BEIJING: Officials and global experts highlighted the increasingly prominent role of China in championing solutions to challenges troubling the Global South.
On Tuesday, the Center for International Knowledge on Development, a Beijing-based think tank, published the Global Development Report 2023, which underlined challenges facing humanity such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis in Ukraine, high inflation, debt risks, and the food and energy crisis.
Long Guoqiang, deputy head of the State Council Research Center, said the publishing of the report is part of broader steps from Beijing to bring steer global development back on track, unite efforts to bridge the global development deficit, and accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.
The report specifically examines critical and pressing global development issues in seven areas, including poverty reduction, food security, public health, development financing, energy transition, industrialization and digitalization.
Jorgen Randers, a professor with the department of law and governance at BI Norwegian Business School, said China should be commended with having done a fabulous job over the last 40 years in increasing the well-being of the Chinese population. He said now it is important for China to teach other nations to repeat this fabulous feat in a 40-year period.
It is also important for China to show that it is possible to shift from the production of consumer goods and services to the production of well-being for the majority, he said.
As for green transitioning, he said China has the economic muscle and the will to show that green transitioning can be done, thereby being an example for the rest of the world.
Beijing has set up a Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund with total funding of $4 billion (29.2 billion yuan), and the Chinese financial institutions will soon set up a special $10-billion fund dedicated to the implementation of the Global Development Initiative.
Woo Wing Thye, a research professor from Sunway University in Malaysia, said the Belt and Road Initiative has emerged as a key initiative to build up the infrastructure and reduce the costs of transportation for countries in the Global South. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
