Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the G20 Ministerial Meeting on reforming global governance, Rio de Janeiro, February 22, 2024

Colleagues,

Maintaining the efficiency of international economic management is an invariable priority of the G20. In today’s conditions of growing global challenges and threats, the need to reform the existing multilateral system, which no longer reflects modern reality, is obvious.

The forming of a fair multipolar world order without a definite centre and periphery has become much more intensive in the past few years. Asian, African and Latin American countries are becoming important parts of the global economy. Not infrequently, they are setting the tone and the dynamics. In 2023, the BRICS countries’ share in world GDP, in purchasing power parity, grew to 35 percent, exceeding the G7’s share of 30.3 percent. According to the IMF’s latest forecasts, the economic growth rates in the emerging market countries will be higher than the global average of 3.1 percent. It will be about 4.1 percent in 2024 and 4.2 percent in 2025. Many Western economies, especially in Europe, are actually stagnating against this background. These statistics are from Western-supervised institutions – the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD.

These institutions are becoming relics from the past. Western domination is already affecting their ability to meet the requirements of the times. Meanwhile, it is perfectly obvious today that the current problems of humanity can only be resolved through a concerted effort and with due consideration for the interests of the Global South and, generally, all global economic realities.

Unfortunately, the current efforts to reform global governance institutions have stalled. The Western countries want to maintain their dominance. The US is not ready to part with the IMF’s blocking package or its main shareholder status. Washington is subverting the implementation of the 2010 agreement by the G20 leaders on ensuring broader representation from the developing nations in multilateral mechanisms. As a result, the Bretton Woods institutions are turning from professional venues into platforms for settling accounts and sponsoring the West’s political clients to the detriment of the Global Majority’s development prospects.

Institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, the EBRD, and the EIB are prioritising Kiev’s military and other needs. The West allocated over $250 billion to tide over its underling thus creating funding shortages in other parts of the world. Ukraine is taking up the bulk of the funds, relegating Africa and other regions of the Global South to rationing. The aid programme for Kiev, some $15.6 billion (577 percent of the quota), was approved in January 2023 and exceeds the six-month total of the loans provided by the IMF to all African countries.

Countries that have discredited themselves by using unlawful acts ranging from unilateral sanctions and the seizure of sovereign assets and private property to blockades, embargoes, and discrimination against economic operators based on nationality to settle scores with their geopolitical opponents cannot be considered guarantors of financial stability. The collective West is left with one path to follow which is to acknowledge the new balance of power in the international arena and to cease obstructing the redistribution of voting quotas at the IMF and the World Bank, and using the WTO as a tool for unfair competition.

Without a doubt, new institutions that focus on consensus and mutual benefit are needed to democratise the global economic governance system. Today, we are seeing positive dynamics for strengthening various alliances, including BRICS, the SCO, ASEAN, the African Union, LAS, CELAC, and the EAEU. Initiatives aimed at harmonising a variety of multilateral formats, including the Russian vision of the Greater Eurasian Partnership, are making headway as well. Clearly, the set of tools to enhance competitiveness and productivity in the global economy is expanding. Among them is the increasing percentage of transactions in national currencies, which now account for about 90 percent of our country's trade with its key partners. This is our response to the weaponising of the US dollar and other Western currencies to gain a competitive edge.

This year, Russia chairs BRICS, which saw several new members join it. We will do our best to reinforce the potential of this association and its ties with the G20. In this context, we welcome our Brazilian friends’ initiative to invite New Development Bank officials to attend G20 events. At the New Delhi summit, the G20 participants once again expressed unanimous support for “an increase in the voice and representation of developing countries and the establishment and improvement of a just international monetary system.” We believe that this time these are not just empty words, but a commitment to start practical work.

Many of our colleagues have discussed reforming the UN Security Council. The root of the problem is the same as with the Bretton Woods institutions. The developing countries are clearly underrepresented in decision-making processes. Considering that six of 15 UN Security Council members represent the Western bloc, we will support the expansion of this body solely through the accession of countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.