JOIN USIndia's G20 Presidency: There can still be success beyond the domestic show
G20 Presidencies, like the Olympics, are political, expensive, and focused on legacy. With big promises and bold visions, hosts aim to have their Games remembered alongside Sydney and Lillehammer, their Summit alongside Pittsburgh and London.
Like the Olympics, the G20 remains important and well-watched. With multilateralism and the global economy in crisis, it brings together the US and China; the G7 and emerging markets; Russia and the West. Its reputation, forged during the global financial crisis, is one of power and potential. What the G20 discusses matters. When the G20 acts, it has an impact.
Not all G20s are successful, though. Some are destined to end up like the Olympics in Montreal, with disappointing performances from the home team, high-profile boycotts, and huge costs for taxpayers.
Four months into India’s ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’ Presidency, with the first cracks in consensus emerging, it is the right time to ask what success would look like this year.
A standard measure for success is securing a Communiqué. Officials chase them. They require skill to secure. A select few are epoch-defining; the result of statesmanship and history converging. Most are quickly forgotten, having been adorned with a multitude of well-intentioned additions, each negotiated down to the lowest common denominator.
At the Bali Summit in November, a Communiqué emerged. At the end of an Indonesian Presidency disrupted by Covid and derailed by the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this was a considerable achievement. The Indian team that played a significant role building bridges hoped this consensus would pave the way for their ‘inclusive, ambitious, action-oriented, and decisive’ Presidency.
The Bali consensus has now been shattered. At both the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting in late February and Foreign Ministers’ meeting in early March, Russia and China, inseparable post-Ukraine, destroyed it. If a Communiqué is the primary measure of success, then India’s G20 Presidency is in trouble. But such a criterion is too narrow.
What will undoubtedly be a success this year is showing off ‘Incredible India’ to the world. India’s development successes, digital public infrastructure, SDG localisation have been demonstrated, discussed, promoted. Delegates have feasted on the finest food, been wowed by dancers at India Gate and by boatmen on the backwaters of Kerala, and have marvelled at the Stupas of Sanchi, the Ghats of Varanasi, and the Taj Mahal. This will all continue.
India is also successfully cultivating friends and partners. Guest invitations to Bangladesh, Egypt, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Spain and the UAE will broaden and add depth to G20 conversations and will strengthen bilateral ties. India is going even further, reaching out across the developing world to position itself as the ‘voice of the Global South.’ For a rising power, such ties are vital.
This year’s G20 is also about putting on a show for an Indian audience. This is novel. At the heart of this are the more than 200 meetings across every state and Union Territory. ‘University Connect’, Model G20 events, tulip displays, and food festivals have happened across the country. G20 motorcades stop at every town and village to be met by waving children. Sherpa Amitabh Kant graces a never-ending stream of public events.
There is a bigger level of success possible, though. India has declared that the G20 must address “issues of poverty, slow growth, global debt, climate action, sustainable development goals.” It is brave. It is needed. The world is not on course to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals or to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. The Barcelona Olympics revitalised a city; if India can do the same for the G20, then it would benefit the world, and burnish India’s credentials as an influential global player and potential third pole in a multipolar world.
A multi-aligned global power courted by countries around the world, India is ideally placed to deliver on this agenda. The question, though, is how a country with a foreign policy that seeks ‘space and options,’ can drive the difficult conversations needed to achieve such ambitious goals when that means taking unpopular positions and upsetting partners.
The challenges for India are large. Russia’s illegal aggression and the resulting food, fuel, and fertiliser crises must be addressed in the relevant G20 meetings. The reprehensible choice of historic emitters to not meet climate finance commitments has become a totem for broken trust that must be overcome. Divisive development initiatives must not be allowed to subvert the UN coordinated global development agenda and discussion on a successor framework to the SDGs.
The rewards would be worth it. Significant new funding for the SDGs could drive global development and lift billions from poverty. Delivering on climate finance and addressing demand-side issues of climate change -- of which PM Modi’s ‘Mission Life’ is a part -- would help limit the worst effects of climate change. Commitment to reform of international financial institutions, including opening leadership positions to open competition, would signal that multilateral reform is possible. Agreement to renegotiate debt when there is a clear need would stabilise the global credit system and protect vulnerable economies still emerging from Covid.
There may not be a Communiqué agreed in September at the New Delhi Summit, but India’s G20 Presidency will be a success on many levels. On the question of whether India can go beyond showing off ‘Incredible India’ and telling a story domestically, we should all hope, it can and does. If an ‘India Way’ of forging consensus and forcing new commitments does emerge, the 2036 Olympic Games in Ahmedabad (potentially) may well happen in a much fairer world.
(The writer is a commentator on
diplomacy, international relations, and geopolitics and was, from 2019 to March 2023, senior political adviser at the
British High Commission in New Delhi)