Tuesday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa reiterated his plea for diplomacy in Ukraine and criticized the billions of euros wasted on conflict rather than development.
Ramaphosa stated in his address to the UN General Assembly that the world needs to “massively scale up” its aid for development as it falls short of the challenging targets set by the UN to end extreme poverty by 2030.
“It is a grave indictment of this international community that we can spend so much on war, but we cannot support action that needs to be taken to meet the most basic needs of billions of people,” he said.
Ramaphosa claimed to have discussed an African peace project with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the conference in New York.
“As the international community, we must do everything within our means to enable meaningful dialogue, just as we should refrain from any actions that fuel the conflict,” he said.
In keeping with the old Soviet Union’s support for the end of apartheid, South Africa, along with other developing countries, considers itself neutral in the conflict in Ukraine and has refrained from isolating Moscow.
But following an investigation, Ramaphosa refuted the US ambassador’s assertions that South Africa had permitted the shipping of armaments to Russia.
In his speech, Ramaphosa emphasised the democratic credentials of South Africa and called for diplomacy in response to a spate of military coups across the continent, notably in Niger.
“As a global community, we should be concerned by recent incidents of unconstitutional changes of government in some parts of Africa,” he said
