The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday urged the Group of 77 and China (G77+China) to fight for the right to development as a way to participate in the scientific-technical revolution of the world under conditions of equality.

Havana, Cuba.- At the opening of the bloc's summit, which is taking place on Friday and Saturday at Havana’s International Conference Center, the President noted that this event is taking place when humanity has reached a scientific-technical potential that was unimaginable a couple of decades ago.

According to Díaz-Canel, this implies an extraordinary capacity to generate wealth and well-being that, under conditions of greater equality, equity, and justice, could ensure decent, comfortable, and sustainable living standards for almost all the inhabitants of the planet.

In that regard, we are facing the greatest scientific-technical revolution that humanity has known, with technological progress that has allowed us to connect the world and endowed the human race with unsuspected capabilities to improve their living conditions, he added.

However, these possibilities are not available to every one, since, far from becoming tools to close the development gap, they tend to become weapons to deepen these differences and protect the system of exploitation and plunder that for several centuries has fueled the wealth of the former colonial powers, he regretted.

This explains why, amid the most colossal scientific-technical development of all time, the world has gone back three decades in terms of reducing extreme poverty and has recorded levels of hunger not seen since 2005; and that in the south, more than 84 million children remain out of school and more than 660 million people lack emitted.

We must try to change the rules of the game and we will only achieve it if we mobilize joint actions, the President of Cuba said before the more than 100 delegations that are participating in the G77+China Summit, including dozens of heads of State and Government.

The Cuban President questioned the functioning of the current international economic order and pointed out that the South seems destined to live off the crumbs that the current system has reserved for it.

Let us remember that many of the unique nations represented in the G77+China have written impressive pages of creativity and heroism in the history of humanity, before colonization and plunder impoverished the destinies of a part of them, he said.

Let us recover that fighting spirit, traditional knowledge, creative thinking, and collective wisdom, added Díaz-Canel, who called to fight for the right to development, “which is also the right to exist as a species.”

“Only in this way will we be in a position to participate in the scientific-technical revolution on an equal footing. Only in this way will we be able to occupy the place that belongs to us in this world where they try to relegate us to the status of meek contributors of wealth for minorities,” he considered.

CUBAN PRESIDENT CALLS ON G77+CHINA TO FIGHT UNJUST ORDER

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday called on the member countries of the G77+China to create consensus, strategies, and forms of coordination to fight the imperial forms of domination that prevail in the world.

Díaz-Canel condemned the current international order that limits the possibilities of the States with fewer resources to develop and perpetuates a cycle of technological dependency.

"It is the people of the South the most affected by poverty, hunger, misery, deaths from curable diseases, illiteracy, human displacement, and other consequences of underdevelopment," he expressed.

The Cuban head of State added that this condition was due to centuries of colonial and neocolonial dependence and that the South no longer bears the dead weight of all the misfortunes.

“The only valid path for this world ship does not end up like the Titanic is cooperation, solidarity, the African philosophy of Ubuntu, which understands human progress without exclusions, where the pain and hope of each one is the pain and the hope of all,” he stated.

The Cuban President pointed out that the achievements and breakthroughs of Science, Technology, and Innovation – the themes of the Summit – will contribute to achieving zero hunger, health care, well-being, clean water, gender equality, and economic growth, among other aspects.

“It is necessary to break down the international barriers that have hindered the developing countries from having access to knowledge and their use of such determining factors for economic and social progress,” he said.

These obstacles are associated with an unjust and unsustainable international economic order, which perpetuates privileged conditions for the developed countries and relegates a majority of humanity to conditions of underdevelopment, Díaz-Canel pointed out.

“The Internet has erased spatial and temporal boundaries, but its vast possibilities are beyond everyone’s reach,” he said.

He noted that far from becoming tools to fill gaps, patent policies tend to become weapons to deepen those differences, break the will of many governments, and protect the system of exploitation and plunder that for several centuries has fueled the wealth of the former colonial powers.

This explains why, amid the colossal scientific-technical development of all time, the world has gone back three decades in terms of reducing extreme poverty and has recorded levels of hunger not seen since 2005, he remarked.

We have to try to change the rules of the game, and we will only achieve this if we mobilize joint actions, Díaz-Canel emphasized.

The G77+China Summit, whose pro tempore presidency Cuba holds, will conclude on Saturday. (PL)