By Frank Kamuntu
President Yoweri Museveni has called on leaders in the world to support each other’s prosperity and ensure that nobody is left behind.
“In the one year in which you have entrusted me to head the organization, I will push those three points: production of goods and services, dealing with the issue of markets, and the issue of infrastructure. We must be able to link producers of goods and services with consumers,” President Museveni said.
While speaking to the Heads of State and Government representatives during the closing session of the Third South Summit of the Group of 77 and China at the Commonwealth Convention Center in Kampala on Monday, January 22, 2024, H.E. Museveni noted that, as someone who has been involved in resistance movements for more than 60 years, he cannot continue to watch the one-sided trend where the pockets of Africans support the prosperity of other people.
“All of us should prosper sustainably. All these decades, I have been watching the pockets of Ugandans supporting the prosperity of other people. Africa has been supporting the prosperity of others for a long time. So, this group can help us to balance that contribution to our respective prosperities,” Museveni said, adding that African countries have already embarked on the issue of promoting trade amongst themselves.
“Here in Africa, we are working with the regional markets of east Africa and the whole of Africa, but we also want trade links with our other brothers of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Group of 77. They buy from us, and we buy from them. That will push the prosperity of all of us,” H.E Museveni highlighted.
According to the President, this will be the only way to achieve the aspirations and objectives of the two themes; “Deepening Cooperation for Shared Global Affluence” and “Leaving No One Behind” for NAM and G77+ China Summits, respectively for which he has taken leadership for the next 3 years.
“This grouping is not as small as it looks. If we work together there’s nothing we cannot achieve. There’s so much we can do together,” Museveni asserted.
He however stressed that prosperity cannot be achieved if the group still has pockets of insecurity as this is among the top impediments to investment.
“This assumes that we have peace amongst ourselves. Because if we don’t have peace, we shall not achieve this. I will have to be in touch with our brothers and sisters who have got tensions or even conflicts to see how win-win solutions can be found,” the President said.
Uganda assumed the chairmanship of the Group of 77 plus China (G77+China) and President Museveni will in the next one year lead the largest negotiating bloc of developing countries in the United Nations, which provides the means for the countries of the South to articulate and promote their collective economic interests.
The Group of 77 (G-77) was established on 15 June 1964 by seventy-seven developing countries signatories of the “Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Developing Countries” issued at the end of the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.
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