India’s efforts to have strong outcomes at G20 annual summit receive support by grouping: Amitabh Kant

Hampi, Jul 15 (PTI) Top negotiators of G20 nations complimented New Delhi’s efforts to deliver “strong outcomes” at the grouping’s upcoming summit to deal with key global challenges such as addressing financing gaps, pushing economic growth and ensuring sustainable development, India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant said on Saturday.

He also described the ongoing discussions at the third Sherpas’ meeting in this heritage city as a “very huge success” and that the negotiators were supportive of priorities of the Indian presidency of the G20.

Talking to the media, Kant said the negotiators deliberated on challenges such as debt vulnerabilities, making multilateral institutions more responsive to the needs of developing countries and ensuring progress on the sustainable development goals.

“India has put forward multiple key proposals in front of the G20 countries with a view to shaping the global agenda and response to the crisis and challenges being faced by the world,” Kant said.

The Indian G20 Sherpa said the delegates “praised our efforts to bring very strong outcomes to deliver in addressing key global challenges”.

“Several of them actually admitted that this is the most ambitious outcome document (draft) that they have seen in G20 since its beginning, and actually thanked India for bringing the issues crucial for both developing countries, emerging countries and the developed countries,” he said.

The three-day Sherpas’ meeting comes less than two months ahead of the G20 Summit in New Delhi on September 9 and 10.

People familiar with the discussions said that there were no formal discussions on the text relating to the Ukraine crisis though there were exchanges on the contentious matter in bilateral meetings.

There have been sharp differences between the West and the Russia-China combine on the text relating to the Ukraine crisis.

In the text of the draft communique, two paragraphs on the Ukraine conflict were taken from G20 ‘leaders’ Bali declaration that was unveiled in November.

Both Russia and China had agreed to the two paragraphs on the Ukraine conflict in the Bali declaration, but they backtracked from it this year creating difficulties for India to build consensus on the tricky issue.

The people cited above said India was confident of coming out with formulations on the Ukraine crisis that would be acceptable to all sides.

It is also learnt that around five formulations including one floated by Brazil are in circulation.

“We are confident of coming out with a text on Ukraine for the Leaders’ Joint Declaration,” said one of the persons.

Asked about the Ukraine conflict, Kant said geopolitical issues are being discussed bilaterally and that the objective of the Sherpa meeting was to push the developmental agenda.

“For us, developmental issues are more important — for both developing and emerging countries,” he said, adding “geopolitics” was discussed bilaterally and in groups.

“On all key global, developmental and growth issues, we will come together to address the major global challenges and take very strong collective action,” he said.

The Indian G20 Sherpa said India’s proposal to make the African Union a permanent member of the G20 received overwhelming support.

“Every single country has supported this,” he said.

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote to the leaders of the G20 nations proposing that the African Union be given the full membership of the grouping at the upcoming summit.

The African Union (AU) is a continental body consisting of the 55 member states that make up the countries of the African continent.

“We’ve looked at global growth, we’ve looked at unlocking trade for growth. We’ve looked at building cities for tomorrow, we’ve looked at fostering global economic cooperation,” Kant said.

“We have looked at delivering on climate finance, we’ve looked at preserving, protecting and restoring ecosystems, on ending plastic pollution and on reducing disaster risk and building resilient infrastructure,” he said.

The G20 or Group of 20 is an intergovernmental forum of the world’s major developed and developing economies.

The members represent around 85 per cent of the global GDP, over 75 per cent of the global trade, and about two-thirds of the world population.

The grouping comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, the US and the European Union (EU).