Speech by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the second virtual Voice of Global South Summit

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke this Friday morning (November 17) at the second virtual Voice of Global South Summit, by invitation of the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, who hosted the event. Also in virtual format, the first summit took place on January 12 and 13 this year. The event brought together 125 countries to exchange ideas about priorities, challenges and solutions from the perspective of the developing world.

President Lula was the second head of state to speak, after the Prime Minister of India, as the next president of the G20. In this closing session, the heads of State and Government of Bahrain, Egypt, Guyana, Jamaica, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Serbia and Trinidad and Tobago spoke.

Full speech below:

I congratulate Prime Minister Modi for this timely initiative of bringing the Global South together in such a challenging context.

Being here reminded me of a very famous work by Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres García called “Inverted America.”

He portrayed South America upside down.

He placed the Southern Cone – which tends to be distorted on traditional maps – at the top of the image, and the Northern Cone at the bottom.

In this way, he demonstrated how –– recklessly –– we often adopt other people's points of view even though they do not favor us.

Our countries were once called the third world and developing countries.

We were divided into emerging countries and less developed countries; and into middle-income countries and low-income countries.

There are those who question the concept of a Global South, saying that we are too diverse to fit into it.

But there are many more interests that unite us than differences that separate us.

Embracing our identity as the Global South means recognizing that we see the world from a similar perspective.

For decades, we have worked together towards a more equitable world.

We faced the challenge of decolonization, we took on the challenge of development and now we have to embrace the challenge of peace.

Our most recent mobilization resulted in the Sustainable Development Goals –– which are the most faithful summary of our joint aspirations.

But only a fifth of these goals are progressing as expected. The implementation of one third of them is stagnant or has regressed.

When I spoke from the rostrum of the UN General Assembly in September, I proposed that we take the reduction of inequalities as our ultimate goal.

Otherwise, the gap between rich and poor countries will only grow.

We will fail for the millions of people who are hungry around the world while billions of dollars are spent waging wars.

We will be the most affected by climate change, even though we have not historically been the ones most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions.

We will become victims of a new predatory race for natural resources, including critical minerals, without the opportunity to diversify our production bases.

We will still have scarce access to medicines, repeating –– in the words of the WHO director general – the “vaccine apartheid” that we saw in the Covid-19 pandemic.

We will experience the impact of artificial intelligence on our jobs, without participating in its regulation.

And many of us will continue to be suffocated by debts that limit the State’s ability to promote sustainable development.

Brazil’s presidency of the G20, which begins in December, will –– as India’s did, Indonesia’s did before it and South Africa’s will certainly do after us – shed light on the needs of the Global South.

We will dedicate special task forces to fighting hunger and tackling climate change, the two greatest emergencies of our time.

At COP30 –– which we will host in the heart of the Amazon ––, we will insist that developed countries take on more ambitious goals and fulfill their commitments.

To advance these issues, it will be essential to address the issue of global governance reform.

The humanitarian tragedies we are witnessing highlight the failure of international institutions.

Because they do not reflect current reality, they have lost effectiveness and credibility.

During our term at the UN Security Council, Brazil has worked tirelessly for peace.

But solutions are repeatedly frustrated by the right of veto.

We need to restore trust in multilateralism.

We need to recover our best humanist traditions.

Nothing can justify the fact that the main victims of wars are women and children.

We must restore the primacy of international law, including humanitarian law, which applies equally to everyone, without double standards or unilateral measures.

As the Global South, our intention is not –– and should never be –– to antagonize the so-called North.

However, a fair international order demands that we all have a voice –– and we will speak louder if we speak together.

Thank you very much.

(*) Compare with the oral version.