HAVANA: The G77+China, a group of developing and emerging countries representing 80 per cent of the global population, gathers on Friday in Cuba seeking to promote a “new economic world order” amid warnings of growing polarisation.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, who arrived on the island on Thursday, will join some 30 heads of state and government from Africa, Asia and Latin America at the two-day summit in Havana.

The meeting should conclude on Saturday with a statement underscoring “the right to development in an increasingly exclusive, unfair, unjust and plundering international order,” the foreign minister of host Cuba, Bruno Rodriguez, told reporters on Wednesday.

A draft of the closing statement underlines the many obstacles facing developing nations, and includes “a call for the establishment of a new economic world order,” he said.

The bloc was established by 77 countries of the global South in 1964 “to articulate and promote their collective economic interests and enhance their joint negotiating capacity,” according to the group’s website.

Today it has 134 members, among which the website lists China although the Asian giant says it is not a full member. Cuba took over the rotating presidency in January.

Guterres, who will deliver the opening address with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, has recently attended a rash of multilateral summits, including a gathering of the G20 club of major economies in India and the BRICS group that includes Russia.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2023