By Rubén G Abelenda,
Cuban Ambassador in The Gambia
On September 15 and 16, Cuba will host a new Summit of the Group of Countries of the G77+China, which will have as its central theme “Current development challenges: Role of Science, Technology and Innovation,” and whose objective will be to draw up strategies to make the world better, more just and truly democratic.
The Havana event will bring together heads of state and government, ministers of foreign affairs and other dignitaries, at a time when humanity faces complex challenges, and unity becomes essential to overcome them.
The president of the largest of the Antilles, Miguel Díaz-Canel, stated when calling the Summit last June, in his capacity as Pro-Tempore President of the G77 and China that, at that summit collective and practical actions in the confrontation must be decided, effective to contemporary challenges.
He then added that “every minute counts in the search for solutions to the pressing problems of our people.”
He expressed that scientific-technical progress is key to achieving sustainable development, but currently it is inaccessible for a large part of humanity and particularly for the nations of the South.
Díaz-Canel stressed that the unjust international economic order has exacerbated the socio-economic marginalisation of the always dispossessed, so it is urgent to build a fairer relationship and a truly democratic and inclusive order that privileges solidarity and cooperation among all.
Since the founding of the G77, in 1964, Cuba has been an active member of that negotiating bloc of developing countries, the largest and most diverse, the one with the greatest coordination, and made up of 134 States that represent 80 percent of the population.
The historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, was always a prominent defender of that important world group.
In a meeting at the ministerial level in Havana, in 1999, he assured that “the G77 needed a collective reflection on how to face the new world realities to have access to development, eradicate poverty, defend cultures and take their rightful place, in making global decisions that affect everyone.”
Fidel highlighted that “we form a group of countries characterised by diversity in terms of geography, cultures and levels of economic development. That diversity should not be weakness, but strength.”
