With Development Agenda, Pakistan Elected Chair of Group of 77 in 2022

Pakistan has been elected as the next Chair of the Group of 77 for the year 2022 with Islamabad promising a development agenda focusing on debt restructuring, concessional financing, climate finance and ending illicit financial flows.

The 45th Ministerial meeting of 'Group of 77 and China' was held virtually on Tuesday, the Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) said here in a statement. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, addressing the meeting, thanked the 134 members of G-77 reposing trust in Pakistan to lead the group in 2022.

He highlighted that the world is confronted with a triple crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences; the challenge of realising the United Nations Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development; and the existential threat of climate catastrophe.

An inclusive and equitable recovery from the current crisis would only be possible if the developing countries are provided with adequate means, especially financial resources, to return to the path of sustained and sustainable economic growth, he said. He underscored that as the next Chair of the group, Pakistan would work with the members to promote a development agenda, including debt restructuring, redistribution of the USD 650 billion new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to developing countries and larger concessional financing.

He also promised to work for the mobilisation of the USD 100 billion in annual climate finance by the developed countries, ending the billions in illicit financial flows from the developing countries and the return of their stolen assets, and the creation of an equitable and open trading system and a fair international tax regime.

Qureshi emphasised that the developing countries needed to promote a Common Development Agenda to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The Group of 77, established in 1964, is the largest intergovernmental grouping of developing countries in the United Nations. It provides the means for the countries of the Global South to articulate and promote their collective economic interests within the UN system.

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