2022 BRICS Friendship Cities and Local Governments Cooperation Forum
20 September 2022
Remarks by Mr. Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator in China
Excellencies,
I thank His Excellency Mr. Lin Song Tian, President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the China International Friendship Cities Association, and the Xiamen Municipal People’s Government for the invitation to attend today’s forum.
With China this year having assumed the BRICS chairmanship, today’s forum is a timely opportunity to explore partnerships under the BRICS Trade and Investment Cooperation Framework.
Three years on, the world is still recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, trying to build back more resilient and sustainable economies in a time of continued uncertainty.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said a staggering 100 million people have now been forced to flee their homes globally, highlighting worldwide food insecurity, the climate crisis, and conflicts spanning Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, from Africa to the Middle East and Asia as leading causes. This is a number far greater than during the Second World War.
Conflicts and instability has had an undeniable impact on the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, as the effects of the climate crisis and long-standing global inequalities have only accelerated.
The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres emphasizes that these are interlinked crises that extend beyond national borders, making the role of international cooperation more vital than ever.
In the last decade the BRICS grouping of major emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa - has become an important platform for cooperation.
Multilateral cooperation underpinned by international norms and standards is our only choice if we are to have an effective response to shared challenges related to peace, human rights, and development, the Three Pillars of the UN.
If unaddressed, deteriorating relations and the decline of public trust in multilateralism will continue to disproportionately impact the people and countries most in need of assistance.
Here, we welcome enhanced efforts, including from BRICS countries, to advance partnerships and pursue development cooperation that accelerates global progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The BRICS Friendship Cities and Local Government Cooperation mechanism proposes to increase engagement between cities and local bodies, promoting people-to-people cooperation, learning, and collaboration at the government level.
To leave no one behind, BRICS countries must use opportunities from South-South cooperation efforts and mechanisms like those discussed here to better mobilize resources for vulnerable developing countries.
As the UN Resident Coordinator in China, the UN Country Team I lead is committed to promoting these new modalities of development cooperation, by offering its support in capacity building and technical expertise.
With a combined population comprising 35 per cent of the world’s total, cooperation between China and Africa has global implications.
On this, the African agenda of the BRICS grouping should allow for more meaningful engagement of countries in Africa, to allow for more equitable, responsive, and sustainable outcomes.
In such efforts, the UN in China is working closely with representatives of African countries in China alongside the Government of China under collaboration mechanisms established under the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.
Here, the UN in China has proposed a flagship initiative—the China-Africa SDG Partnership Platform—that aims to bring together the UN, government, private sector, and other stakeholders from China and Africa to work towards rural development and food systems transformation.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
At the 14th BRICS Summit and in the Beijing Declaration, an important commitment was made,which I quote, “We reiterate our commitment to multilateralism through upholding international law, including the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations as its indispensable cornerstone, and to the central role of the United Nations in an international system in which sovereign states cooperate to maintain peace and security, advance sustainable development, ensure the promotion and protection of democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, and promoting cooperation based on the spirit of mutual respect, justice and equality.”
As the United Nations family, we welcome this important statement of purpose by the BRICS family.
We see the opportunity to leverage China’s resources, expertise, knowledge and experiences beyond its national borders, including through the proposed Global Development Initiative, which, if well aligned with recognized international norms and standards, holds the potential to accelerate global progress on the SDGs.
But to realize the promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we must work together.
I leave you with the words of former South African President Nelson Mandela, who said, “We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road”.