Why the G77 Still Matters in 2025
The Group of 77 and China, now 134 developing countries, remains the largest negotiating bloc at the UN. It shapes debates on development finance, debt, climate justice, and technology norms. In 2025 the chair has passed to Iraq, but the agenda, financing for development, climate delivery after COP29, and South–South cooperation, keeps the G77 at the center of multilateral bargaining. For Pakistan, being elected to the UN Security Council for 2025–26, the G77 is both an amplifier and a test. Can Pakistan turn rhetorical solidarity into concrete wins for the Global South?
Pakistan’s Track Record: From Chair to Coalition Builder
Pakistan has long punched above its weight in coalition diplomacy. It chaired the New York chapter of the G77 in 2022, and recently led the Vienna chapter before handing the baton to Colombia in February 2024, useful proof that Pakistan knows the machinery of consensus building across UN hubs. In Rome’s FAO system, Pakistan also delivered joint G77 statements on food security in late 2024, underscoring credibility on hunger and agriculture at a time of supply chain stress.
The 2025 Context: A Bigger Megaphone and Higher Stakes
This year’s G77 statements come from Iraq as chair, but the priorities reflect enduring South concerns: a fair global financing framework, reform of information governance, and humanitarian financing. Pakistan’s simultaneous UNSC seat gives it a rare “dual platform,” political authority in the Council, bargaining leverage in the G77 to link peace, development, and climate security in one narrative. If used smartly, that pairing can elevate issues like debt distress, SDR recycling, and climate-related fragility that hit many G77 members.
Climate Finance After Baku: From Disappointment to Delivery
COP29 in Baku ended with a contentious finance outcome that many developing countries considered inadequate, sharpening the need for unified G77 messaging ahead of COP30 in Belém. Pakistan, one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, can convert moral authority from its 2022–23 flood experience into technical leadership, i.e, pressing for clearer pathways to capitalize the Loss and Damage Fund and to raise predictable concessional flows for adaptation. Islamabad’s support, alongside Bahamas and others, for a fossil-fuel non-proliferation push also positions Pakistan among Global South voices demanding a just, financed transition rather than an unfunded phase-down.
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Multilateral Wins That Signal Capacity
Beyond climate, Pakistan has shown it can land consensus where the process is complex. In April–May 2025, Pakistan helped secure agreement in the UN General Assembly’s Fifth Committee to fund the Office of the Special Envoy on Combating Islamophobia, a sensitive budgetary track that required cross-regional buy-in. That kind of coalition management is precisely what the G77 needs on contested files like tax cooperation and UN development system reform.
Food, Debt, and Digital: Three Practical Arenas
First, food security. Pakistan’s role voicing the G77 at FAO in 2024 can be scaled into a push for climate-resilient agriculture financing through the UNFCCC’s Standing Committee on Finance and the Rome-based agencies, aligning with the 2025 SCF forum on financing for sustainable food systems. The objective was to simplify access for low-income producers, expand grant windows, and link adaptation to nutrition outcomes.
Second, debt and development finance. With the FfD process intensifying in 2025, the G77 is pressing for a “renewed global financing framework.” Pakistan can champion pragmatic steps, state-contingent debt clauses, scaled multilateral guarantees, and SDR channeling, while keeping unity between least-developed, small-island, and middle-income members that often face divergent incentives.
Third, digital governance. Since the 2023 Havana summit spotlighted science, technology and innovation, the G77 has sought rules that narrow digital divides. Pakistan can convene a South-led approach to interoperable digital public goods, identity, payments, data governance, so that standards work for smaller markets, not just the largest economies.
Opportunity or Missed Platform? The Choice Is Pakistan’s
There is, candidly, a risk of under-engagement, letting the chair’s rotation or bilateral distractions dilute attention. But 2025 offers a convergence. G77 financing debates, preparatory work for COP30, and Pakistan’s Security Council term. Islamabad can leverage its experienced UN team and recent files to convene “bridge coalitions” inside the G77: Arab–Asian on humanitarian financing, Africa–Asia on agriculture and climate adaptation, SIDS–South Asia on loss-and-damage access. That approach turns statements into deliverables.
To avoid a missed platform, three habits will matter. First, show up early with text, draft language on finance, tax cooperation, and digital that smaller missions can rally around. Second, trade favors across forums: use UNSC convening to spotlight development-security linkages in ways that strengthen G77 bargaining power in Second and Fifth Committees. Third, keep results measurable: track dollars unlocked for adaptation, debt deals concluded with state-contingent clauses, and concrete access reforms at the Loss and Damage Fund.
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Concluding Remarks
The G77 was created to level a tilted playing field; in 2025, the field remains steep. Pakistan has demonstrated it can organize coalitions and land consensus in tough rooms. Whether this becomes a leadership moment or a lost chance will hinge less on speeches and more on the quiet craft of text-drafting, vote-tallying, and cross-regional trust. Used well, the G77 gives Pakistan a scalable way to convert national vulnerability into Global South leverage, solidarity that delivers, not just declares
