President Cyril Ramaphosa has urged nations to work together to tackle a multitude of challenges facing the global economy, highlighting rising debt and climate change impacts, as burning issues.
He was giving a special address to the 55th World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday as Head of State and in his capacity as the President of the G20.
He called for collective efforts to rid the world of current conflicts causing untold pain and suffering to those affected.
“As we confront the challenges of the 21st century – from climate change to pandemics, from poverty to terrorism, from migration to artificial intelligence – we are again called upon to harness that most powerful, and that most enduring, of human attributes: mutually beneficial cooperation and collaboration.
“This is a time of rising geopolitical tensions, unilateralism, nationalism, protectionism, isolationism, rising debt levels affecting poor countries in the world and a declining sense of common purpose,” the President said.
The President emphasised that without cooperation and collaboration between individuals, groups, peoples and nations, humanity cannot progress.
“This is a moment when we should be standing together as a global community to resolve the problems that confront humanity by ending the wars and conflicts that are causing such hardship and misery to many people around the world.
“We are called upon by the exigency of the moment to act together with greater urgency to halt the destruction of our planet,” he said.
President Ramaphosa further emphasised that this is a moment where countries should harness the abundant resources they collectively possess and the remarkable technologies that human ingenuity has produced to overcome poverty and inequality, unemployment, especially youth unemployment, and the abuse of women, “once and for all”.
Important to meet needs of present without compromising future
He emphasised that countries must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
“It is therefore in the interests of all countries to act with greater urgency to reduce global emissions and for industrialised countries to support the climate actions that poorer countries must necessarily take in line with and in support of decisions of UN climate change summits,” he said.
In addition to huge gaps in economic capabilities and levels of human development, the President said countries of the Global South face a lack of predictable financing for development and climate change, high levels of debt and vulnerability to pandemics.
“Debt sustainability for low-income countries is one of the four priorities of South Africa’s G20 Presidency. In the world we inhabit today, the pursuit of equality and the practice of solidarity cannot be separated from sustainable development,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za
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