which international consensus cannot be achieved.”

Guterres, he said wants to encourage bold proposals towards the recovery of the 2030 Agenda and how to do it effectively in their respective economic and political agendas, noting that “financing for development and the reform of the architecture of the international financial system” were central issues that countries could advance during the meeting in Havana.

The UN recently published a document indicating that delivery of the SDGs is facing serious difficulties at the midway point to their agreed full delivery in 2030.

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