Statement by President Lula at the CELAC-Africa Meeting of Heads of State

I would like to thank President Gustavo Petro and Vice President Francia Márquez for organizing this first CELAC–Africa High-Level Forum.

There could be no more meaningful date for this meeting than March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

In 2021 and 2025, CARICOM organized its own meetings with African partners. This Colombian initiative now revives the spirit of the South America–Africa Summits held between 2006 and 2013, bringing our continents closer together once again.

The African Union remains a source of inspiration for regional integration in our part of the world. It shows that it is possible to strengthen regional institutions even when national political agendas differ.

Brazil, Latin America, and the Caribbean are often described as the African Union’s sixth region. Across our countries, 153 million people of African descent live in our countries. The city of Salvador, which hosted last year’s Regional Conference of the African Diaspora in the Americas, has the largest Black population outside the African continent.

The discussions held in Bogotá over the past few days have emphasized historical reparations, in line with the African Union’s position. Although Brazil has implemented public policies promoting racial equality, including affirmative action, we remain far from settling our historical debt to Africa after more than 350 years of slavery.

Facing our colonial legacy together is the most meaningful tribute we can offer to our shared history.

Dear friends,

Today, I would also like to speak about the future. There are strong synergies between the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and CELAC’s priorities.

The next step in strengthening this partnership should be the organization of a summit bringing together leaders from CELAC and Africa. With that goal in mind, I would like to propose five key areas of cooperation for our future agenda.

First, the fight against hunger.

Across Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, 340 million people still face hunger. This is an unacceptable reality in a world that produces enough food for everyone.

Latin America and the Caribbean have shown that progress is possible through effective public policies. Africa holds enormous agricultural potential and can become one of the world’s leading food producers. Brazil is committed to contributing to this effort.

Embrapa, Brazil’s Agricultural Research Corporation, has resumed its presence on the African continent with a Cooperation Office in Addis Ababa. Last year, we also hosted the Second Brazil–Africa Dialogue on Food Security, Combating Hunger, and Rural Development in Brasília.

The Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty was born from this same spirit of solidarity. Launched at the G20, the initiative already has the support of 103 countries.

The second pillar is addressing climate change and preserving the environment.

Egypt and Brazil have recently hosted Climate COP conferences, and soon it will be Ethiopia’s turn. Although our countries are not historically responsible for global warming, we are among those most affected by extreme weather events.

We share a deep concern about desertification. We share the responsibility of protecting the world’s two largest tropical rainforests: the Amazon and the Congo. We are also cooperating in multiple forums to combat environmental crimes, which have become the third-largest source of funding for organized crime.

Together, we are working to operationalize the Tropical Forests Forever Fund, which has already mobilized nearly seven billion dollars. These are not donations; the profits generated by the TFFF will be shared between tropical forest countries and investors.

Science has already proven that without transitioning to low-carbon economies, we will not avert the climate crisis.

That is why the energy transition must be another pillar of our joint actions.

Our enormous potential for clean energy production, solar, wind, and hydroelectric, still stands in stark contrast to the limited access to electricity in many parts of our continents. Developing an international biofuels market offers opportunities for local development and enables the decarbonization of our economies.

Our countries also possess significant reserves of critical minerals, which play a strategic role in the transition to low-carbon economies. Cooperation among nations that hold these mineral resources will be crucial for adding value within our territories and preventing neo-extractivist encroachment.

Our continents cannot be left behind in reaping the benefits that artificial intelligence can offer for agriculture, health, education, and public security. This challenge must be another strategic pillar of our relationship.

Investments in digital infrastructure will be essential to overcoming our region’s chronic technological gaps.

We have dynamic youth populations, affordable energy, and the necessary strategic resources. However, making this technological leap requires strengthening our own capacities in data governance, digital infrastructure, and human resource development.

Brazil’s Artificial Intelligence Plan includes two funding streams dedicated to cooperation with Africa and Latin America: twenty million dollars for joint projects and ten million dollars for access to Brazilian AI infrastructure.

We must build a model of cooperation that aligns digital governance with respect for fundamental rights, thus strengthening our sovereignty. Regulating the digital world is not about control, it is a tool for inclusion and the protection of people.

To combat hate speech, misinformation, child pornography, and misogyny, Brazil is updating its legislation. We recently approved Brazil’s Digital Statute for Children and Adolescents to keep our children safe in the digital world as well.

Africa is one of the most dynamic regions in the world, driven by a young population and rapid urbanization. The African Continental Free Trade Area, which came into effect in 2021, is the largest trade zone in the world, encompassing 1.3 billion people and a combined GDP of 3.4 trillion dollars.

MERCOSUR already has a Free Trade Agreement with Egypt and a Preferential Trade Agreement with the Southern African Customs Union. Expanding and deepening these initiatives is a strategic priority.

Strengthening cooperation between the Inter-American Development Bank and the African Development Bank is also essential to increase financing for joint projects.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Our continents represent nearly half of the world’s countries and about a quarter of the global population. Yet we continue to face an international order shaped during the eras of colonialism and apartheid.

It makes little sense that Latin America and Africa still lack adequate representation on the United Nations Security Council.

Conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, and many other regions are diverting the world from the path of development. Their economic, social, and political consequences are felt around the world. They drive up food and energy prices.

We must keep the South Atlantic free from external geopolitical disputes. That is the goal of the ministerial meeting of the South Atlantic Zone of Peace and Cooperation, which Brazil will host on April 9.

Brazil, Latin America, and the Caribbean also stand with Africa in various other multilateral initiatives. We are advocating for the renewal of the International Decade for People of African Descent and for drafting a Declaration on the Human Rights of People of African Descent.

Brazil also supports the African Group’s resolution at the United Nations General Assembly, recognizing the transatlantic slave trade as one of the gravest crimes against humanity.

Reforming the World Trade Organization, currently chaired by Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is both urgent and essential. Without coordinated action by the Global South, the upcoming WTO ministerial in Cameroon risks cementing a scenario of paralysis that undermines trade based on multilaterally established rules.

My friends,

The bridge between our regions is not built only through agreements or declarations. It is built through people, through a shared diaspora that unites us.

The Brazilian geographer Milton Santos taught us that territory is not only land, it is also living history. Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa form a shared historical and cultural space marked by resistance and the struggle for dignity.

I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to express my deep concern about what is happening in the world today.

Today, we are witnessing the highest concentration of conflicts since the Second World War. We must not ignore the fact that, last year alone, 2.7 trillion dollars were spent on weapons and wars, while 630 million people continue to go hungry. Millions still live without electricity, without access to education, and millions and millions more women and children are left abandoned as a result of these fratricidal wars, with no documents, no home, not even a homeland to live in.

This is why we have been insisting, more and more, that we must stop and reflect on our behavior.

Our countries are no longer colonies. We achieved sovereignty through independence, and we cannot allow anyone to interfere with or violate the territorial integrity of our countries.

What we are witnessing in the world is the total and absolute failure of the United Nations. The UN Security Council and its permanent members were created to try to maintain peace. Yet they are the ones waging wars.

And when are we going to take action to prevent the most powerful countries from thinking they own the most fragile ones? When will the UN convene an extraordinary meeting so that we can decide what the role of Security Council members is? Why isn’t it being reformed? Why aren’t more countries being included in the UN Security Council?

I am, as a human being, as a democrat, and as President of Brazil, outraged by the passivity of the Security Council members who were unable to solve the problem in the Gaza Strip, in Iraq, in Libya, in Ukraine, and in Iran.

In other words, can everything truly be resolved through war? Does having more cannons, ships, planes, and money give any country the right to think they own the world? When are we going to say that this isn’t normal? When are we going to say that we want to restore civilized relations between nations? That we won’t allow the end of multilateralism? That we will ensure that only peace can enable the developing world to progress?

What does a war build other than death and destruction? And when are we going to react?

I wanted to tell you that, in 2010, I went to Tehran, alongside the President of Turkey, to convince the Iranian government that it could not enrich uranium to make nuclear weapons.

I went to tell the Iranian authorities, Khamenei [Ali, former Supreme Leader of Iran] and Ahmadinejad [Mahmoud, former President of Iran], that we would accept their enriching uranium to the same extent that Brazil enriches uranium, for peaceful and scientific purposes.

We made a deal, and when it was published, instead of the European countries and the United States accepting the deal, they increased the sanctions against Iran.

And it’s very funny, this has already been published in the press, it’s no secret to anyone. I had received a letter from comrade Obama saying that if Mr. Ahmadinejad accepted that agreement, everything would be fine.

Well, we had Ahmadinejad sign the agreement exactly as it was in Obama’s letter. To my surprise, when the agreement was published, both Europe and the United States tightened the sanctions.

A few years later, they went on and made another agreement that was worse than the one we had made.

And now they invaded Iran under the pretext that Iran was building a nuclear bomb. Where are Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons? Where are they? Who found them?

In other words, we can no longer exist in a world of lies, in which people create enemies and construct a negative image of the enemy to justify destruction.

What kind of world is this that we are living in?

I heard the representative from Mozambique speak about critical minerals and rare earth elements.

Here, in this plenary session, everyone has faced their country being plundered of all its gold, all its silver, all its diamonds, and all its ore.

After taking everything we had, they now want to own the critical minerals and rare earths that we have.

I see Bolivia over there. I see Bolivia’s foreign minister [Fernando Aramayo Carrasco]. They’ve already taken almost everything from Bolivia. Now that Bolivia has critical minerals, this is Bolivia’s chance, Africa’s chance, and Latin America’s chance not to accept being merely an exporter of minerals to them.

Whoever wants to can come and set up operations and produce in our countries, so that we have the chance to develop them. We have already been colonized, we fought for independence, we have already achieved democracy, we have already lost democracy, and now they are trying to colonize us again.

So, comrades,

I would never miss this meeting. I arrived at two in the morning for it.

Why do we need to stand up? No one can claim to own other countries. What are they doing to Cuba now? What did they do to Venezuela? Is that democratic?

In which paragraph and article of the UN Charter does it say that the president of one country can invade another? What document in the world says that? Not even the Bible.

There is nothing that allows this to happen. Is it the use of force and power to colonize us again? Will we have no chance now that we’ve discovered we have rare earth elements, critical minerals? Now that we can aspire to and make a qualitative leap in the production of alternative fuels?

We must shout loud and clear to prevent this from happening in other countries, as it recently did in Gaza.

I will never forget, my friends, that, in December 2002, I had already been elected President of the Republic of Brazil, and President Bush invited me to go to Washington to talk with him. I hadn’t taken office yet.

He wanted me to participate in the Iraq War.

I told him, “But, Mr. President, I don’t know Saddam Hussein. Iraq is 14,000 kilometers away from my country. I’ve never been to Iraq. Why go to war with him? Why destroy to then rebuild?” At the time, they said: “If you take part in the war, Brazilian companies will help rebuild Iraq.” Why would I destroy it to rebuild? If it’s already been built, let it remain.

I said, “President Bush, I won’t participate in the war against Iraq. My war is against the hunger of 54 million Brazilians who have nothing to eat, and this war I will win. And I did win it.”

In 2014, we ended hunger in Brazil. Today, when I returned to the presidency, there were already 33 million people going hungry again. In just two and a half years, we once again lifted 33 million people out of hunger.

This is the war we must wage to end hunger in Africa, in Latin America, to end illiteracy, and to end the lack of electricity.

So please forgive me, dear Vice President, I couldn’t help but say this, because we are losing the right to be outraged.

We are losing that right. Do you think I want a war against anyone? I don’t want war with anyone. Not even with the smallest island in the world, and certainly not with the United States, China, or Russia.

What I want is to make my case. What I want to do is craft narratives. Only through narratives can we say that we will build a world where our children and grandchildren can believe that it was worth it for us to be the government of the country where we were born.

Thank you very much, everyone.

Thank you.