UNITED NATIONS: Speaking on behalf of the “Group of 77” (developing countries and China), Pakistan called for emergency measures to overcome the recent “shocks” to the world economy, including the coronavirus pandemic and the spike in commodities prices that disproportionately impacted the developing countries.
“The severe global economic shocks caused by Covid-19, geopolitical instability, market volatility, have raised the sceptre of the food, finance, debt crisis and created challenges to energy security and reversed progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” Ambassador Munir Akram, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, told the Second Committee of General Assembly which deals with economic and financial matters.
Speaking in a debate on sustainable development, he said that despite best efforts, developing nations are struggling to achieve notable progress on a wide range of goals and targets.
Pakistan is the current chairman of G77 and China, which now has 134 members and is the United Nations’ biggest intergovernmental group of emerging countries.
The G77 chairman estimated the shortfall in financing for development at $5 trillion, with developing countries suffering the most in this regard, even though they are disproportionately hit by the deleterious effects of climate change.
Since these countries do not have the means to emplace systems for mitigating and adapting to climate change, it is necessary to take emergency measures, particularly for countries in distress, and to promote structural change for developing countries and those suffering from global warming, Ambassador Akram said.
“To overcome these cascading crises, restore our economies and achieve the SDGs,” the G77 chairman said, “we need to secure means of implementation through a series of emergency measures and simultaneously promote structural changes in the unequal and unjust international economic system.”
The measures suggested include:
— Mobilise urgent humanitarian, economic and financial support to developing countries which are in economic distress;
— Urgent actions to moderate food prices by enlarging food production and by supporting small farmers’ access to seeds, fertiliser and finance;
— Ensure access to energy for developing countries and explore mechanisms to reduce the financial burden of energy imports, and,
— Provide urgent and adequate assistance to countries suffering from the devastating impacts of climate change.
Beyond these emergency measures, Ambassador Akram stressed that the international financial architecture must be aligned with the SDGs, urging that developing countries have access to loans at favourable rates as well as predictable and sustainable financing to support their resilience. This should also allow them to be compensated without delay in the event of natural hazards which overburden them.
He further called for providing access for developing countries to technologies enabling them to green their economies, and for lifting restrictions that penalise them in terms of research and development, noting that this is a cross-cutting issue across the 17 goals.
“We should seek an equitable international information technology regime which bridges the digital divide and enables the developing countries to ‘leapfrog’ into the global digital economy of the future,” the G77 chairman added.
