G77 Summit Urges Reform of Global Financial Architecture and Access to Technology

The two-day summit of the G77+China in Havana ended Sept. 16 with the issuance of a final declaration on “Current Development Challenges: the Role of Science, Technology and Innovation”, which calls for the “comprehensive reform of the international financial architecture” and a “more inclusive and coordinated approach to global financial governance with greater emphasis on cooperation among countries.”

In opening the gathering of the group, which now includes 134 member countries, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel stated that the priority task is “to fight for the right to development, which is also the right to exist as a species.” It’s time, he said, for the nations of the Global South “to change the rules of the game.”

As the Havana Declaration repeatedly states, changing the rules of the game means that developing countries must act together for global development and “‘win-win’ cooperation for scientific and technological development.” They must have access to science, technology and innovation with all the benefits these entail: economic growth, industrial development, solving problems to guarantee clean water, sanitation, energy, combating disease and eradicating poverty. The final declaration makes this point throughout, while fiercely attacking the criminality of imposing unilateral sanctions “with extraterritorial impact and all other forms of coercive economic measures” on developing nations which have devastating results.

South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor noted that “as the South, we must seize this historic moment to ensure we develop the ability to be free agents of a development agenda that will advance our battle against poverty inequality and unemployment”. Brazilian President Lula da Silva slammed the U.S. for its “illegal” economic embargo against Cuba, and offered Havana a number of economic deals, which it very much needs, especially food.

Li Xi, of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC), emphasized that the world “is undergoing changes on a scale unseen in a century. Developing countries are becoming stronger. A significant shift is taking place in the international balance of power.” Indeed…