India’s G20 presidency has focussed on six priorities, including accelerated and inclusive growth, climate finance, digital public infrastructure and reforming the multilateral development institutions for the 21st century, the country’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant said on Friday.
Addressing the media ahead of the G20 leadership summit over the weekend in the capital, Kant said the Leaders’ Declaration would be inclusive in nature and reflect the voice of the Global South and developing countries, in sync with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration is almost ready. I would not like to dwell on it because this declaration will be recommended to the leaders and the leaders will then accept it,” Kant said.
Kant dwelt on the priorities of India as G20 President, which also included focus on green development, progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), technological transformation and women-led development and greater gender equality.
“We are midway at the 2030 action point… and therefore accelerating SDGs, improving learning outcomes, health outcomes, nutrition, all these were very critical for India’s presidency,” he said.
“Our view was that Global South, developing countries and emerging markets, which has been a key component of India’s presidency, must be able to glong-term financing and must be able to use new instruments for financing to drive both SDGs and climate finance,” Kant said while commenting on the need for reforms of the multilateral institutions.
Highlighting the huge scale and reach of India’s presidency, Kant said over 200 meetings have been held in more than 60 Indian cities with highest ever global participation. “There have been 19 G20 countries, the US and the EU. There are special invited countries, three regional organizations and 11 international organizations. We used this opportunity to demonstrate the liveliness, the vibrancy and the dynamism of India’s federal polity,” he said.
Finance track
Economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth said India’s G20 presidency has also focussed on how to build consensus on the policy discourse and regulations around new technologies such as blockchain and crypto. One of the priorities was to see how the technology can be used for financial inclusion, productivity gains, efficiency gains and for the private sector, he said.
The finance track had held more than 25 meetings of various working groups, ministers, to deliberate on these issues during the course of the year, he said. Similarly, almost 40 events were held on issues that directly impact peoples’ lives, he added.
The vision of India’s G20 presidency is to lead to actionable, inclusive growth across nations, which will ultimately empower global growth, Seth said.
Joint declaration
On the issue of joint declaration, Kant said leaders will have to approve the Sherpa’s recommendations. Responding to a question on China’s reported opposition to certain issues during the Indian presidency of G20, Kant said in a multilateral forum, the challenge always is to bring everybody on board and “we will try to get everyone on board”.
New Delhi, Kant said, had tried to build a huge India narrative through the G20 meetings, which will leave a huge imprint behind.
