The G77+China Summit, marking the body’s 50^th anniversary, ended in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, on Sunday June 15, with the adoption of a Declaration, containing 242 articles, under the heading: “For a New World Order for Living Well”.

 

The Declaration addresses, among other things, the three main United Nations priorities for the coming year, which as Ban Ki-moon pointed out in the opening session, include: the fulfillment of the Millennium Goals of Development (and contingency measures for those which may not be fulfilled), progress in the negotiations concerning climate change (whose next world meeting is scheduled for Lima at the end of this year), and the definition of the new development goals for the period after 2015.  It also sets out new lines of action for South-South cooperation in the present context of geopolitical shifts, and proposals for strengthening and reorienting the UN, including revitalizing the General Assembly and a comprehensive reform of the Security Council, in accordance with the collective interests of developing countries.

 

The Summit also set a record for the high level participation it attracted: 13 presidents, 4 prime-ministers, 5 vice-presidents, and 8 foreign ministers, from the four southern continents, were among the delegates of the 104 countries attending, out of the 133 that make up the G77+China.

 

 

Evo Morales’ rousing opening speech at the Summit, on the evening of Saturday June 14, was a demonstration of the innovative input Bolivia has made to this process.  The Bolivian President called on the assembled representatives to agree on radical solutions to the crises that now afflict the world, with a vision from the South.  Morales, who is pro-tempore President of the G77, emphasized the growing inequalities that result from the dominant development model and the policies of the Northern countries.  He went on to propose new tasks for building a society dedicated to Living Well (Vivir Bien, the Andean concept of living in harmony with the community and with nature, ensuring the sufficient means to live well, without always seeking more and thereby depleting the resources of the planet).

 

Morales pointed out that when the G77+China was born fifty years ago, it was under the flags of the anti-colonial struggle, sovereignty and independence.  But, he noted, in spite of the struggles of peoples for equality and justice, in today’s world, planetary hierarchies and inequalities have intensified.

 

“Ten countries in the world control 40% of the wealth of the whole planet; fifteen transnational companies control 50% of world production.

 

“Today, (...) a handful of imperial powers invade other countries, block commerce, impose prices on the rest of the world, strangle national economies, conspire against progressive governments and engage in espionage against the inhabitants of the planet.

 

“An elite minority of countries and transnational enterprises impose their authority to dominate the destinies of the world, their economies, and their natural resources,” he declared.

 

The president also denounced the inequalities among regions, among countries, between social classes and among citizens: “these have increased in an entirely abusive way”, given that “0.1% of the world population possesses 20% of the human heritage.”   Thus in the United States, where in 1920, a manager’s salary was twenty times the wages of a worker, “today he makes 331 times that wage.”  This concentration of wealth and the predatory development model that is destroying nature are generating crises that render them unsustainable.  This includes the financial crisis, the food crisis, the energy crisis, the climate crisis and the institutional crisis, the Bolivian leader pointed out.

 

 

Among the tasks for building a society based on Living Well, the Bolivian President singled out the need to establish a vision that is distinct from that of Western Capitalist development, “… moving from the paradigm of Sustainable Development to the paradigm of Integral Development in order to Live Well.”  It was precisely the political proposal of Bolivia for Living Well that earned him the presidency of the G77 for 2014, when the G77 is completing half a century, as the UN General Secretary, Ban Ki-moon, pointed out in his address at the opening ceremony.

 

Morales, in his speech, also emphasized the question of sovereignty over natural resources and strategic areas.  Other tasks he mentioned include the recognition and guarantee of basic services as a human right (“the worst tyranny facing humanity is allowing basic services to be under the control of transnational corporations”, he declared); and the establishment of a new financial architecture, including banks of the South and limits on speculation and the excessive accumulation of wealth. He also called for the establishment of a great economic, scientific, technological and cultural alliance of the G77+China that would contemplate programmes of technological transference among the countries of the South.  In this framework, referring to “integration for liberation” to replace the model of “cooperation for domination,” Morales invited Russia to join the G77, as well as other countries that share common needs and commitments.

 

Calling on the G77 to “strengthen the sovereignty of states without intervention, interference or espionage”, the pro-tempore President affirmed that the Security Council of the UN should be phased out, since instead of securing world peace it has “supported war and invasions by imperial powers to take possession of the natural resources of the countries invaded.”  He also spoke of democratic renewal of States and the need to rebuild the world from the South, for all of humanity, echoing the motto, coined by the World Social Forum, that “another world is not only possible but is indispensable”.

 

Complete text of Evo Morales’ speech (in English): http://www.alainet.org/active/74698