India, South Africa, Cuba call for more power to Global South

Ahead of the second edition of the virtual Voice of Global South summit, India, South Africa and Cuba have called for more prominence to interests and aspirations of developing countries in multilateral groupings. 

Speaking at a conference titled G20 Delhi Summit: Inclusive Growth & Rise of the Global South in New Delhi on Tuesday, India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant made a strong pitch for accelerating reform of global governance institutions to reflect the interests of developing countries and underlined that India has made the G20 more inclusive during its presidency.

“The Global South is important because this particular year, 80 per cent of the growth is coming from the Global South. According to the IMF and World Bank, 70 per cent of the growth in the next two decades is going to come from emerging markets,” said Kant. 

“So, if growth is going to come from emerging markets for the next two decades, then you need to realign the multilateral financial institutions and the multilateral development banks to ensure that this growth gets accelerated,” he said. 

India will host the 2nd Voice of Global South Summit on November 17 in a virtual format. The second summit will focus on sharing with countries of the Global South the key outcomes achieved in various G20 meetings over the course of India’s Presidency.  

Speaking at the conference, South Africa’s High Commissioner to India Joel Sibusiso Ndebele lauded India for placing the interests of his country and other developing countries on the global agenda. Pretoria’s presidency of G20 in 2025 will further advance interests of the South, he added.

“The inclusion of the African Union as a permanent member of the G20 under India’s G20 presidency has added a further 1.3 billion people and the GDP of $3 trillion to the G20,” said the South African envoy. 

He noted that the participation of the AU will strengthen global economic governance and allow African countries to own and influence decisions on key issues. “This will further add weight to the course by developing countries in the G20 for the reform of global financial institutions and institutions of global governance.” 

Cuba’s Ambassador to India Alejandro Simancas Marin, too, praised India for defending the interests of the Global South in multilateral fora.  

” The global South, the rise of the people of the South has been a fundamental principle of Cuba’s foreign policy. We recognize the capacity of India to understand and project the aspirations and the dreams of the people of the South in G20,” said Marin.

Cuba is the current chair of the G77, a bloc of countries from the Global South representing 80 per cent of the world's population.