IBSA LEADERS’ MEDIA STATEMENT

IBSA is a trilateral, developmental initiative between India, Brazil and South Africa to promote South-South co-operation and exchange.

1. We, the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa, gathered in the IBSA Forum, created more than 20 years ago to promote coordination on global issues between three large pluralistic, multicultural and multiethnic democracies of Asia, South America and Africa, and to enhance trilateral cooperation in sectoral areas, providing a broader framework for South-South cooperation, met in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on November 19, 2024.
    
2. We underscore the importance of IBSA’s principles, norms and values, including reformed multilateralism, democracy, respect, promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, international humanitarian law, sovereign equality, territorial integrity, peaceful negotiation, diplomacy, freedom, the rule of international law and sustainable development, and believe that they serve as a bridge between developing and developed countries.
    
3. Determined to reinvigorate the work of IBSA, we agree to hold an IBSA Summit in South Africa in 2025, with a view to consolidating trilateral cooperation, strengthening the IBSA Fund and enhancing the group’s role as a privileged forum for coordination in favour of global governance reforms.
    
4. We express our concern at the escalation of geopolitical tensions and the eruption of conflicts in various parts of the world and emphasize the urgency of committing ourselves to the pursuit of peace. We stress the urgency of valuing dialogue and diplomacy as key instruments for the peaceful resolution of conflicts. We reiterate our commitment to multilateralism and to the principles of the United Nations Charter and call for upholding international law, including international humanitarian law. We call for the strengthening of global arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, including efforts within the framework of the Conference on Disarmament.
    
5. We welcome the adoption of the Pact for the Future and its annexes and the commitments to make global institutions more representative and responsive to today’s world. Encouraged by The Pact for the Future, we stress that the time has come to move towards a result-oriented process and urged the redoubling of efforts to achieve concrete outcomes within a fixed time frame on this issue through the commencement of text-based negotiations. We support the Call to Action on Global Governance Reform launched by the Brazilian presidency of the G20.
    
6. Aware of our historical responsibility and of the IBSA group’s vocation to defend an international order that is fairer, more balanced and attentive to the aspirations of developing countries, we express our support for an urgent and comprehensive reform of global governance institutions, which will allow the systemic crises faced by humanity to be overcome through a reinvigorated and strengthened multilateral system, with the United Nations at its centre. We further emphasize the urgent need to achieve equitable and inclusive geographical representation in the staff composition of the Secretariat of the United Nations and other international organizations in a timely manner.
    
7. We reiterate our commitment to improving global governance by promoting a more agile, effective, efficient, responsive, representative, legitimate, democratic and accountable international multilateral system. We call for assuring greater and more meaningful participation of EMDCs and least developed countries, especially in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, in global decision-making processes and structures and making them better attuned to contemporary issues.
    
8. As we approach the 80th anniversary of the United Nations and the 70th anniversary of the Bandung Declaration, we express our support for an ambitious reform of the United Nations, to adapt it to contemporary geopolitical realities and address new global challenges, such as the climate change, socio-economic inequality, the energy transition, digitalization and other emerging issues affecting the international community.
    
9. We support a transformative reform of the Security Council, making it more representative, inclusive, efficient, effective, democratic and accountable, with the effective participation of developing countries in both its categories. We renew our commitment to work for the expansion of Security Council membership to include representation from developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, in both the permanent and non-permanent membership categories for achieving a reformed, representative, equitable, responsive and effective UN Security Council, which is reflective of the contemporary global realities. We support the legitimate aspiration of African countries to have a permanent presence in the UNSC and support Brazil’s and India’s endeavours to occupy permanent seats in the Security Council.
    
10. We support strengthening the role of the General Assembly as the main deliberative, policy-making and representative organ of the United Nations to uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, including on issues related to the maintenance of international peace and security, ensuring that Security Council inaction does not paralyze UN efforts.
     
11. The magnitude of the collective challenges we face today demands an equally ambitious response. We encourage a wide-ranging reform of the UN Charter, including the convening of a review conference, in accordance with its Article 109. We cannot wait for another global tragedy, like the Second World War, to build a new global governance on its ruins.
     
12. We condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations wherever committed and by whomsoever. We concur that terrorism is a global scourge that must be fought and that terrorist safe havens eliminated in every part of the world. We reaffirm that the fight against terrorism must be carried out with full respect for international law, in particular the Charter of the United Nations and international human rights law. We called upon the international community to establish a genuinely broad international counter-terrorism framework in accordance with the principles of international law and support the United Nations’ central coordinating role in international counter-terrorism cooperation. We recall the responsibility of all States to prevent and counter-terrorism, including the cross-border terrorism, the financing of terrorist networks and terrorist actions from their territories. We call for concerted actions against all UN listed terrorists and terrorist entities including Al-Qaeda, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), other proxy groups and their facilitators. We reiterate our resolve to step up joint efforts for the expeditious adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism in the UNGA.
     
13. We welcome the BRICS Summit in Kazan in October 2024 and the creation of the BRICS Partner Country category. The leaders of India and South Africa agreed to support Brazil’s chairship  of BRICS in 2025, under the theme “Enhancing Global South Cooperation for a More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance”.
     
14. We applaud tax reforms recently carried out by our countries to tackle inequalities and promote fairer and more progressive tax systems. With full respect to tax sovereignty, we underscored that, in particular, high-net-worth individuals must pay their fair share in taxes. In this regard, we welcome the Rio de Janeiro G20 Ministerial Declaration on International Tax Cooperation. We stand together in support of the United Nations Framework Convention on International Taxation Cooperation and call for an early protocol on the effective taxation of high-net-worth individuals.
     
15. We agree that the fight against poverty and hunger is a priority among IBSA countries and decide to enhance international cooperation to ensure food and nutrition security at the global level. We agree to strengthen, expand and promote the IBSA Fund for the Alleviation of Poverty and Hunger, an internationally recognized South-South cooperation initiative, with 47 projects in 38 countries, which provides financial support to projects from the South, led by the South and guided by the demands of the South.
     
16. We reaffirm the G20’s role of as the premier global forum for international economic cooperation. In this regard, we also welcome and support the inclusion of the African Union as a member of the G20 at the G20 New Delhi Summit in 2023. We support the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty and the work of the task force for a Global Mobilization against Climate Change. We commend Brazil’s success in hosting the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro in November 2024 and reaffirm our willingness to coordinate our positions to increase inclusion and amplify the voice of the Global South and further integrate its priorities into the G20 agenda through the consecutive G20 presidencies of the IBSA member states – India, Brazil and South Africa – during 2023-2025. In this regard, we reaffirm our support for the successful hosting of the G20 by South Africa in 2025.