Chair of the Preparatory Committee for UNCTAD 15 Ambassador Federico Villegas,
Acting Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Madame Isabelle Durant,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Mr. Chair,

1. I would like to start by thanking you for your leadership to this Preparatory Committee for UNCTAD 15, as well as for your hard work in preparing and presenting a very solid document that provides an excellent basis for our engagement.

2. I would also like to welcome Madame Durant in her new role as Acting Secretary General of UNCTAD in our meeting.

3. Our Group assigns high importance to the UNCTAD Conference. As we all know, the Group of 77 and China and UNCTAD share a common origin, at a time the world came together for the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, some 55 years ago in this same Palais des Nations.

4. While the world has changed, the aspiration for a fairer and more equal world remains the same today. In fact, the Covid-19 pandemic has made us this aspiration, for fairness, equality and a meaningful cooperation, if anything, more relevant than ever. Today, many developing countries have not been unable to cope with the sanitary crisis, but have furthermore seen years and decades of development advances wiped out in a very short span of time.

5. The Group of 77 and China therefore believes that we need to seize the opportunity, as you have correctly outlined in the Chair’s text, transforming our world. A transformation that needs to be multi-pronged.

6. First, we need to transform the way we deal with each other. The shortcomings of multilateralism became evident as many tried to address the impact of pandemic, by definition a global issue, with inward-looking and protectionist solutions.

7. We have built multilateral institutions over several decades that have helped maintain peace and security, averting conflicts and bringing us together. Yet it is evident that those institutions need to improve in order to address some of the more complex challenges we collectively face, such as climate change and its interrelation with prosperity and development.

8. Moreover, the massive economic impact of the pandemic has brought many developing countries to the brink of a crisis triggered by unsustainable levels of debt. An issue for which we do not have sustainable, multilateral solutions.

9. Meanwhile, one of the realities that some consider a positive externality of the pandemic the acceleration of the digital transformation of our world actually poses a threat of worsening inequality; and of leaving behind those that find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide.

10. For these and many other reasons, the Group sees in UNCTAD 15 a fundamental milestone for the transformation of our world. Just as we did when we gathered in Geneva in 1964 for UNCTAD I, developing countries see the opportunity to gather for UNCTAD 15 in Bridgetown, first a foremost, a development Conference: an opportunity to discuss the biggest development questions of our time and to chart our way forward.

11. It is therefore our hope that all of us, every member State, and regional and economic groupings of this Conference, join in striving for a Bridgetown Covenant that is aspirational, thinks outside-the-box, and looks beyond business as usual to find sustainable solutions to the big development questions of our time.

12. In the course of the next five days our Group will listen attentively and share candidly, with a view to start the preparatory process in earnest and to move forward in a constructive manner.

Mr. Chair, Excellencies, ladies, and gentlemen,

13. I do not intend to go now into the details of our position on the Chair’s draft negotiating text, which we will have the opportunity to do as this session progresses. Instead, I would like to leave us with some thoughts from the first Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Dr. Raul Prebisch, who expressed that he could be objective in discussing development, but could not be indifferent, on the struggle for development.

14. I would therefore like to invite us to embrace such a philosophy as we move forward: We can be objective and engage each other with facts, arguments and make our respective interests and views clear and transparent. Nevertheless, we need to keep in mind that we cannot be neutral nor indifferent, as we have a duty to help trace a path not only out of the crisis generated by the pandemic, but towards the more sustainable, equal and fairer world that we aspire to.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.