United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC)
High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation, 20th Session
June 1-4, 2021
Statement by the Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, QC, MP
Prime Minister of Barbados
June 1, 2021
Madam President.
I want to begin by congratulating you and the other members of the bureau in your recent election to lead this important committee.
Let me also to use this opportunity to commend the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation on successfully organizing this 20th High-Level Session in virtual and hybrid formats at this critical moment.
When we speak of South-South Cooperation, what is it really that we’re speaking about?
At its heart is the idea that with the proper support from the international community, developing countries have the potential, the ability and the will to support one another in their development paths. And let me take it one step further. South-South Cooperation must also work towards the reshaping of the international system itself to produce equitable outcomes for all countries. And that is largely because many of us simply did not exist at the time of the settlement of many of the institutions to which we now belong.
We want to be able to reflect our perspective in a real and meaningful way, in ways that will allow us to benefit across the South, such that these organizations can give full expression for the purposes for which they were created.
In the short term, in responding to our present global crisis, there can be no doubt of the benefits that South-South Cooperation has already generated for many of us. Let me cite two important examples from which my own country Barbados benefited, and which illustrate how well the system can work.
On a bilateral basis, fellow developing countries such as Cuba, the United Arab Emirates, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, to name but a few have assisted Barbados in our fight against COVID-19. They shared much needed reagents for testing, donated medical equipment and dispatched medical brigades to bolster our health care system. Equally, we received assistance from our friends in China. And within the Caribbean region, we have, through our regional institutions, been sharing data, equipment and vaccines from as far north as Cayman Islands to as far south, as I indicated, in Guyana.
This assistance is a living example of being your brother’s keeper.
I want to thank publicly each of the Heads of State and my fellow Heads of Government for coming to our aid in our time of need.
I would like at this juncture to also acknowledge the assistance provided by the Government of India. At a time when developing countries like mine were unable to procure much needed vaccines as a result of vaccine nationalism, Prime Minister Modi made a significant donation of vaccines to CARICOM, and many of our countries benefited in ways that we can truly, truly say thank you for. This is truly the ideal and the reality of South-South Cooperation at its best.
But my friends, we have to look beyond this immediate crisis to other equally grave, longer-Term systemic issues, which together we must work to address. I’ve already referred to the whole issue of international institutions to which many of us belong, but there are also two others that stand out.
First is the matter of fair access to development finance. Barbados’ classification as a highly indebted, middle-income country, upper middle-income for some, has meant that for more than a decade there has been very limited access to concessional development funding.
Indeed, we have been left for the most part to look at the markets. We have been advocating over the course of the last few years that this needs to change and that we need more inclusive mechanisms that will allow our countries to truly benefit from the concessional funds that are available – and that, more often than not, this depends on other criteria beyond per capita income that is historic.
More specifically, we have called for a more enabling global environment to consider the unique vulnerabilities faced by countries such as ours that are small island developing states. What we need is a fairer measure of that vulnerability.
As Chair of the Development Committee, I’ve been making this call and again I’m calling for an agreement on a multidimensional vulnerability index which would replace historic per capita income. This measure, of the use of historic per capita income, is unfairly applied in many instances to small island developing states who are at the frontline of different levels of vulnerability: financial, social and environmental.
As states within the global south, we know too well our experiences, whether a small island developing states or as middle-income countries that have limited access to capital markets. It is for that reason that you heard me call earlier for the urgent need for a reform of the international architecture, in particular, the international financial architecture.
We have been arguing this issue of vulnerability for over three decades and we believe that it is now ripe for us to see movement on this criteria, largely because we are seeing the vulnerabilities play out themselves day by day, week by week, year by year. It is therefore imperative that we harness South-South solidarity and action to reshape it.
The second issue, of course, is our battle against the climate crisis. This is an existential threat as we all know. Our country is doing its best to play its part. We hosted the virtual 22nd meeting of the Forum of Ministers of Environment of Latin America and the Caribbean in January of this year. The meeting saw regional Ministers come together on a range of environmental issues and called for urgent action for sustainable development in the next decade.
We have a duty to future generations to take the action now to save our environment, for we simply have limited space and limited buffer. In this area, the Caribbean continues to engage in South-South Cooperation, including with the UAE’s Caribbean Renewable Energy Fund to develop climate resilient infrastructure at the national level.
And finally my friends, Barbados will become the smallest country ever to host UNCTAD when UNCTAD 15 takes place from October 3rd to October 8th later this year in a blended format, half in person, half live-streaming. The theme for this important forum is, “From inequality and vulnerability to prosperity for all”. This is a noble objective, and the opportunity for dialog will offer the nations of the world a platform to devise new ways to use trade as an enabler of sustainable development.
We have been placed off track in the last 16 months because of this awful pandemic. It is therefore more than ever critical that we meet to see how we can do these things to achieve this enabling of sustainable development through trade as we go forward.
We also believe that the conference will play a pivotal role in supporting and strengthening South-South Cooperation through trade, integration, regional, subregional and interregional economic integration.
Madam President, Barbados believes that in tandem with North-South Cooperation, South-South Cooperation constitutes one of the cornerstones in the construction of a more inclusive, just and sustainable post-pandemic world. We must continue to harness this cooperation mechanism to fight against poverty and against inequality.
We must deepen our cooperation so that the international system can better reflect the needs of all of our countries, so that we can have a brighter and better future for all of our children. The time is upon us to recommit, and I ask all of us so to do.
I’m obliged to you.
Thank you very much.
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