South African President to World Leaders: Make Trade, Development Fair

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has urged world leaders to ensure fairer global trade and development while reaffirming Africa’s place as a continent “irreversibly on the rise.”

Speaking at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, Ramaphosa called for decisive global action to silence conflicts everywhere in order to achieve sustainable development and peace.

“We must act decisively to silence all the guns everywhere to realize the goals of sustainable development and global peace — and I do believe that this is an objective that is possible to reach,” he said.

Highlighting South Africa’s current presidency of the G20, he noted that for the first time in history, the forum will host a summit on the African continent — “the cradle of humanity.” The summit, he explained, focuses on disaster resilience, debt sustainability for low-income countries, energy-transition financing, and harnessing critical minerals for inclusive growth.

Ramaphosa, however, warned that despite progress, many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) remain out of reach for developing nations, which spend more on debt servicing than on health or education. He emphasized that trade, rather than being a weapon against countries, must serve as a tool for mobilizing resources for development.

On global issues, the South African leader reiterated his country’s call for the lifting of the economic embargo on Cuba “sooner rather than later,” stressing that unilateral military interventions — such as in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — continue to undermine the relevance of the UN.

Turning to the Middle East, Ramaphosa called for renewed commitment to the rights of Palestinians, warning of a growing consensus that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. He said South Africa has petitioned the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule on the matter, insisting: “Genocide is indeed being committed in the Strip — and it must stop.”

He concluded with a call for collective responsibility to uphold human rights: “We must reaffirm that freedom is indivisible, and that the denial of the rights of one person diminishes the freedom of all of us.”