Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi returned home from New Delhi last night after taking part in the G20 summit and addressing the event’s third and closing session on Sunday.
In his address to G20 summit’s closing session on Sunday, President Sisi stressed the need to bridge the huge technological gap between countries to avoid technological progress turning into an additional driver of inequality.
The president said he had eagerly followed statements by other leaders on dealing with global crises, and the need for a political will to take the measures deemed necessary for guaranteeing a better future for humanity.
President Sisi referred to the fears that have been rising over the past years regarding the impact of mechanization and artificial intelligence on the future of employment, with potentially negative social and economic effects doubling in developing countries that rely on labor-intensive industries; thereby possibly threatening to wither away much of the efforts that have been exerted to achieve development.
He pointed in this context to the urgent need to address the dilemma of developing countries’ debts, which have acquired serious proportions because of the burden of soaring debt servicing, not only in low-income countries, but also in middle-income ones.
The issue, President Sisi added, requires rapid decisions to prevent the outbreak of a global debt crisis.
In addition, the commitment to the sustainable development agenda and the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change require securing the necessary funding, as well as developing the international finance system and practices by multilateral development banks.
President Sisi stressed that these requirements can be met through maximizing the lending capacity of these banks, in particular soft financing and guaranteeing that climate funding will not come at the expense development finance.
Source: The Egyptian Gazette
