'We walk the talk...': Jaishankar on India's unwavering commitment to South-South cooperation

Indian Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar said Saturday (September 23) that India "walks the talk" when it comes to South-South cooperation. He made these comments while addressing India-UN for Global South: Delivering for Development in New York.

The Indian foreign minister also spoke on how the G20 Summit hosted by New Delhi laid a foundation to look at development prospects with optimism.However, he also called India's G20 Presidency challenging owing to “very sharp East-West polarisation and a very deep North-South divide.”

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During his address, Jaishankar said, “Your presence means a lot to us. It also expresses the sentiments that you feel for India and underlines the import of South-South cooperation. We met just a few weeks after the New Delhi G20 Summit, a summit which took place on the theme of ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future'.”

“Now, it was a challenging summit. It was actually a challenging presidency, and it was challenging because we were confronting a very sharp East-West polarisation as well as a very deep North-South divide. But we were very determined as the Presidency of the G20 to make sure that this organisation on which the world really had put so much hope was able to get back to its core agenda,” he added.

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Jaishankar laid particular emphasis on how the development of Global South was India's top agenda at the G20 Summit. It is to be noted that India has always been a strong supporter of increasing South-South cooperation. This is even more evident as the African Union joined the G20 bloc this year.

He said that it is becoming clearer that geopolitics calculation is impacting basic requirements of countries like food and energy. The minister also affirmed that India will be a partner, contributor and collaborator to deal with development challenges.

Jaishankarsaid that G20's "core agenda was of global growth and development. So it was appropriate that we started our G20 Presidency by convening the voice of the Global South Summit. An exercise which involved 125 nations of the south of which most of you in some capacity participated."

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“Now, during the course of that exercise and the deliberations which took place through the various ministerial tracks and engagement groups, it was very clear to us that the Global South, in addition to bearing the consequences of structural inequities and historical burdens, was plagued by the impact of … and economic concentration, was suffering from the devastating consequences of the COVID and was … by conflict, tensions and disputes which have stressed and distorted the international economy," he added.

Jaishankar, along with many other world leaders, is in New York to attend the UN General Assembly. Indian foreign minister will address UNGA on September 26, as per Indian Ministry of External Affairs. Following his visit to New York, Jaishankar is due to visit Washington, DC.

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