South-South cooperation advanced further when the two-day Africa-South America (ASA) summit concluded its deliberations on September 28 at Venezuela's Margarita Island. There the leaders of the two continents issued a lengthy declaration outlining the views of the developing South and committing the two continental blocs to cooperate in the fight against poverty.
The 12 countries of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and 49 from the African Union (AU) attended this second ASA summit which saw the participation of 8 South American and 20 African presidents, along with numerous vice-presidents and foreign ministers.
The summit declaration called for reforms in the UN Security Council to ensure greater involvement by South American and African countries and to correct the current imbalances in the UN system. In championing this position, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared: "We're 65 countries with more than one billion inhabitants who want to be heard."
The document also condemned racism, discrimination and trafficking of persons, and reasserted the commitment to intensify efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger in the context of the Millennium Development Goals.
With respect to this, the South American and African leaders urged the developed world to uphold the commitment reaffirmed in the Monterrey Consensus in 2002, whereby industrialized countries are to set aside at least 0.7% of their GDP to official development assistance in favor of developing countries. Seven years after the Monterrey conference, this commitment is still waiting to be fulfilled.
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Much discussion centered on energy and mining issues, and the leaders agreed to share and exchange experiences in terms of energy sources and savings, especially clean, renewable and alternative sources.
On the sidelines, bilateral discussions led to the signing of energy agreements between Venezuela and some African countries. These included pacts with Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, Cape Verde and Niger to study the construction of a refinery in West Africa. Venezuela also agreed to partner with South Africa's state oil company PetroSA in developing oil fields in Venezuela, and offered to help with oil projects in the other countries. The South American oil giant also signed mining agreements with Namibia and Mali.
Coinciding with the summit, the presidents of seven South American countries -- Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela -- signed the document creating the Bank of the South, which will have $20 billion in start-up capital, and to which Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela will eventually provide $12 billion in equal parts. The bank will fund anti-poverty and development projects and will hold the foreign reserves of its participating members. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez proposed that the bank should establish an alliance with a similar institution in Africa, in order to create a major "South-South" bank to finance development programs.
Touching on environmental matters, the summit, while sharply blaming the industrialized North for the rapid rise in global warming, supported the creation of a special fund to help developing countries to deal with climate-related disasters.
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