Modi announces a series of initiatives to support Global South
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced a series of initiatives to support the Global South that included a project to provide essential medical supplies to the developing nations in case of natural disasters or humanitarian crisis, and a technology initiative to share India’s expertise in areas like space technology and nuclear energy.
In his address at the concluding session of the two-day Voice of Global South virtual summit, PM Modi also unveiled plans to set up a ‘Global South Centre of Excellence’ for research on development solutions that can be scaled up and implemented around the world.
At a media briefing, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra said 125 countries including 47 from Africa, seven from Europe and 29 from Latin America and Caribbean region participated in the summit and it was “truly a voice” of the Global South with the participants “strongly” and positively responding to the Indian initiative.
In his remarks, PM Modi described the summit as the “largest-ever” virtual gathering of the Global South.
India organised the summit to give voice to the concerns and challenges facing the developing nations amid increasing geo-political turmoil. The list of participating nations did not figure Pakistan, Ukraine and China.
Asked whether India’s hosting of the summit was indication that it was looking at an alternative to UN to address certain concerns, Mr Kwatra said “We often find that the problems, perspectives, concerns, priorities often do not get adequately addressed in the established institutional framework.” He said India felt that there is a need for that “voice to be heard, for those priorities to be understood, for those concerns to be addressed and for those perspectives to be fully factored in across a set of all institutional mechanisms, including particularly the G20”.