New Delhi: National capital New Delhi is in the international spotlight as it gears up to host India’s first Group of 20 (G20) Heads of State and Government Summit on 9-10 September. With over 43 heads of delegations set to attend, the event is expected to serve as an opportunity for India to “showcase” its stature as a global leader.
So far, US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, among others, have confirmed their presence at the Summit.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will be skipping the meet and will be represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Putin, notably, has not attended a G20 summit in person since the 2019 summit in Osaka, Japan.
The Chinese foreign ministry also confirmed Monday that President Xi Jinping will skip the Leaders’ Summit and will be represented by Premier Li Qiang. This is the first time President Xi has skipped a G20 meeting since coming to power in 2013.
Leaders from China, South Africa, Turkey, Japan, Italy, Germany, Indonesia, Brazil and Argentina have yet to confirm their attendance.
The summit, to be held in the newly inaugurated International Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre (IECC) at the redeveloped Pragati Maidan complex, will mark the culmination of months of preparation and events ever since India took over the G20 presidency last December.
During its presidency, India has hosted thousands of international delegates from at least 110 nations. As of a 17 July government release, 170 meetings in 55 different locations across India had taken place. Subsequently, too, several meetings took place at the ministerial level in July and August.
The Group of 20 or G20 is a bloc of the world’s largest economies consisting of the European Union and 19 countries — Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, and the US.
It serves as a forum for these economies to collaborate and work towards common goals on key issues such as economic growth, financial stability, trade, and sustainable development, among others. While its recommendations are not generally legally binding, the G20’s discussions can influence international policies.
The G20 members currently represent around 85 percent of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), over 75 percent of global trade, and more than 60 percent of the world’s population.
Here is a run-through of why G20 was set up, how it works, its achievements so far, as well as some highlights of India’s presidency.
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Why was G20 set up?
The G20 was established in response to the aftermath of the 1997 East Asian financial crisis. In light of this, finance ministers and central bank governors from the G7—comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US— met in June 1999 and announced their intention to expand international dialogue and global coordination on economic matters. The platform to achieve such goals, G20, was subsequently set up in September 1999.
G20, said its first communique in 1999, aimed to provide: “[A] new mechanism for informal dialogue in the framework of the Bretton Woods institutional system (World Bank and International Monetary Fund), to broaden the discussions on key economic and financial policy issues among systemically significant economies, and promote co-operation to achieve stable and sustainable world economic growth that benefits all.”
In the initial years, the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors of member nations met annually. However, after the global financial crisis of 2008, the forum was elevated to a meeting between the Heads of State while the finance ministers continued to meet twice a year on the sidelines, according to the platform’s website.
The first G20 Leaders’ Summit was held in Washington DC in November 2008 and focused on financial stability in the international sphere. However, over the years, the forum has been used for discussion on trade, energy, climate change, terrorism as well as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
How does G20 function?
The G20 functions through two tracks. The first is the finance track, which is focused on financial and economic issues, and the second is the sherpa track, which involves discussions at the level of “sherpas”, or diplomatic representatives of member nations.
Each track consists of working groups that focus on specific issues. These include representatives from relevant ministries of member nations and invited/guest countries too. Various international organisations, such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), also participate in the working groups.
The finance track, which is led by finance ministers and central bank governors, covers global macroeconomic issues such as monitoring global risks, international taxation, reforms for resilient financial infrastructure, and more.
Working groups in the finance track include the Framework Working Group (FWG) focusing on promoting strong, sustainable, and inclusive growth throughout all member nations. Other platforms in this track include the International Financial Architecture working group, the Joint Finance and Health Task Force, and the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion.
The sherpa track involves themes such as agriculture, culture, digital economy, education, energy, and tourism, amongst others. Sherpas conduct negotiations and discussions on agenda items for the summit throughout the year.
Processes within the G20 also include engagement groups which consist of non-government participants from member nations who provide recommendations and contribute to policymaking. These include Business20 (B20), Think20 (T20), Women20 (W20), amongst others.
G20 successes & gaps
Between the first G20 Summit in 2008 and the G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan, in 2019, leaders of the group have made over 2,500 future-oriented, politically binding, collective commitments, according to a June 2019 report by the Italian Institute for International Political Studies.
The member states complied with these commitments at an average of 71 percent. Compliance across core G20 subjects such as taxation (85 percent), labour and employment (75 percent), and financial regulation (78 percent) was much higher than for newer subjects like climate change, trade, crime, gender equality, and more, the report said.
Among G20’s major achievements include the establishment of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) in 2009 to monitor and make recommendations about the global financial system. Part of its remit was to strengthen regulation of shadow banking to ensure greater financial market stability, and in the 2013 G20 in Russia, a “roadmap” was created to achieve this goal.
Then, in 2014, G20 established the Global Infrastructure Hub (GI Hub) to further the agenda of “sustainable, resilient, and inclusive” infrastructure. To this end, GI Hub serves as a “knowledge-sharing hub”, collaborating with governments, the private sector, development banks, and other organisations.
In 2020, the G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) was launched to provide a temporary halt on official debt payments for the poorest nations. According to the World Bank, the initiative suspended $12.9 billion in debt-service payments between May 2020 and December 2021, with 48 out of 73 eligible countries participating.
However, G20 has faced its fair share of criticism too. Some of these issues include failures to arrive at a consensus on issues such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Throughout India’s presidency, too, none of the ministerial meetings have resulted in a joint communique, highlighting a lack of unity among leaders.
Other issues within the G20 include internal governance challenges, including inclusivity for countries from the global South, and the group’s inability to address pressing global challenges such as gaps in climate financing, food security, and rising debt.
India’s presidency
The theme of India’s G20 this year is “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” or “One Earth, One Family, One Future”. Since taking over the G20 presidency, India has held more than 170 G20 meetings across tracks.
Among the most crucial of these included the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in New Delhi in March, and the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ meeting in Bengaluru in February. While these meetings did not result in a joint communique due to disagreements over paragraphs on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they did yield a chair’s summary and outcome document.
India also held the third G20 Tourism Working Group Meeting in Jammu & Kashmir this May amid strict security measures. It was the first major international event held in the region since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. However, countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and Oman skipped the meeting.
On 28 July, the fourth and final working group meeting on Environment and Climate Sustainability concluded in Chennai. Chaired by environment minister Bhupender Yadav, the meeting led to the “adoption of an Outcome document, the Chennai High-Level Principles for a Sustainable and Resilient Blue/Ocean-based Economy”, says the G20 website.
India’s presidency of the G20, according to the platform’s website, has also seen work being undertaken on four initiatives: the Research and Innovation Initiative Gathering, the Space Economy Leaders’ Meeting, the G20 Alliance for the Empowerment and Progression of Women’s Economic Representation, and the G20 Chief Scientific Advisers Roundtable.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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