As India hosts the G20 Summit, one of the most important multilateral fora for global governance, the main focus of this year’s meeting will be sustainable development even though all eyes will be on whether the Russia-Ukraine war gets on the discussion table.
While the G20, a grouping of developed and developing economies, started as a premier forum for global economic cooperation, the issues have broadened in recent years to include sustainable energy, international debt, climate change and health security.
Addressing press conference, India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant said the Leaders’ Declaration will reflect the voice of Global South — a reference to the developing or least developed nations.
This year, India, which has set the theme of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: One Earth, One Family, One Future’ for the G20 Summit, has identified six priorities:
1) Green Development
Climate change, with a particular focus on climate finance and technology, will be a major priority for India during the G20 Summit. Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India had shown leadership in climate action and plans to achieve 50 per cent non-fossil installed capacity by 2030.
According to a report by think-tank Strategic Perspectives, India is likely to push for the global green development agreement, which will include climate finance, at the G20 Summit. Lifestyle for the Environment (LiFE), circular economy, accelerating progress on SDGs, energy transitions and energy security will be the other focus areas.
READ | G20 Summit 2023: Green Financing, Energy Transition — Key Climate Issues In Focus
2) Inclusive Growth
To bring about structural transformation on a global scale, India has identified key fundamental challenges that are essential for shared prosperity and progress.
India is set to pitch for bolstering small and medium-sized enterprises’ participation in the global trade arena besides advocating for labour rights and welfare. Addressing the ever-expanding global skills gap and building inclusive agricultural value chains and food systems are other focus areas.
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3) Sustainable Development Goals
The G20 Summit will see proactive deliberations on accelerating implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, with a particular focus on addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this year, at the G20 development ministers’ meeting in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi harped that gender equality and women’s empowerment were crucial to achieving the SDGs.
At the meet, India released a new seven-year action plan on SDGs that focuses on harnessing data and digital technologies for development, securing just transitions and investing in women-led development.
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4) Technological Transformation
Digital public infrastructure, security in the digital economy and digital skilling have been identified as major focus areas of India’s G20 presidency. Accelerating digital transformation in the fields of agriculture and education, financial inclusion and promoting digital payments systems like UPI will also be pitched by India during the summit.
At the G20 Summit, India is set to showcase to the delegates how UPI payments are made and how a billion people are connected with Aadhar. “There will be an experience zone created to showcase the progress we have achieved in the field of technological transformation, particularly digital transformation,” Muktesh Pardeshi, special secretary, G20 operations, told ANI.
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5) Multilateral Institutions
India has always maintained that reform of multilateral institutions is the need of the hour to address 21st century challenges. Amid changing geopolitical landscape and rise of Global South, India has held that overhaul of multilateral development banks such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are long due.
The issue has found backing from the United States and United Nations. The White House has said President Joe Biden, during the G20 Summit, will focus on reforming the World Bank and urge other multilateral development banks to boost lending for climate change and infrastructure projects.
On the other hand, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is set to urge G20 member nations to look seriously into reform of global financial institutions, rules and frameworks as per present realities and enable developing countries to access the resources they need to invest in fulfilling Sustainable Development Goals.
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6) Women-Led Development
Gender parity has gained traction under India’s G20 presidency, with the government advocating for inclusion of women in development planning and decision-making as part of PM Modi’s emphasis on “Nari Shakti”.
“In India, we are not limited to women’s empowerment. Ours is a women-led development. Women are setting the agenda for development and are also the agents of growth and change. I urge you to adopt a game-changing action plan for women-led development,” Modi said earlier this year at a G20 working group meet.
At the G20 Ministerial Conference on Women Empowerment, TechEquity, an aggregator for skilling women and promoting digital and financial education was launched under India’s initiative. A decision was also made to launch an online platform for mentoring women entrepreneurs, with a focus on women in MSMEs and grassroots leaders.
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