World-ready India, world-ready India: Jaishankar at the G20 Summit

According to S Jaishankar, the foreign affairs minister, the country’s G20 leadership has made “India world-ready and the world India-ready” while also ensuring that the issues facing the Global South were at the forefront of discussions within the organization.

Soon after the Indian side reached a consensus leaders’ statement, Jaishankar spoke at a media conference with the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant, the main G20 coordinator Harsh Shringla, and the foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra.

“The G20 has helped to make India ready for the world and the world ready for India,” he remarked. He noted that “no one left behind” is now an objective for both domestic and international policies.

In addition to promoting strong, sustainable, balanced, and inclusive growth, the leaders’ declaration envisions a green development pact for a sustainable future and supports high-level principles on a way of life for sustainable development, he continued. It also seeks to accelerate progress on the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The Deccan principles for food security and nutrition, the Chennai principles for a sustainable resilient blue economy, and voluntary principles on green hydrogen are also included in the statement.

The leaders acknowledged that geopolitical and security challenges may have a big impact on the world economy while adding that the G20 is not the forum to address them. They focused particularly on the continuing conflict in Ukraine and its effects, especially on poor and least developed countries still recuperating from the epidemic and economic disruptions, according to Jaishankar.

Food, fuel, and fertiliser difficulties were of particular importance because of India’s concentration on the Global South. The G20 leaders also concentrated on fighting terrorism and money laundering, denouncing terrorism in all its manifestations and recognizing it as one of the “most serious threats to international peace.”

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The fact that every nation has joined together to concentrate on the green development accord, which involves funding, reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030, and tripling adaptation finance by 2025, was named by Kant as one of the major accomplishments.

“There are 83 paragraphs in the leaders’ proclamation from New Delhi. There is universal agreement on all 83 paragraphs in all nations. The geopolitical topic, headlined “planet, people, peace and prosperity,” is covered in eight paragraphs. All eight of those paragraphs are entirely accepted.In an apparent allusion to the absence of consensus result papers at all the ministerial meetings India held during the year, Kant observed, “This is one proclamation without a single footnote and without any chair’s summary.

Kant further argued that the existence of 112 result and annex documents—more than two and a half times the output of previous summits—made this presidency the most “ambitious” in G20 history. The proclamation by the leaders also has a “huge India narrative and India footprint” in terms of tourism, land restoration, food security, and improved MSMEs, he said.

He said that no previous G20 declaration had placed such a strong emphasis on the growing and rising economies of the Global South. India has served as the speaker for the whole Global South, he said, and “this is a document of the Global South, this is a document of the developing countries who came together and spelled out their priorities.”

According to Jaishankar, India had made sure that the issues facing the Global South were a priority during the G20 discussions because the Covid-19 pandemic, economic setbacks, climate events, and the effects of the Ukraine conflict had all adversely affected numerous developing nations in quick succession. He said that until recently, the suffering of these nations had not been completely acknowledged, and India has distilled their opinions by hosting the Voice of Global South Summit and presenting them to the G20.

Jaishankar said that China was quite supportive of several of the G20 Summit’s conclusions. When asked why Chinese President Xi Jinping wasn’t present at the meeting, he said, “It’s up to each nation to determine at what level they will be represented. I don’t believe it should be taken too literally. What matters, in my opinion, is the stance each nation has taken and how much it has contributed to discussions and decisions. China, in my opinion, has been a strong advocate for the different decisions.

Premier Li Qiang represented China at the conference. The Chinese authorities didn’t provide an explanation for Xi’s decision to forgo the meeting.

When questioned about the statement that there were “different views and assessments” of the situation in Ukraine in the leaders’ statement, Jaishankar said that the G20 participants were just being open about a “very polarizing issue.” There are a variety of opinions on this, and it was only proper to document the truth in the conference rooms, he said.

Due to their long history of cooperation, the developing economies were crucial in securing the adoption of the leaders’ statement. Remember that Indonesia, India, Brazil, and South Africa are all developing nations that have held the G20 presidency in turn. However, Jaishankar added that rather than focusing on who provided assistance, it is important to acknowledge that a common landing spot was eventually established.

He said that the leaders’ statement contains an action plan for this and supports robust, sustainable, balanced, and inclusive development while advancing progress on the SDGs. The G20 also acknowledged the need for a new global order after the epidemic, he said.

The Goa Roadmap for Tourism was noted as one of the methods for attaining the SDGs. The statement also emphasized the critical roles that tourism and culture play in sustainable socio-economic development and economic success.