Chakwera takes debt relief campaign to Unga
President Lazarus Chakwera has called for the complete cancellation of all debts owed by least developed countries (LDCs), including Malawi, saying the debts are choking their quest to make progress.
The President said this on Thursday in his address to the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (Unga) General Debate underway in New York, the United States of America.
In his address made available to The Nation, Chakwera, who is the immediate-past chairperson of the group of LDCs, noted that the group lost years of progress in the decade of action towards achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to economic disruptions triggered by Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war, among others.
He said: “We need decision and action on debt, for like most [LCDs], Malawi is in distress because its debt is unsustainable, and so our call to action on behalf of all LDCs on this matter remains the same: Cancel the debts! Cancel the debts! Cancel the debts!
“That’s a decision you can make today and action you can take that would breathe oxygen into the suffocating economies of the Global South.”
In the past three years, Malawi has been battered by multiple disasters of Covid-19, cholera outbreaks, droughts and successive devastating storms, including tropical cyclones Ana, Gombe and Freddy which killed over a thousand people.
Department of Disaster Management Affairs data shows that an estimated 2 267 458 people in 16 districts were directly affected, including 659 278 people who were displaced comprising 336 252 female and 323 026 male, 679 killed and over 530 declared missing by mid-March 2023.
Said Chakwera: “So, when I say that our SDGs are under threat, the threat is real and is already here… As a nation, we took the SDGs and aligned our national aspirations to reflect them.”
In his contribution to the debate on Tuesday, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa also urged rich countries to tackle debt and debt distress to massively scale up affordable long-term financing to $500 billion dollars a year, and to expand contingency financing to countries in need.
“It is a grave indictment of this international community that we can spend so much on war, but we cannot support action that needs to be taken to meet the most basic needs of billions of people,” he said.
The two leaders also strongly advocated for radical reform in the UN Security Council, with Chakwera saying on Thursday that the council’s current structure undermines the values of democracy, inclusivity, accountability, and trust.
He said: “It is no accident that at this 78th Session of the [Unga] focused on rebuilding trust and solidarity, only one Head of State from the permanent members of the UN Security Council [US President Joe Biden] showed up. That is not how you build trust.
“Malawi joins the US in insisting that Africa must have permanent seats on the UN Security Council with veto power, because without that level of inclusivity, rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity will be a challenge.”
Ramaphosa earlier also said now was the moment to proceed with the Security Council reform to give meaning to the principle of the sovereign equality of nations and to enable the council to respond more effectively to current geopolitical realities.
On climate change, Chakwera expressed concern that rich countries responsible for high greenhouse gas emissions have not met their commitment to operationalise the Loss and Damage Fund totalling about $100 billion dollars a year for vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters in Africa and other regions to take climate action.
Over 140 world leaders are attending this year’s Unga themed ‘Rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity: Accelerating action on the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all’.
This was Chakwera’s second physical attendance of the Unga since becoming President in June 2020. He has attended two other Unga sessions virtually in 2020 and 2021 due to public health guidelines that restricted gatherings and travel to contain further spread of Covid-19.
