Judge India’s G20 presidency on progress achieved

The G20 Summit starting tomorrow (September 9) in New Delhi is a good opportunity for India to highlight its inclination and capacity to contribute to a global developmental agenda, and to shaping a new world order.

The gathering of world leaders in New Delhi is reflective of the uncertain times with some key absences and, so far, an apparent lack of consensus on the final joint statement. Some were quick to jump to interpret these absences and the elusive consensus as signs that the G20 is unravelling and losing effectiveness. However, the absence of individual leaders doesn’t mean the absence of the countries they represent, and, not surprisingly, the supposed lack of consensus is on a political issue — Ukraine.

Also, it now appears that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is probably absent more for domestic reasons rather than to ‘snub India’. The absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin is probably a ‘blessing in disguise’ since it will spare the hosts — India — the protocol nightmares at official dinners and group photographs.

The missing agreement on an acceptable formulation on the war in Ukraine is reflective more of the power of the ‘global West’ at the G20 rather than on the desire of the rest to have any remarks in the joint statement on the war. The practice of mentioning divisive political issues in the final G20 joint statement began with the previous summit in Bali (Indonesia) where the hosts succumbed to the pressure of the ‘global West’ and agreed to include a paragraph on the Ukraine war. Meanwhile, Indian officials continue to seek agreement on this issue, and may succeed.

While the media may focus on the possible lack of consensus, this should not be criteria to judge the success or failure of the summit. It would be far more instructive to look at the agreed outcomes that have been arrived at under India’s presidency of the G20 to appreciate the progress achieved.

Just a mention of a few should suffice to underline the tremendous work done:

• The Chennai High-level Principles for a Sustainable and Resilient Blue/Ocean-based Economy, which seek to keep the oceans clean and healthy

• The Deccan High-Level Principles on Food Security and Nutrition

• Ensuring inclusive technology transformation through the Digital Public Infrastructure(DPI). India’s use of DPI to boost inclusive growth is now recognised across the globe. India also advocated that the G20 push for women-led development across the globe.

These and several other initiatives were pushed by India, which looked at the year at the helm of G20 as an opportunity to refocus attention of the world, particularly the developed world, to the challenges facing the developing countries or as they are called under a new nomenclature — The Global South. The Covid pandemic and the response of the West, particularly their approach on vaccines, underlined the deep chasm that had evolved between the developed and developing world.

Further, the rivalry between the United States and China brought home not only the need to develop reliable and resilient supply chains, but also the necessity energising multilateralism through inclusiveness and reform of global institutions established more than 80 years ago. Not only financial institutions but also bodies like the UN Security Council.

In this context, India should stress that rivalries should not deprive the poorer countries of the benefits of globalisation through protectionist measures recently undertaken by the United States — the Inflation Reduction Act — and the European Union’s desire to introduce a carbon tax.

This is linked directly to the need to reform global financial systems to ensure that emerging economies have sufficient access to funds to meet the challenges of Climate Change that demands the introduction of new technologies to power the task of overall development. Today it is acknowledged that global financial flows are not benefitting poorer economies and India should lead the drive to correct this. Cosmetic changes to voting shares in global financial institutions should not be the limit of these reforms.

India espouses a realistic enough foreign policy to understand that the geopolitical fractures will play out in most multilateral bodies and cannot be healed by one G20 Summit. But that doesn’t mean that geopolitical differences should be allowed to obfuscate the issues on which the world has to find urgent, and common solutions. Climate Change is just one of them.

The G20 was effectively created as an extension of the G7 to deal with global economic issues. It is, thus, but natural that the G7 retains substantial heft in shaping the agenda of G20. But it is the task of India and the developing world to drive home to the G7 that it is the developed world that has a major role to play in correcting the economic inequities in the world. It is axiomatic that a more equitable global growth can only be beneficial for the world.

Finally, the G20 Summit in New Delhi will have its share of success and disappointments. India has presented a strong case to show that it has the vision, desire, and capacity to contribute to building the new global order. But to convince the world that it should have a place at the table of global rule-makers, it will have to ensure that the declarations made in Delhi are not empty promises.

(Nandan Unnikrishnan is Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.