Sisi at G20 urges settling debts of developing countries, securing needed climate financing

10 / 09 / 2023

By Marwa Nassar - -

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi called for settling the issue of debts of developing countries as well as securing needed climate financing in order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.

Addressing the closing session of the G20 Summit in New Delhi, Sisi said “there is an urgent need to address the debt problem of developing countries, which has taken on dangerous dimensions, as a result of the high burdens of debt service, not only in low-income countries but also in middle-income countries. This requires prompt and decisive resolutions to prevent the outbreak of a global debt crisis.”

He added that “Under commitment to the Sustainable Development Agenda and the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, we have to ensure the availability of the necessary financing and improve the international financing system and the practices of multilateral development banks. This can be achieved by boosting their lending capacity, particularly through providing concessional financing, while ensuring that climate finance will not affect development finance.”

“I would like to reiterate, in Egypt’s capacity as COP27 chair, the importance of providing the means for implementation, in terms of funding, through the fulfillment of the developed countries’ commitments, in addition to the transfer of technology, he underlined.

Sisi also highlighted the need to bridge the huge technological gap among countries so that technological progress would not become an additional driver of inequality.

“It is no secret that concerns have been growing for years with regard to the impact of automation and Artificial Intelligence, AI, on the future of employment. This could cause doubled negative social and economic impact on developing countries that rely on labor-intensive industries. This could also jeopardize the progress achieved in development efforts,” Sisi expounded.

“Let us also agree that to move toward the future and toward solutions based on multilateral cooperation, we need to promptly address existing challenges, before they exacerbate and cause crises that are hard to resolve,” Sisi highlighted.