G20 foreign ministers meet in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday to discuss global tensions and ways to improve multilateral organizations, ahead of their annual summit chaired by Brazil.
Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva has made global governance reform a top priority for the world’s 20 largest economies in 2024, along with the fight against climate change and poverty reduction.
However, in the face of Russia’s conflict with Ukraine and the ongoing Gaza war, diplomats are not convinced that proposals to improve global governance will move forward easily.
“We live in a world without governance and the proliferation of conflicts is unprecedented. There is a lack of governance to face global challenges,” diplomat Mauricio Lyrio, G20 “sherpa” for the Brazil.
Brazil has argued in favor of expanding the U.N. Security Council, a proposal that has faced resistance from veto-wielding nations since the organization’s creation after World War II.
“This meeting will essentially be a venting session aimed at defending multilateral reform and diagnosing the problem,” a European diplomat told Reuters.
Lula criticized the United Nations for its inability to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his comments comparing the fate of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to the genocide of Jews by the Nazi regime sparked a diplomatic crisis that ended Monday with the recall of the Brazilian ambassador to Israel.
The two-day meeting of G20 foreign ministers will begin on Wednesday with an overview of the global situation and its conflicts, particularly the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet face to face for the first time since they spoke briefly last year in New Delhi.
This article is originally published on .challenges.fr
