Rifts over Ukraine disrupt UN summit on crises in the global south

Sudanese who fled the conflict in Darfur at a camp in Chad last month. There is little sign that the UN can meet its goals of eradicating poverty and hunger. Photograph: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

This year’s UN general assembly is supposed to be about the global south, addressing the social and economic development issues that many of the world’s poorer countries felt were forgotten last year in the uproar over Ukraine.

That was the intention at least, but the global rifts caused by Russia’s invasion still threaten to take centre stage. The US and its western allies have acknowledged that they cannot take the broad support of the bulk of UN members for granted in opposing Moscow’s war without paying greater attention to the priorities of the UN’s Group of 77 (G77), a loose coalition of developing countries.