Speech by the President of the Republic of Cuba Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, at the inaugural session of the Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Group of 77 and China on current Development Challenges: the role of Science, Technology and Innovation
Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates and guests,
You are all warmly welcome to Cuba, the land of José Martí, to whom we owe the beautiful idea that Homeland is Humanity.
Thank you for accepting the invitation that unites us today in defense of the future of the great majorities that make up the bulk of that great and unifying concept: humanity.
As the Cuban Foreign Minister announced on the eve of the Summit, this is an austere Summit, and I hope you will excuse the shortcomings you may encounter. Cuba is literally encircled by a six-decade-old blockade, and by all the difficulties that derive from that siege, now reinforced.
We also face, of course, the colossal challenges that are a consequence of the unjust international order in force, but we are not the only ones. Almost 60 years ago, it was the communion of difficulties and the hope that together we could face and overcome them that brought us into being as a group. We are the 77 and China. And we are more.
As you will appreciate these days, we lack many things, but we have plenty of feelings: friendship, solidarity, brotherhood. And we have more than enough will to make you feel like family: you are at home.
You can also count on the assurance that we will do our utmost to ensure that our deliberations lead to tangible results, in the climate of solidarity and cooperation that makes every collective mission possible.
The Group of 77 and China has the immense responsibility of representing on the international scene the interests of the majority of the nations of the planet. For historical and identity reasons, we keep the original name, but we are more, much more than 77 countries. Today we number 134, which is equivalent to more than two-thirds of the UN member states, where 80 percent of the world's population lives.
Meeting at the summit level gives us the opportunity to deliberate collectively and at the highest political level, to join forces in defense of the interests of these majorities. It helps us to reconcile positions in the face of current challenges to the development and well-being of our peoples. But it also raises questions.
After almost 60 years of diplomatic battles, in the difficult and to this day unsuccessful attempt to transform the unjust and anachronistic rules governing international economic relations, it is worth remembering the calls of our historic leaders to democratize the UN; the warnings of Fidel Castro that "tomorrow will be too late", and an unforgettable phrase of Comandante Hugo Chávez, when he said that "we presidents go from summit to summit and the peoples from abyss to abyss."
The Bolivarian leader advocated for truly useful meetings, from which concrete benefits could emerge for the peoples awaiting solutions, on the brink of the abyss into which we have been plunged by the selfishness of those who have been cutting the cake for centuries and leaving us with the leftovers.
This Summit is taking place at a time when humanity has reached a scientific and technical potential unimaginable a couple of decades ago, with an extraordinary capacity to generate wealth and well-being that, under conditions of greater equality, equity and justice, could ensure standards of living.
comfortable and sustainable for almost everyone on the planet.
If we color the space occupied by the member nations of the group on a world map, we will see two forces that no one can overcome: We are more, and we are more diverse. The South also exists, say the verses of the Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti. For all the time that the North has accommodated the world to its interests to the detriment of the rest, it is time for the South to change the rules of the game.
"It is the hour of the ovens, in which nothing but light is to be seen", José Martí would say. With the right to be - the great majority of the members of the Group of 77 - the main victims of the current multidimensional crisis that the world is suffering, of the cyclical imbalances of international trade and finance, of the abusive unequal exchange, of the scientific, technological and knowledge gap, of the effects of climate change and of the danger of progressive destruction and exhaustion of the natural resources on which life on the planet depends, we now demand the pending democratization of the system of international relations.
It is the peoples of the South who suffer most from poverty, hunger, misery, deaths from curable diseases, illiteracy, human displacement and other consequences of underdevelopment. Many of our nations are called poor when in fact they should be considered impoverished nations. And it is necessary to reverse this condition in which centuries of colonial and neocolonial dependence have plunged us, because it is not fair and because the South can no longer bear the dead weight of all the misfortunes.
Those who built dazzling cities with the resources, sweat and blood of the nations of the South, are already suffering and will suffer more in the future the consequences of the economic and social imbalances caused by plunder, because we are traveling on the same ship, although some are VIP passengers and others, their servants.
The only valid way for this world ship not to 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 hope of all.
Excellencies:
We have proposed as the theme of this Summit the role of science, technology and innovation, as essential components of the political debate associated with development.
We do so convinced that it is the achievements and progress in this field that will ultimately determine if and when it is possible to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals related to the end of poverty; zero hunger in the world; health and well-being; quality education; gender equality; clean water and sanitation; solutions to the problems of energy, labor, economic growth, industrialization and social justice.
I am absolutely convinced that it will not be possible to advance towards a sustainable way of life, in harmony with the natural conditions that guarantee life on the planet, without these premises.
And it is obvious that the transformative process towards the achievement of these objectives contemplates, in one way or another, the role of knowledge as a generator of science, technology and innovation.
The international barriers that have hindered access to knowledge by developing countries and their use of factors that are so decisive for economic and social progress must now be broken down.
These barriers are intimately associated with an unjust and unsustainable international economic order that perpetuates conditions of privilege for the developed countries and relegates a majority of humanity to conditions of underdevelopment.
Without addressing these issues, it will be impossible to achieve the sustainable development to which we all have a right, no matter how many goals are set.
Nor will it be possible to narrow the immense gap that separates the privileged living conditions of a small segment of the planet's population from the underdevelopment that is deepening among the vast majority.
Nor can we be confident that we will achieve a world of peace, in which wars and armed conflicts of all kinds will disappear.
Science, technology and innovation play a transcendental role in promoting productivity, efficiency, the creation of added value, the humanization of working conditions, the promotion of well-being and the guarantee of human development.
We are facing the greatest scientific-technical revolution humanity has ever known. Science has changed the very course of life. Human beings have been able to know outer space and devise sophisticated machines that automate even the most elementary processes associated with their existence.
The Internet has erased spatial and temporal limits. Technological development has made it possible to connect the world and eliminate thousands of kilometers of distance at the speed of a click. It has multiplied teaching and learning capabilities, accelerated research processes and endowed the human race with unsuspected capacities to improve their living conditions.
But these possibilities are not available to all.
In this regard, UNIDO has pointed out that the creation and diffusion of advanced digital production technologies (ADP) is still concentrated at the global level, with very weak development in most economies of the South. Only 10 economies - leaders in PDA technologies - are responsible for 90% of all patents worldwide and 70% of total exports directly related to them.
Far from becoming tools to close the development gap and contribute to overcoming the injustices that threaten the very destiny of humanity, they tend to become weapons to deepen that gap, bend the will of many governments and protect the system of exploitation and plunder that for several centuries has nurtured the wealth of the former colonial powers and relegated our nations to a subordinate role.
This explains why, in the midst of the most colossal scientific and technical development of all times, the world has gone back three decades in terms of reducing extreme poverty and has recorded levels of famine not seen since 2005.
It explains why in the South more than 84 million children remain out of school and more than 660 million people are without electricity; why only 36% of the population uses the Internet in the least developed countries and landlocked developing nations, compared to 92% with access in developed countries.
Consider that the average cost of a smartphone barely represents 2% of monthly per capita income in North America, while this figure rises to 53% in South Asia and 39% in Sub-Saharan Africa. There can be no serious talk of technological progress or equitable access to communications in the face of these realities.
The energy transition is also taking place in conditions of profound inequality, which tends to perpetuate itself. The disproportion in energy consumption between developed countries (167.9 GJ per person per year) and developing countries (56.2 GJ per person per year) is a consequence of the existing economic and social gap and is also the reason why this gap will continue to grow. Per capita electricity consumption in OECD countries is 2.38 times higher than the world average and 16 times higher than in Sub-Saharan Africa.
A substantial portion of the diseases most prevalent in developing countries are those that are preventable and/or treatable. The World Health Organization stated in its World Health Report that an estimated eight million people die prematurely from preventable diseases and conditions each year. These deaths account for approximately one-third of all human deaths worldwide each year.
We have a duty to try to change the rules of the game and we will only succeed if we mobilize joint action.
We all, or almost all of us, try to attract foreign direct investment as a necessary component of our development and the management of our economies. Sometimes we achieve the objective that this should be accompanied by a certain transfer of technology.
Another reality is the tendency to patent everything. This is a practice that increases the coffers of large transnational corporations in the most powerful countries and makes the remaining economies more fragile. In this way, the rampant process of privatization of knowledge contributes to widening the gap and thus limits access to development.
There is pressure on developing countries to introduce laws to protect intellectual property rights, and it is deliberately forgotten that many industrialized countries developed precisely by pirating products and technology outside their geographical borders, especially in what are now developing countries.
Patent applications continued to increase, even in the midst of the pandemic in 2020 by 1.5% and
growth in 2021 soared in 2021, growing by 3.6%. Health-related technologies continued to record the fastest growth among all sectors. During 2021, trademark applications reached 3.4 million globally increasing 5.5% over 2020. However, it was uneven by region: Asia received two-thirds (67.6%) of all applications filed driven mainly by growth in China, North America 18.5%, while Europe 10.5%. Africa 0.6%, Latin America and the Caribbean 1.6% and Oceania 0.6% accounted for the lowest percentages of total applications.
The gender gap in innovation persists. The number of personnel dedicated to research increased at a rate three times faster (by 13.7%) than global population growth (4.6%) in the 2014-2018 period. However, only one-third of researchers are women. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) men still represent a large majority of people associated with patented inventions in the world. Only 17% of the people designated as
inventors in international patent applications were women, in 2021.
The privatization of knowledge places limits on its circulation and recombination. It poses limitations to progress and scientific solutions to problems. It constitutes a significant barrier to development and the role that science, technology and innovation should play in it. It aggravates the socioeconomic conditions of developing countries.
Suffice it to say that in the midst of the greatest pandemic humanity has ever known, only ten manufacturers accounted for 70% of the production of vaccines against COVID-19. The pandemic made starkly evident the cost of scientific and digital exclusion, claiming lives and widening the gap between North and South.
As a result, developing countries had only 24 doses of vaccine per 100 inhabitants, while the richest countries had almost 150 doses per 100 people. In the face of the call to multiply solidarity and put aside disagreements, the world ended up being absurdly more selfish.
The World Health Organization has formulated the well-known 90/10 syndrome, according to which 90% of health research resources are devoted to diseases that cause 10% of mortality and morbidity, while only 10% of resources are available for those diseases that cause 90% of mortality and morbidity.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, our countries have had to go through extremely complex circumstances, in which they are still struggling to get back on their feet.
When turning to the financial markets, the nations of the South have faced interest rates up to eight times higher than those of developed countries. About one-fifth of developing economies liquidated more than 15% of their international foreign exchange reserves to cushion the pressure on domestic currencies.
In 2022, 25 developing nations had to devote more than one-fifth of their total income to servicing public external debt, amounting to a new form of exploitation.
Global spending on research and development (R&D), between 2014 and 2018, increased by 19.2%, outpacing the world economy's growth rate of 14.6%. However, it remains highly concentrated as 93% is contributed by the G20 countries.
The resources needed for a fundamental solution to these problems do exist. In 2022 alone, global military spending reached a record $2.24 trillion, or trillions of dollars. How much could be done with these resources for the benefit of the South?
Achieving universal and inclusive participation in the digital economy will require at least $428 billion to be invested in our countries by 2030, a demand that can be met with just 19% of global military spending.
However, the South seems destined to live on the crumbs that the current system has reserved for it. The International Monetary Fund's financial support to the least developed countries and other low-income countries, from 2020 to the end of November 2022, does not exceed the equivalent of what the Coca Cola company has spent on brand advertising alone in the last 8 years.
Meanwhile, less than 2% of the already deficient Official Development Assistance has been dedicated to science, technology and innovation capabilities.
Estimates indicate that 9% of global military spending could finance adaptation to climate change in 10 years and 7% would be sufficient to cover the cost of universal vaccination against the pandemic.
An international financial architecture that perpetuates such disparities and forces the South to tie up financial resources and go into debt to protect itself from the instability that the system itself generates, which enlarges the pockets of the rich at the expense of the reserves of the poorest 80% is, without a doubt, an architecture hostile to the progress of our nations. It must be demolished if we really aspire to carve out the development of the great mass of nations gathered here.
Excellencies:
It must be a priority task to demolish once and for all the research paradigms that are limited to the cultural environments and perspectives of the North, and that deprive the international scientific community of considerable intellectual capital.
This trend poses a premise for our nations: the urgency of restoring confidence in the most dynamic element of our societies: human beings and their creative activity.
In this endeavor, capacity building is key to realizing the promise of science, technology and innovation for sustainable development.
We recognize, in this regard, the merit of the Global Development Initiative, promoted by the President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping. It is an inclusive proposal, consistent with the need for a new just and equitable international order, which places knowledge-based development where it belongs, at the center of the priorities of the international system.
Although Cuba is a developing country burdened by great economic difficulties, it has scientific capabilities that should not be underestimated and that are part of the legacy of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, who with a vision of the future identified in this field a source of development.
We have a government management system based on science and innovation, which has become an important strength for the preservation of our sovereignty, with its best expression in the creation of our own vaccines against COVID-19.
However, for Cuba, connecting knowledge with the solution of development problems is a gigantic task, since these efforts must be carried out in the midst of an iron economic, commercial and financial blockade that translates into significant resource limitations.
To cite just one example, by political decision of the U.S. government, many websites dedicated to knowledge and science are specifically blocked for Cuban researchers.
This is not the scenario to expand on the impact that the criminal economic blockade of the United States has on our economy, our scientific-technical progress and our development, with a humanitarian cost that becomes visible.
But I must identify it as a fundamental obstacle, in spite of which and on the basis of an iron political will, Cuba has had the capacity to achieve indisputable results in science and innovation.
I invite you to discuss these days about the challenges of the development of our nations, about the injustices that keep us away from global progress, but also about the value of our unity and our rich wealth of knowledge.
Let us direct our reflections to the search for consensus, strategies, tactics and forms of coordination. Let us put all our assets on the table, let us enhance synergies. Let us show the value and expertise of the South in the face of those who seek to present us as an amorphous mass in search of charity or assistance.
Let us remember that many of the unique nations represented by the G-77 and China wrote impressive pages of creativity and heroism in the history of humanity, before colonization and plunder impoverished the destinies of a part of them.
Let us recover that fighting spirit, traditional knowledge, creative thinking and collective wisdom. Let us fight for our 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 condition of meek contributors of wealth for minorities. Let us fulfill together the honorable mission of completing it, improving it, making it fairer and more rational, without the permanent threat of disappearing from our dreams.
Excellencies:
23 years ago, at a meeting like this one, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro stated and I quote, "For the Group of 77 the present hour cannot be one of pleading to the developed countries, nor of submission, defeatism or internal divisions, but of rescuing our fighting spirit, of unity and cohesion around our demands.
We were promised fifty years ago that one day there would be no gap between developed and underdeveloped countries. They promised us bread and justice, and today there is less and less bread and less justice". End of quote.
The validity of these words could be interpreted as a defeat of what this Group intended and has not been able to solve. I ask you to take it as a confirmation of the long road we have walked together and all the rights we have to demand the pending changes.
In homage to those who believed and founded. In the name of the peoples we represent, let us make their voices and claims respected,
We are more. And we will win.
Thank you very much