Voice of Global South Summit: Leaders expressed concern over Israel-Hamas conflict, says Foreign Secy Kwatra
Nov 17, 2023
New Delhi [India], November 17 : Foreign Affairs Secretary Vinay Kwatra said on Friday that the issue of Gaza was raised during the 2nd Voice of Global South Summit and leaders underlined ongoing conflict in three aspects, 'terrorism', 'humanitarian crisis' and the loss of 'civilian lives'.
"There was a fair number of leaders spoke about their concern relating to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Each leader spoke about their own perspective on how they look at the current situation there. So many leaders spoke about the challenge of terrorism, which comes from there, the need to provide humanitarian systems there, horror at the civilian casualties because of the conflict. These three were kind of threads which were sort of common to almost all interventions," he said.
He added, "So it was discussed, members, the leaders expressed strong concern of the deteriorating security situation, which has very clear implications of all kinds in many of the countries. Prime Minister Modi himself spoke about the challenge there. So, yes, there was a discussion on this to that extent."
While addressing the post-2nd Voice Global South Summit press briefing, Kwatra also shared that the leaders also strongly raised the issue of the debt burden laid on the countries for the climate crisis or for energy transitions. He said that it does not impose a debt burden on the structural parameters of the country's economy.
He said, "With regard to the debt burden, this came across very strongly in multiple sessions because financing is a kind of need which stretches across different areas of development, cooperation and economic growth of a country. It is also very structural to some of the challenges that are being faced by many of the global south countries."
He said further, "We also have very clear and strong developmental priorities across various sectors, and we have the strong challenge of climate crisis, in fact, and this came across very strongly. And everybody's intervention essentially spoke of the need that when they access this financing for their development projects for climate crisis or for energy transitions, it should be in a manner and of a kind that does not impose a debt burden on the structural parameters of the economy. It should be more sustainable."
He also affirmed that India is willing to share digital payment methods with the global south and emphasised that the payment method increase transparency and remove corruption.
He said, "There was almost a universal appreciation that India was willing to consider offering not just other capacities, but particularly the digital space, where the intellectual property for the digital stack, the investments and the initiatives that have been taken in India are essentially all Indians. India has built as per its initiatives, and India would be very happy to share it with the countries of the global south again in a manner that is sustainable and non-debt-causing. "
He added, "If you are looking at digitising health initiatives that lead to better pandemic preparedness, the delivery of vaccines, and the mapping of vulnerable populations for communicable or non-communicable diseases, then that is important. If you are looking at financing space, then the transparency in the development financing will lead to the removal of corruption in the financing space. It was discussed there that payment initiatives bring about strong efficiencies in the delivery of governance."
