Secretary-General of the Organization of Southern Cooperation (OSC) underlined the need for reforming the international financial architecture to promote fairness.
The global financial architecture only protects the needs and interests of creditors, Secretary-General of OSC, Sheikh Manssour Bin Mussallam told ENA.
It is imperative to reform this financial architecture in a way that promotes fairness and mutual benefit of both the creditors and debtor countries, the secretary-general underscored.
‘It is true that international financial architecture remains creditor centric. It is only preoccupied with protecting the interests of creditors, but does not take into account the legitimate concerns of debtor countries like ours,’ he stated.
Mussallam added the organization of southern cooperation looks forward to working with the African Union (AU) particularly, AU Commission in particular in this regard.
‘In November of 2023, our ministers of finance decided to create a common leveraging union of models, t
he club. And the club acts as the first union of sovereign borrowers or debtors so that we can collectively negotiate debt relief but also the reform of the international financial architecture.
We cannot, whether in Africa, Latin America or Asia, transform that international financial architecture one by one, we need to come together and try to fight with creditors as well for a win-win scenario.’
Speaking on education, which the African Union has named 2024 as the year of education and its theme for its 37th annual summit, the secretary-general indicated that the education system in developing continents, including Africa, is dependent on European culture and history.
‘I think it’s not just Africa. Also in Latin America, and Asia, our education systems remain very Eurocentric. The history of the world, in our schools remains the history of Europe. We also need to reflect our own histories, our own perspectives, our own narratives. And it is not possible that education systems still consider that Af
rican history started in the 60s and I think this is where there is a lot of work to do,’ he revealed.
Accordingly, the education systems should be transformed swiftly in order to reflect the contexts, realities, needs and priorities of the African Union member states, but also that Latin America and Asia.
Mussallam also pointed out that Organization of Southern Cooperation is supporting the implementation of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is one of the Flagship Projects of Agenda 2063 Africa’s development framework.
Underlining the importance of infrastructural expansion to connect Africa, the secretary-general pledged that his organization will continue to provide the necessary support for the success of this goal.
‘We share many member states with the African Union, and therefore the continental agenda is one that touches directly our member states where we support them in terms of infrastructure development, because if we want free trade among several countries, we need the inf
rastructure for that integration.’
He further stressed the need for investing in the infrastructure to integrate the African countries, adding that ‘we are ready to support in any manner in desire for our common member states but also beyond because we believe that south-south, cooperation and African integration mutually reinforce each other’
The Organization of Southern Cooperation (OSC) was established on 29 January 2020 by countries and organizations from across the Global South at the International Summit on Balanced and Inclusive Education held in the Republic of Djibouti, it was learned.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency