“Grateful for Indian leadership”: South Africa lauds African Union inclusion in G20
Sep 09, 2023
New Delhi [India], September 9 : The spokesperson to the South African President lauded the Group of Twenty’s (G20) decision to add the African Union as a permanent member of the bloc, saying, “we are grateful to India’s leadership in this regard”.
In a landmark development, African Union was made a full member of the Group of Twenty on Saturday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his inaugural address of the first session of the Global Leaders’ Summit, announced that the African Union has been made a full member of the G20 on Saturday.
Vincent Magwenya, spokesperson of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking on the G20 presidency of India, said, “We're quite delighted at the leadership demonstrated by Prime Minister Modi, and demonstrated by the Indian government during its presidency of the G20.”
“Prime Minister Modi has sought to focus this summit to opening up space for the Global South, to ensuring that the voices of many smaller developing economic countries that were often excluded from these forums are included and that they are heard. So, we are delighted at the development of the EU included as a member of the G 20, and we are grateful to India's leadership in this regard,” he added.
On India rising as the voice of the Global South at G20, Magwenya said that South Africa shares a lot of common challenges with India, particularly with respect to climate change, and those issues cannot be resolved through exclusive approach.
“Well, it has always been important, and put it this way, it was always a myth that you will have such forums for international economic cooperation running with the exclusion of large parts of the world. Now we are moving towards a direction that includes those parts of the world that were excluded. We share a lot of common challenges, particularly with respect to climate change, and those issues cannot be resolved through exclusive approaches, they have to be inclusive,” Ramaphosa’s spokesperson added.
When asked about impact of AU’s inclusion in G20 on African continent, he said, “It's very important development to have the African continent included in such forums and processes. And we see it as an important step that signals more reform processes that we would like to see with respect to the United Nations Security Council, with respect to your global, multilateral financial institutions.”
Adding the African Union as a member of G20 was among India's key aims to achieve during the ongoing G20 summit. African Union is a continental union consisting of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The move to include the African Union into the G20 grouping was proposed by PM Modi earlier this June.
