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DEVELOPMENT: Brazil, India, South Africa to Broaden “Voice of the South”

Fabiana Frayssinet

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 1 2009 (IPS) - The sixth ministerial meeting of the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) forum agreed Tuesday in Brasilia to strengthen the dialogue between the three emerging powers in order to establish common positions on regional and international matters and boost South-South cooperation.

The IBSA forum was created in 2003 as a mechanism for political consultation and coordination and to bolster economic relations between India, Brazil and South Africa.

IBSA provides a platform for the three large multicultural and multiracial democracies from three different continents to engage in discussions on cooperation in areas like agriculture, trade, defence and culture.

The three countries have a total combined population of nearly 1.4 billion people and a combined GDP of more than 3.2 trillion dollars.

At their meeting in the Brazilian capital, foreign ministers Celso Amorin of Brazil, S.M. Krishna of India and Maite Nkoana-Mashabane of South Africa said they hoped trade among the three countries would climb from 10 billion dollars last year to 25 billion by 2015.

In a joint statement issued at the end of the meeting, the ministers said the channel of dialogue that has been established should serve to broaden the collective voice of the South. They also called for regional cooperation mechanisms based on common experiences and complementarities.

This year’s edition of the annual ministerial meeting, which rotates between the three countries, assessed progress made by cooperation initiatives in agriculture, science and technology, trade, tourism, culture and tax administration.

South-South cooperation that, according to María Regina Soares, a professor at the University Research Institute of Rio de Janeiro (IUPERJ), is the first since the 1970s to actually begin to bear fruit, as a result of true South-South dialogue.

In an interview with IPS, Soares stressed, for example, IBSA’s cooperation in technology, and common experiences in social policies and the fight against poverty.

For instance, the “Bolsa Familia” (Family Stipend) programme of the leftwing administration of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been studied by India and South Africa, as well as many other developing countries.

The IBSA Fund for Poverty Alleviation, created to disseminate best practices in the fight against poverty and hunger in poor countries, has financed initiatives in Haiti, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Laos, Burundi, Timor-Leste and Palestine.

But Soares, the head of the South American Political Observatory, said the weak point in the dialogue so far is the question of regional security, because the three countries are in “very different regional geopolitical contexts.”

The ministers discussed positions with a view to the fourth IBSA summit, to be held Oct. 8 in Brasilia, and the next summit of the Group of 20 (G20) major industrialised and emerging nations, scheduled for Sept. 24-25 in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The joint statement included a commitment to strengthen the multilateral system and a call for a greater voice for developing nations in the decisions of multilateral bodies.

The ministers also reiterated the need for democratic reforms of the United Nations and an expansion of the Security Council, in order to increase the participation of developing nations.

In addition, the final declaration states that the international financial crisis requires coordination, as partners, among developed and developing countries – although the ministers also noted that the crisis broke out in the heart of the industrialised world.

They stressed, moreover, the need for reforms of the multilateral financial institutions and regulation and oversight of financial markets.

Soares said the strength of the IBSA forum did not necessarily make it a heavyweight or counterweight at the global level, but did do so in certain scenarios, like the G20 and the DOHA round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks – spheres where India and Brazil, for example, “play a more important role than South Africa, and where they have an influence.”

Together with Argentine analyst Monica Hirst, Soares is the author of a collection of essays that discuss the role of India, Brazil and South Africa as emerging powers and their growing importance in contemporary debates and the global order.

In that context, Soares underlined the importance of a forum that for the first time since Brazil’s return to democracy reflects the idea of a foreign policy oriented towards countries of the South.