JOIN USG-20: It’s India’s chance to define and shape a global agenda
Indonesia’s tenure of the G-20 presidency was a challenging one, and it will be so for India’s presidency as the Russia-Ukraine war rages on. India assumed presidency of the G-20 on November 15 in Bali, Indonesia, at a colourful event full of photo opportunities and meetings on the side-lines among world leaders, including a handshake between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping. India will formally begin presiding over the G-20 on December 1 and will host the annual summit in September 2023.
India is assuming the G-20 presidency at a time when the world is struggling to evolve consensus on contentious issues ranging from climate change to digital divide, from the Russia-Ukraine war and nuclear threats to rebuilding global supply chains. Never before has the US-led post-WWII world order been challenged as it is being done now. The sanctions on Russia have evoked mixed reactions, and probably have ended up punishing unintended targets, like the European Union, more than the intended targets in Moscow. The energy crisis looming large over Europe is expected to dampen Christmas season festivities. In light of the energy crisis, the world needs to ensure energy security and promote green alternatives to fossil fuels. Prime Minister Modi has aired the idea of ‘One World, One Sun, One Grid’.
Modi has also touched upon the crisis of essentials, financial constraints and, above all, the failure of global institutions like the UN to manage conflicts, much less resolve them. Referring to India as the land of Buddha and Gandhi, he exhorted global leaders to come up with viable, sustainable solutions to global problems and peaceful solutions to ongoing conflicts.
The Union ministries are gearing up to conduct more than 200 events related to G-20 and to prepare an ambitious agenda for New Delhi to roll out by the time the world leaders converge here next year.
India will work toward preparing an agenda that runs concurrent to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), such as women’s empowerment, and digital public infrastructure and tech-enabled development in areas ranging from health, agriculture and education to commerce. Optimum use of digital technology will be a force multiplier as far as the global efforts to end poverty and hunger are concerned. Employment for all is an important issue, especially for emerging economies and it will have to be part of the G-20 agenda.
As a practitioner of soft power projection to win friends among the countries of the world, India is better placed to project culture and tourism as a global agenda. People-to-people contacts and understanding of the basic unity of humanity underneath diverse civilisational traditions is important in a world torn apart by differences.
India’s G-20 agenda will include inclusive, equitable and sustainable growth for all countries. Modi introduced the LiFE (Lifestyle For Environment) concept at CoP-26 in Glasgow in 2021. India will step up advocacy for the global community of individuals and institutions to adopt LiFE for mindful consumption. Climate financing has emerged as an important subject of discussion in international fora, but it needs a structured framework if it has to work.
Issues arising out of climate change can be dealt with better if there is unified technology adoption and commitment to follow global rules for digital technology. Sharing information about changes to weather patterns will be important for dealing with disasters. The Arctic, the Antarctic, the glaciers, the deep sea and the Tibetan plateau are global commons as they hold natural reserves that must last as long as mankind lasts. No one single country can aggrandise these resources and lands and claim ownership over them. New Delhi should make an effort to get the G-20 to agree to an agenda on these.
It would be utopian to expect all countries to be democratic, friendly, and eschew terrorism. India is a victim of cross-border terrorism and needs the G-20 to get serious about tackling the menace of terrorism, punish countries that indulge in the proliferation of terror through financing and other support.
Lastly, New Delhi must design the agenda for its G-20 presidency keeping in mind an important factor – the presidency of the G-20 will remain with the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) triangle over the next three years. Three democracies spread over three continents and with certain common interests and aspirations. India should come up with an agenda that the G-20 can persist and persevere through the Brazil and South Africa presidencies, too, and thus achieve more-than-modest levels of coordination on a wide range of policies and actions – from the global economy to sustainable development and the world’s transition to greener fuels and technologies. That will be a good way to show that when India says “the world is one family”, it means it.
(Seshadri Chari reads between the lines on big national and international developments from his vantage point in the BJP and the RSS @seshadrichari)