By Andualem Sisay Gessesse – The Common Leveraging Union of Borrowers (CLUB), the group recently launched by members of Organization of Southern Cooperation (OSC) is set to provide instruments for the indebted countries of the South with collective approach and also help them access new soft loans for selected investment areas.
This is indicated by the Secretary General of OSC Manssour Bin Mussallam, who briefed journalists in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Tuesday. “…For the first time our countries have got effective instruments for borrowing,” he said indicating that the CLUB helps the member states of the South to access fresh highly concessional loans with new terms.
He stated that the countries, which are negotiating about their debts using existing mechanisms such as G20 Framework and others, are welcome to continue their negotiations. “…Ours is an innovative instrument and it doesn’t replicate existing instruments,” said Secretary General Manssour Bin Mussallam.
He stated that the new soft loans facilitated by the CLUB from the members of OSC to the members of OSC will be channeled towards six strategic target sectors namely: balanced inclusive education, integral health system development, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, infrastructure, and indigenous technology development to help the countries achieve target of high-value-added industrialization.
Focusing on indigenous technology development will enable countries of the South to avoid vendor technology dependency by developing their own open-source technology that will ultimately make them to become the drivers of the 4th industrial revolution, according to the Secretary General. He noted that the sources of the new sort loans can be obtained from bilateral, multilateral, private and philanthropic lenders.
Explaining how OSC helps the members to collectively deal with their existing loans and the new ones, Manssour Bin Mussallam indicated that the role of his institution will be to help the finance ministerial committee members reach consensus using the instruments provided by OSC.
It is also stated that the OSC is planning to conduct researches that shows the economic nature of each member states and share to the members states to help them understand each other and identify potential collaboration as well as investment areas. “…We need cooperation rather than aid,” Manssour Bin Mussallam said.
Facilitated by the Organization of Southern Cooperation (OSC), CLUB was officiated last week in Addis Ababa by the finance ministers of the countries of the South. OSC, which is currently headquartered in Addis Ababa is also planning to provide different trainings to its members in order to attain its “tangible” targets using its under construction OSC Institute. “…We have a duty to deliver…Our focus is program delivery,” he said.
As of July 2023, the OSC is comprised of 28 founding and member states from Latin American and Caribbean, African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Pacific Island countries: