DEVELOPMENT: Final Stretch of Preparations for G-77 Summit

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Mar 20 2000 (IPS) - Preparations in Cuba for the meeting of heads of state and government of the 133-member Group of 77 (G-77) representing the developing world are reaching the final stretch this week, with a business meeting to be attended by delegates from some 30 nations from the developing South.

The gathering convoked by the G-77 chambers of commerce organisation to address “the challenges of the business community of the South in the new millenium” will be the last sectorial meeting prior to the Apr 10-14 summit to take place in Havana.

The agenda of this week’s business meeting covers issues like access to markets, the competitiveness of firms from poor countries and the financing of small and medium-sized companies in the 133 members of the G-77, which was created in 1964 by 77 nations.

Cuba’s chamber of commerce pointed out that the questions to be debated Tuesday through Thursday were all challenges faced by businesses in the developing South when it came to competing with transnational corporations “in today’s globalised world.”

Business delegates from Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, China, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Lebanon, Mexico, Rumania, Uganda and Uruguay have confirmed their participation at this week’s meet.

Sources at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said the process of extending invitations to the April summit, with special envoys sent by President Fidel Castro to the leaders of each G-77 nation, had been completed.

“Summons issued by Cuba tend to evoke strong responses, and I can tell you there has been great receptivity since the summit was convoked,” commented the Foreign Ministry’s deputy minister of multilateral affairs María de los Angeles Florez, in an interview published in the latest edition of the Cuban magazine ‘Bohemia’.

Florez said her country expected “a good number, and a very representative number” of presidents, some of whom have expressed their interest in taking advantage of the occasion to make official visits to Cuba.

Some 50 to 60 heads of state or government have reportedly confirmed their attendance at the summit, but the government- monopolised press has refrained from providing names, in case of last minute changes.

This will be the largest summit ever hosted by Havana, which in 1979 organised the Sixth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, attended by 48 heads of state and government and other senior officials representing the 92 countries comprising the group at that time.

During the summit, “besides the general debate, an interactive dialogue” between leaders is expected to take place on a “more informal level, and perhaps without a preestablished agenda, which will allow them to discuss the issues they decide on themselves,” said Florez.

This kind of “direct diplomacy” was experimented with at the ninth Ibero-American Summit held in the Cuban capital last year, said the official, who pointed out that it enabled frank exchanges “without protocol, which has many advantages.”

The summit will adopt a declaration and plan of action that will address the four overlying issues on the agenda: relations between the industrialised North and the developing South; the globalisation of the economy; South-South cooperation; and knowledge and technology.

The deputy minister described the final declaration, the draft of which has been circulated among the members of the G-77, as concise and visionary, “with a strategic projection towards the future.”

The Cuban government believes the summit could come up with concrete results in terms of South-South cooperation. “I believe that each country can make contributions to common, regional or even bilateral projects,” said Florez.

Cuba sent the G-77 a packet of proposed cooperation projects to contribute to “redressing, in practice, pressing questions like health, education, research and others,” she added.

This Caribbean island nation of 11 million has ample experience in the area of cooperation.

According to official figures, 4,359 Cubans are presently providing technical and professional support to 90 countries of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and Europe, mainly in the areas of medicine, sports, higher education, construction, electricity, hydraulics, agriculture and research institutes in a number of fields.

Cuban authorities also hope that the April summit will help developing nations reach agreement on common positions vis-a-vis the industrialised North, “whose demands predominate at the international level,” said Florez.

Also invited to the summit were representatives of the 56 United Nations member states that are not part of the G-77, and of multilateral lending institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.