IBSA members won't accept just "dessert"

President Thabo Mbeki, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met alongside other government officials, business people and stakeholders for the one day summit at the Presidential Guesthouse in Pretoria, Wednesday, 17 October.

All three trilateral alliance leaders agreed that IBSA will make a large impact in terms of helping developing countries and showing that these countries are a force to be reckoned with.

"It is useless for us to be invited for dessert in the powerful's banquet but to miss out on the main meal," said Da Silva during the opening session.

He said that through IBSA, the countries of the south decided to unite to give a voice to the developing countries.

President Mbeki said one of the main issues on the agenda of the summit would be to find ways of implementing the agreements already in existence between the three countries and to find ways of implementing new agreements made.

"We are indeed of one mind," said Mbeki, "we can't be put in a situation where we are asked to join in the dessert and miss the main meal."

He said the summit gave all present the opportunity to reflect on what each member state has done since the first summit, held in Brazil last year. Mbeki added that he believed progress had been made in many areas and that the summit should focus on achieving outcomes.

All three leaders said people-to-people relationships in the trilateral member states was imperative for the success of IBSA. Singh said the summit should produce an agreement which would see all working group members meet at least once before the next summit which is due to be held in India next year.

The objectives of the IBSA Dialogue Forum also include the promotion of international poverty alleviation and social development, the trilateral exchange of information, international best practices, technologies and skills, as well as to complement each others competitive strengths into collective synergies.

IBSA currently has 14 working groups in action, with transport and energy being two of the key groups.

The trilateral initiative promotes cooperation in a broad range of areas, namely agriculture, climate change, culture, defence, education, energy, health, information society, science and technology, social development, trade and investment, tourism and transport.

This year's summit was pre-empted by two days of discussions held in Johannesburg and attended by members of the working groups, over 200 business people from all three countries, academics and members of the women's forum.

Article published courtesy of BuaNews