MOSCOW, August 23. /TASS/. West is at risk of losing the confidence of the global south after such players as China has intensified their activities in the region, European Investment Bank's President Werner Hoyer said in an interview with Reuters. To avoid this scenario, the West needs to increase the volume of aid provided to the developing countries, he said.
In his opinion, the BRICS summit in Johannesburg this week and the creation of the New Development Bank as an alternative to Western lending have underscored the need for a significant increase in Western financial assistance to the Global South.
"It should be a cause for concern that an increasing number of smaller developing world countries, especially in Africa, are looking to countries like China and other emerging market nations to give them support rather than the traditional Western institutions," Werner told the agency.
As Hoyer noted, the reorientation of the countries of the Global South towards cooperation with the BRICS is due to the fact that Western states did not provide them with support during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as dues to matters of debt repayment, energy prices and climate change.
"Unless we offer genuine partnership and more convincing ways to address the challenges of the Global South whether it is in the energy transition, the issue of indebtedness or tackling glaring health inequality - we are heading for trouble," the EIB President said.