G77 & IPS Launch Monthly Electronic Newsletter

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

77 Developing Countries Prepare a Declaration for the Conference on Trade and Development in June 1964. Credit: UN Photo/SZ

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 22 2016 - The Group of 77 (G77) has sustained a longstanding symbiotic relationship with Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency linked together by a single political commitment: promoting the interests of developing countries.

Perhaps by accident or by design, both were born around the same time back in 1964, along with the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and celebrated their 50th anniversaries in 2014.

Beginning with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, IPS covered virtually every major UN conference of the 1990s – and often, with the publication of daily conference newspapers under its flagship: Terra Viva.

Some of the lead stories in Terra Viva during the Earth Summit was the tough stance taken by the G77 in negotiating Agenda 21, the environmental plan of action for the 21st century which was eventually adopted by the conference.

The two-week long negotiations between the G77 and Western industrial nations were best exemplified in an IPS banner headline, attributed to a G77 official, which read: “We will strike with an iron fist in a velvet glove.”

The primary objective of Terra Viva was to provide a voice – and a platform – to the 134-member of G77, which remains the largest single coalition of developing nations comprising over 2/3ds of the UN membership.

Farhana Haque Rahman

Following the Earth Summit, IPS published daily conference newspapers at the Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993; the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994; the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995; the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, also in 1995; and the UN Conference on Human Settlements in Istanbul in 1996.

IPS coverage also included two South Summits sponsored by the G77, the first in Havana in April 2000 and the second in Doha in June 2005.

Additionally, IPS published a daily electronic newsletter during the G77’s 40th anniversary ministerial meeting in Sao Paolo, Brazil in 2004.

Farhana Haque Rahman, IPS Director-General, reiterated her news agency’s role as a strong advocate for developing countries while keeping critical issues such as poverty eradication, food and nutrition security, sustainability, gender equality, women’s empowerment, climate, nuclear disarmament, remittances and migration on top of the IPS agenda.

“To ensure that the world is free from the scourges of hunger and is a safe place for future generations, IPS will continue to offer news analyses and human stories on the day-to-day realities faced by people in developing countries.”

“We plan to strengthen our relationship with the G77 and will continue to work closely with members of the Group while intensifying our coverage of the socio-economic issues on the UN agenda – as we have done over the last 52 years,” she declared.

The Executive Secretary of the G77 Mourad Ahmia points out that for five decades IPS has, in its own way, contributed to the promotion of the global development agenda of the developing world.

“The integral role played by the Group of 77 in economic diplomacy and projecting the development interests of the global South is a testimony to its continued relevance in the ongoing global development dialogue,” he said.

“IPS’s priceless contribution in that endeavor translates into promoting a new platform for global governance through critical information and communication,” he declared.

Today, the G-77 remains the only viable and operational mechanism in multilateral economic diplomacy within the U.N system. And its growing membership – from the original 77 to the current 134 — is proof of its enduring strength.

Pointing out the support provided by IPS to “bring the voice of the poor to the forefront,” the 2006 Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus said: “I commend IPS for reaching areas and people that mostly remain unreached.”

Roberto Savio, one of the founders of IPS, said the news agency was created on a platform of values, to make information more democratic and participatory, and to give the voice to those who did not have one, largely from the developing world.

In 2008, IPS was presented with a ‘Leadership Award’ for its role in promoting stronger ties among developing nations and media outlets.

“We consider ourselves privileged to accept this award – and we also view this as a recognition of the work we have been doing to highlight South-South cooperation in the field of communications during the last 45 years,” said then IPS Director-General Mario Lubetkin.

“As a news agency of the global South, IPS follows the U.N. development agenda very closely,” he added.

The award was presented at that time by the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation hosted by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), which has honoured individuals and institutions for their role in fostering South-South solidarity and cooperation among developing nations.

Meanwhile, with support from the Perez-Guerrero Trust Fund (PGTF), IPS collaborated with the G77 to publish the first ever G-77 newsletter in 1988-1991: “The Journal of the Group of 77.”

Subsequently, IPS and the G77 continued to publish the Journal in 1993-1994 and 1995-2007.

The project was resumed this year– again with the support of the PGTF– this time, for an electronic monthly newsletter, THE G77 NEWSWIRE, keeping pace with the advance in digital technology.