President Yoweri Museveni has called on participants from member countries of the South-South Cooperation to work together to ensure global affluence for all their people.
Speaking during the closure of a 3-day South-South and Triangular Cooperation for Sustainable Development 2023 Forum at Speke Resort Munyonyo, President Museveni disclosed that to achieve global affluence, member states need to support each other by creating a sustainable market for their goods and services.
“It is now time to incorporate ensuring affluence for all our people and what it means because when I produce a good or a service, we need a consumer to buy what I produce. If I produced a good or a service and nobody buys it, then I’m stuck, we cannot have affluence. It’s now time to address the issue of global affluence, we don’t want partial affluence in only a few countries. That is a system of parasites, we don’t want parasitism, we want symbiosis where people equally gain from working together,” Gen. Museveni said.
“The situation has now changed; China has now changed that cycle of poverty, they have built a fairly prosperous society, India, even some sections of the African population have gained affluence. However, that is not enough. That is why a conference like this is good and when we talk of affluence we mean good food, everybody should have good food, not to overeat but eat sufficiently, clothes-what to wear, shelter- good houses, the locomotive- moving around by what means of transport? energy for cooking, lighting and refrigeration,” he added.
He also noted that member countries need to sustainably preserve natural resources such as water bodies, forests, and wetlands, among others to fight climate change.
The President further commended the long-standing relationship that has existed between South-South member countries saying that they have collaborated since the times of fighting colonialism.
Gen. Museveni also used the platform to call for trade among the cooperation partners and North-South members, saying that this will address the challenge of the market for sustainable development.
“As we talk about South-South Cooperation we should also talk about North-South Cooperation trade to expand our market,” he noted.
The President also emphasised the role of research and technology saying that Africa has been lagging behind because of limited involvement in the two sectors.
The Minister of State for Finance and Economic Monitoring, Hon. Amos Lugoloobi thanked the President for ensuring that Uganda successfully hosts the Forum.
“This 2nd Africa High-Level Forum of South-South Triangular Cooperation for Sustainable Development is built on the outcome of the First Forum which was organized in Cairo, Egypt in 2021. We are therefore optimistic that this Kampala Forum will achieve its overall objective of uplifting development cooperation particularly South-South and Triangular Cooperation at the bilateral, regional and continental levels,” Hon. Lugoloobi said.
The 2nd Africa High-Level Forum had a theme: “Building National Capacities for South-South and Triangular Cooperation Ecosystem in Africa and forging horizontal partnerships for sustainable and resilient societies” and it attracted a big number of participants and exhibitors from different member states of the Global South who had a discussion on very many systematic issues.
South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) is a development and humanitarian programming modality mandated by the Member States of the United Nations as articulated in numerous International Agreements and UN General Assembly resolutions.
