India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his counterparts from Brazil and South Africa renewed their commitment to work for the expansion of the UN Security Council to include representation from developing economies of Africa, Asia and Latin America during the 11th IBSA Trilateral Ministerial Commission in New York on September 23.
At the Intergovernmental negotiations on UN Security Council reform, the foreign ministers stressed that the time has come to move towards a result-oriented process and urged the redoubling of efforts to achieve concrete outcomes within a fixed time frame through the commencement of text-based negotiations.
The leaders supported the legitimate aspiration of African countries to have a permanent presence in the UNSC and supported the endeavour of Brazil and India “to occupy permanent seats in the Security Council.”
Apart from Jaishankar, Brazil Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira and South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Grace Naledi Pandor, attended the meeting. The Indian minister led the Indian delegation for a week-long visit to New York, where he addressed a High-Level session of the 78th UNGA on September 26.
The ministers affirmed the need for a reformed, revitalised and reinvigorated multilateralism aimed at implementing the 2030 agenda, to adequately address contemporary global challenges of the 21st Century and to make global governance more representative, democratic, effective, transparent and accountable.
IBSA was created 20 years ago to promote coordination on global issues between three large pluralistic, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic democracies of Asia, South America and Africa, and to enhance trilateral cooperation in sectoral areas, providing a new framework to South-South Cooperation.
