Two of the southern hemisphere’s powerhouse economies sat down in Pretoria on Wednesday with a shared mission: to turn their long-standing friendship into prosperity for their people. International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola co-chaired the Eighth Session of the South Africa-Brazil Joint Commission alongside Brazil’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mauro Vieira.
Delivering the opening remarks, Lamola said the two countries’ Strategic Partnership positions them to advance a stronger Global South voice, champion reform of the global financial architecture, and ensure that critical minerals drive industrialisation and prosperity at home.
Leading economies, natural partners
As two leading economies on our continents, Brazil and South Africa are bridge builders between the countries of the global North and the global South.
Lamola noted that the two nations have consistently pursued common positions in multilateral forums, particularly on reforming global governance to better reflect the aspirations of the majority of the international community. As founding members of the G20, he said, Brazil and South Africa have used the forum to place global economic imbalances under the microscope and to advance concrete reforms that would free up resources for hospitals, classrooms and development across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Critical minerals, shared opportunity
The Minister singled out critical minerals as an area of enormous promise. Both countries are richly endowed with the minerals needed for the global transition to a green economy, and Lamola said the partners can pursue a new development model in which those resources fuel industrialisation, skills development and technological advancement in their own economies, rather than simply being exported as raw materials while value is created elsewhere.
“Our countries have not hesitated to use their voice and soft power to call attention to the challenges and crises bedevilling countries of the global South,” he said, adding that joint efforts between Pretoria and Brasilia are more important than ever.
A partnership with momentum
The Joint Commission gives structure to a relationship that spans trade, science, agriculture, energy and culture, and the Pretoria session sets the agenda for the next phase of cooperation. For South Africa, the message from the talks was clear and confident: Mzansi is not waiting on the sidelines of a changing world. It is helping to lead, building bridges across oceans and shaping a fairer global economy in which the Global South writes its own success story.
Source: SAnews.gov.za
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
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