Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday warned that rising geopolitical tensions, supply-chain disruptions and climate crises are increasingly hurting people worldwide and called for strengthened cooperation and support across the Global South.
Speaking on the summit’s second day in New Delhi at the BRICS meeting of leading developing nations, Modi cautioned that the “weaponization of technology and critical minerals” could impede global development and shared prosperity.
Founded in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India and China, BRICS has expanded to 11 members representing about half the world’s population and a significant share of global economic output. The bloc has pushed for greater representation for developing countries in global institutions and promoted alternatives to Western-dominated financial systems.
“The number of conflicts and tensions in the world is continuously increasing, and this is having an increasingly negative and far-reaching impact on the lives of ordinary people,” Modi said, speaking alongside bloc leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
“Pandemics, climate disasters and supply-chain disruptions have shown that in today’s interconnected world, no crisis remains confined to a single region,” he added, while announcing that BRICS had agreed to establish an integrated early warning system for infectious diseases to boost preparedness and response to future outbreaks.
In his closing remarks at the summit, Modi urged member countries to turn the summit’s agreements into concrete, time-bound measures and to move them from “files to real-life impact.”
Reflecting on the talks, he said the discussions over the past two days reinforced the belief that “BRICS is not merely a group of countries, but an ecosystem of solutions,” and he wished China success as it assumes the BRICS chair for the next term.
The group’s joint declaration on Saturday expressed concern over escalating tensions in the Middle East and Sudan and called for disputes to be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy. The bloc reiterated support for a multipolar world order and for reforms to the United Nations, including the Security Council, as well as to global financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The leaders opposed unilateral sanctions and coercive economic measures, criticized sanctions not authorized by the U.N., and warned that rising tariffs and non-tariff barriers undermine global trade and supply chains. They backed greater use of local currencies in trade, stronger cross-border payment systems and called for cooperation on food security, energy, digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence and climate action.
The declaration marked a notable diplomatic achievement, given the difficulty of forging consensus among Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — countries that hold competing positions on key regional and geopolitical issues amid ongoing conflicts and heightened tensions.
By Aijaz Hussain, Sheikh Saaliq and The Associated Press
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Source: fortune.com
