Saturday 16 July 2011

Interview with Celso Amorim, one of the fathers of IBSA forum

Celso Amorim, one of the fathers of the IBSA Forum (India, Brazil, and South Africa) says in this interview that for this alliance of three major emerging powers, “Helping the poorest countries is clearly one of its callings”.

According to him IBSA was created as a guide for policy formulation and South-South cooperation between India, Brazil, and South Africa, three countries with much in common. He opines that commonalities of the IBSA countries are more evident than for the BRICS countries and trade is a good area to demonstrate how cooperation between the IBSA countries can move more quickly than BRICS. He feels that IBSA needs to preserve its personality while dealing in large groups on various global issues like climate change. His concluding remark was that IBSA's role in protecting the interests of the poorest  is what gives it uniqueness and international legitimacy.