Let us disuse the notion that one country is going to emerge as leader of the Global South, said Vincent Magwenya, spokesperson to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, while stressing that what is important is does the Global South have a voice in multilateral platforms that are shaping not only the future, but the global financial architecture, and also going to shape global governance.
Mr. Magwenya termed the inclusion of the African Union (AU) in the G-20 at the just concluded summit a “right step in the right direction”. Stating that South Africa has been advocating including of the AU in G-20 on various fora, he stated, “This is the first step towards the kind of reforms we would like to see in various global multilateral platforms, including the United Nations Security Council.”
Elaborating further on the leadership of the Global South, Mr. Magwenya said this notion that there is going to be competition as to who leads the Global South is something “we need to disuse ourselves from”.
Collective effort
“We should not inundate ourselves as to who is the leader of the Global South. What is important is the collective effort that we have seen coming from all BRICS member-states for example. The collective effort that both India and China have placed in ensuring that we have a summit of this nature that is inclusive,” he said. It’s the same level of effort and cooperation that they saw in the lead up to the BRICS summit, on a number of issues that had to be managed in the run-up to the summit, he said.
There was great deal of co-operation between India and China as well as with South Africa, Mr. Magwenya said on the BRICS summit that was hosted by South Africa.
With respect to focus in this summit, the spokesperson highlighted the inclusion of the voice of the Global South and including smaller countries that are often excluded from such fora. “We are very delighted that AU is now a part of the G-20.”
He said this augers very well with rest to how the global financial architecture is shaped as well as how the governance processes are approached. They will be approached now with the inclusion of the African continent, which remains an integral part of the global economy, Mr. Magwenya said, adding, “It was always amiss, that you could have such forums being hosted and conducted with the exclusion of more than 1.4 billion people.”
