Brazilian President Lula da Silva’s speech in Shanghai today at the investiture ceremony of former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff as head of the New Development Bank (NDB), charts a course for the BRICS NDB to now fulfill its original mission: to provide substantial development credit, free of IMF conditionalities, a de facto alternative to the dying Trans-Atlantic financial system, so that poverty can be eliminated, people fed, and countries develop all across the world. Appropriately, it is Rousseff, the former President of Brazil whom Wall Street and London ordered thrown out of office in a de facto coup in 2016 (a task directed by the U.S. Department of Justice), who will now take the lead in this mission. In his prepared speech delivered at the ceremony, Lula elaborated:
“The decision to create this bank was a milestone in the joint action of emerging countries. Given their size, the size of their populations, the weight of their economies, and the influence they exert in their regions and in the world, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa could not remain oblivious to major international issues.
“The unmet financing needs of developing countries were and remain enormous….
“For the first time, a development bank with global reach is established without the participation of developed countries in its initial phase. Free, therefore, from the shackles of conditionalities imposed by traditional institutions on emerging economies. And more: with the possibility of financing projects in local currency.
“The creation of this Bank shows that the unity of emerging countries is capable of generating relevant social and economic changes for the world. We do not want to be better than anyone else. We want the opportunity to expand our potential, and to guarantee dignity, citizenship, and quality of life for our people.
“Therefore, besides continuing to work for the effective reform of the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank, and for changing the trade rules, we need to creatively use the G-20 (which Brazil will chair in 2024) and the BRICS (which we will lead in 2025) in order to reinforce the priority themes for the developing world in the international agenda.
