The executive vice president of the Republic, Delcy Rodríguez, denounced this Wednesday the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for refusing to provide resources to Venezuela to fight against the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic.
During his participation in the 15th United Nations Conference for Development and Trade (UNCTAD), held virtually, Rodríguez reiterated the denounce against the IMF, an organization that refuses to deliver the 5 billion dollars that correspond to Venezuela in order to cope with the pandemic:
“The reason is the expressed veto of the United States against Venezuela,” declared the vice president, denouncing that our country has been the target of more than 430 unilateral coercive measures that have blocked foreign and private trade in contravention of international laws and norms, coming to be considered as a crime against humanity.
“Venezuela joins the repeated call from different voices in the world to correct the unfair distribution of the Special Drawing Rights of the International Monetary Fund to address the effects of the pandemic,” stressed the vice president.
In this regard, she recalled that Venezuela has suffered losses that exceed more than 63 billion dollars, in the oil sector alone, due to the application of these so-called sanctions.
Development agenda:
In her presentation, Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez urged the international mechanism to assume an integral agenda that promotes a trade model to underpin development, economic health and the well-being of the peoples.
In this sense, she pointed out the need to lay the foundations for “fair trade, complementary, integrated and far from the notion of wars between trade blocs” from the perspective of development.
She affirmed that UNCTAD “must play a concrete role, in facts” so that developed countries abandon the neo-colonial vision, since they impede development with equity, the transition towards multilateralism and international cooperation.
Likewise, she indicated that the appearance of Covid 19 “evidenced the economic, ecological and ethical unsustainability of the international system” whose main reflection has been the expansion of the economic, social, cultural gap and the inequality that prevails in the current world order.
According to OXFAM data, 26 of the world’s richest people own the same wealth as half the population, while the coffers of the world’s 10 richest men rose by $540 billion during the pandemic.
Rodríguez criticized that this situation happens while 800 million people in the world are affected by hunger, according to figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
She added that “while we see millionaires who travel to space in their own ships”, more than 300 million children cannot access school in developing countries and 2,700,000 infants die from causes associated with malnutrition in poor countries.
“All this has happened while world trade has increased steadily throughout the 21st century. The increase in trade has helped to concentrate wealth in a few hands but it has not reduced poverty, hunger and exclusion in the world”, she assured.
In light of this, Rodríguez insisted that UNCTAD should expand its actions in matters of international trade, finance and investment to face the post-pandemic economic and social challenges:
“The world economic order is unjust and immoral and the multilateral organizations, each one from its own sphere of action, are obliged to work to change it. The problems of humanity cannot be overcome without addressing the profound imbalances in our society”, she stressed.
The quadrennial session of UNCTAD is the decision-making body that enables member states to assess the current state of trade and development, while advocating for the definition of global policy responses. In this sense, UNCTAD 15 represents an opportunity to rethink solutions and strengthen solidarity among peoples.
