By Amy Musgrave
President Cyril Ramaphosa has reiterated that bodies like the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund need to be fundamentally reformed.
In his weekly newsletter, Ramaphosa reflected on his visit to New York where he attended the UN General Assembly.
In South Africa’s address to the General Assembly last week, he repeated South Africa’s position that sustainable development could only be achieved when it was being driven by inclusive, responsive and agile multilateral institutions.
Ramaphosa cited the Covid-19 pandemic as an example of where the serious shortcomings of the international financial architecture were exposed.
“Low income countries struggled to get financial and other forms of assistance from multilateral institutions to support their pandemic response.
“Onerous lending requirements and overly bureaucratic systems meant that many poorer countries were unable to get help when they needed it most,” he said.
Similarly, developing economy countries also struggled to get the funds they needed at a sufficient scale, to respond to climate change and its impact.
“This is largely because the northern hemisphere countries that are largely responsible for the damage to the climate have not met the commitments they made at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015,” the president said.
For many countries in Africa and the Global South, the cost of servicing their debt was diverting much-needed funds for development, he warned.
Meanwhile, South Africa has endorsed the call made in the Pact for the Future for global financial institutions that are better, bigger and bolder, and are able to address the scale of the challenges facing the world.
INSIDE POLITICS
