The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) held on Monday the first virtual meeting with representatives from 19 research institutes of the Global South, where they proposed to jointly draft a document compiling post-pandemic proposals and anti-capitalist visions to be presented in forthcoming international fora.
The ALBA-TCP Executive Secretary, Sacha Llorenti, explained they discussed the creation of a research network and the jointly construction of a proposal for action for a post-pandemic world that includes the lessons learned amid the sanitary crisis, the challenges to be faced as a human family and how to ensure the construction of a new international order with justice and respect for the self-determination of the peoples without violence.
Llorenti pointed out that further meetings will be convened with the aim to have a consolidated document containing concrete proposals for the planet and to be presented in the next session of the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Likewise, the ALBA-TCP executive secretary remarked that while the United States calls these institutes “think tanks,” a term that denotes their militarized mentality, focused on violent, destructive actions, ALBA-TCP, on the contrary, is an alliance for life. He explained their task is to organize, articulate and develop their own thinking for social struggle and transformation.
Vijay Prashad, executive-director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, explained the world is experiencing an important moment with a COVID-19 pandemic that has exposed further the fragility of the capitalist system. Hence the transcendence that ALBA-TCP convenes this meeting with insurgent institutes to develop a platform in the short term enabling the governments and peoples of the south to have an intellectual leadership in the battle of global ideas.
In this regard, he presented the working methodology and schedule to draft a document they expect to present on September 21 on the 60th anniversary of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and later at the UN General Asembly.
The President of the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and solidarity among the Peoples (ISB), Carlo Ron, highlighted that this meeting represents an opportunity to have a vision for the future, “where we are heading and how we can think ideas in areas such as food, economy, public policies, among others, where we can help popular governments carry out projects for the benefit of humankind.”
Also, the representative of the Samuel Robinson Institute, Diego Sequera, explained that the definition of Global South does not necessarily refer to a geographic category; it rather involves the south of the world in a broader sense. Sequera added that crises represent an opportunity to produce innovations, and called on to build a path towards what is unknown by using everything we have learned so far.
In addition to the aforementioned institutes, the meeting was attended by representatives from the América Latina en Movimiento (Ecuador), the Research Center on Congo, the Centro de Investigación de la Economía Mundial (Cuba), the State Reform Center (Italy), the Chris Hani Institute (South Africa), Lebanon’s Consultation and Research Institute, Dominica’s State College, the Instituto Internacional de Investigación Andrés Bello (Bolivia), the Instituto Patria (Argentina) and the Institute of Employment Rights (United Kingdom), among others.
The meeting was also attended by Venezuela’s Minister of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza, the Foreign Vice-minister for Multilateral Affairs Daniela Rodríguez and the President of the Bank of ALBA Raúl Li Causi.