The Third South Summit of the Group of 77 and China (G77+China) under the theme Leaving No One Behind has been declared officially closed by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda, who is currently the Chairperson of the group, on Monday, January 22, 2024.
The summit, which was hosted by Uganda from January 21–22, 2024, in the Rwenzori Convention Centre at Speke Resort Munyonyo in Kampala, ended with President Museveni as the chair of the group, emphasizing unity in the membership and seeking them to work together for global sustainable development.
President Museveni urged the assembly to intensify efforts in the areas of production, trade, and markets to achieve sustainable development.
“We can do a lot; We need to address three areas. All people in the world should be prosperous sustainably by enabling all families, all persons who are old enough to participate in wealth creation by producing goods or services, either as an entrepreneur or as an employee,” he said.
He asked all member states to cooperate towards the production of goods and services, citing the Chinese investors who are partnering with Uganda in areas of industrial expansion, giving Kapeeka Industrial Park as one of the examples. He highlighted other investors from Indonesia dealing in palm oil who, he said, are contributing positively to the country and boosting the economy in terms of production.
“We the countries of the South, we can cooperate in the production of goods and services. Here in Uganda, we have been working with some friends like for example from China, they have constructed a number of factories. We also have friends from Indonesia who are dealing in palm oil,” President Museveni noted.
The Chairperson called upon the Assembly to adopt and embrace commercial agriculture, which Uganda is currently dealing with; for example, indigenous agriculture is being transformed and made commercial.
“Countries like Uganda are easy to move forward because we have our indigenous, our ancient production which we’ve actually modernised e.g coffee, bananas, indigenous cattle which we’re now modernising,” he said.
He emphasized the trade at both local and international market value addition. He therefore asked the member states of the two summits to help ensure that this is achieved.
President Museveni called for a linkage between the consumer and producer through ensuring infrastructure development like electricity supply, roads, citing the example of the Isimba dam and adding that the two dams are producing 900 megawatts.
During the period of his chairmanship, President Museveni vowed to push for prosperity by committing to handle the issues of the production of goods and services, trade, and infrastructure development. He, however, said that all these can be successful if peace prevails. He therefore promised to work and bring together countries undergoing conflicts and tensions.
The Concept of the Parish Development Model (PDM) which was launched by President Museveni in February 2022, in Kibuku district is one of the strategies the government of Uganda has emphasized in ensuring service delivery to improve incomes and welfare of all Ugandans at the household level.
