Prof. D. Mukhopadhyay, Dr. Kamal Agarwal
India is occasioned to have presidency of the Group of Twenty, G20, the premier forum for international cooperation on the important aspects of the international economic and financial agenda for Year 2022-2023. It brings together the world’s major advanced and emerging economies on single platform.The G20 comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, EU, France, Germany,India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea,Turkey, UK and USA. The G20 Countries together represent around 90% of global GDP, 80% of global trade, and two thirds of the world’s population.The objectives of the G20 include policy coordination between its members in order to achieve global economic stability, sustainable growth , promotion of financial regulations that reduce risks exposure and prevent future financial crises and creation of a new international financial order. The G20 was created in response to the financial crises arisen in a numberof emerging economies in early 1990s and growing recognition that some of these countries were not adequately represented in global economic forums and governance. In December 1999, the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of advanced and emerging countries met for the first time in Berlin, Germany, for initiating an informal discussion on key issues for global economic stability through efficient functioning of the economic systems remaining in place. Since then, Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors have been meting annually and India hosted a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in 2002. The G20 was elevated to the Summit level in 2008 in order to address the then global financial and economic crisis of 2008 whose genesis was ‘US Sub-Prime Lending Crisis’.
As far as the organizational structure of G20 is concerned, it operates without having any permanent secretariat or staff. The G20 Chair rotates annually among the members and is selected from a different regional grouping of countries. The chair is part of a revolving three-member management group of past, present and future chairs referred to as the Troika. The current chair of the G-20 is India and the Prime Minister of India has been entrusted with the presidential chair of G20 from her counterpart, Indonesia. So far ever, main focus and priorities of the G20 had been concentration on non-economic and financial issues, such as development, anti-corruption and food security, Labour, Agriculture, Tourism , strengthening the international financial system and reforming international financial institutions and developmental pillars such as “Infrastructure and infrastructure financing, human resources development, trade, private investment and job creation, food security, growth with resilience, domestic resource mobilization, knowledge sharing and financial inclusion’. An important feature of the G20 Summit is to invite the most important partners in global economic development such as the UN, ILO, WTO, FAO, FSB , OECD etc. India and the G-20 India’s participation in the past stems from understating that as a major emerging economy, India has a vital responsibility in bringing about stability of the international economic and financial system. The G20 set its agenda to work with developing countries, particularly low-income countries and support them in implementing their nationally driven policies and priorities which are needed to fulfil internationally agreed developmental goals, particularly, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and it is a prominent commitment of the G20 forum to ensure that the growth prospects of the developing nations become a reality and India has been playing a pragmatic and constructive role since inception to make it a point that this global body of economic cooperation must facilitate in mobilizing adequate flow of financial resources to the emerging economies for meeting their developmental needs.
India got the Presidency Chair of the G20 at such a time when the whole world is under the canvas of geopolitical suffocation mode and an economic down turn eclipsed the global economic progress attributed with high inflation, low productivity, restriction in the human and financial resources’ mobility. The Russia-Ukraine military conflict having been erupted since 24th February 2022 created huge shortages of the items such as food and provisions , fuel including cooking gas, medicines and pharmaceutical products world wide. However, India has been playing a crucial role with her robust foreign policy in maintaining balances in geopolitics at global level. To be more specific, besides Russia-Ukraine war, China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific region, Galwan valley and Twang in our Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh respectively along the Actual Line of Control, Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan and endless civil chaos in Pakistan are some of the geopolitical crises which keeps India under the influence of diplomatic pressure. India out of her eternal legacy and part of the time tested culture and civic sensitivity can hardly remain indifferent to the socioeconomic crises of the neighbours and Sri Lanka is one such cases besides Afghanistan when She has been coterminously in constant touch with the Sri Lankan National Government and sending both the financial and humanitarian aids. India also committed for USD 80 million financial assistance over and above USD 3 billion spent in the recent past for infrastructure and economic development of Afghanistan. In the similar manner, India maintains her commitment to stand by the people of Myanmar. What is mentioned here are some of the parts of her continued commitments before taking over the G20 Presidency.
India’s immediate challenges include dealing with the Chinese standoff, maintaining cordial diplomacy with Russia, an all weather friend of India, reducing international trade deficit by boosting up exports and commercial transaction with the European Union Nations, US, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Australia etc for recovering and bridging the gap between Export and Imports . It is again pertinent to mention that China seems to be a friend of Russia and it is a kind of diplomatic compulsion for Russia to remain an effective ally of China to counter the US military establishment and economic might. On the contrary, China wants to keep India busy at both the Line of Control and the Line of Actual Control so that India might be facing difficulty in curtailing defence expenditure and would loose her focus from national economic development. China is just trying to be a provocative instrument before India so that India would somehow get involved in war with China and Indian emerging economy should automatically get destroyed .
Couple of days back, export of terrorism and terrorists by Pakistan and killing of five terrorists by the Indian forces at Sidra, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir witnessed that Pakistan would never change its adopted policy to disturb the Indian Establishments and cause injury to the Indian economy even if Pakistan suffers from civil disorders and non- supply of the bare necessaries for its common citizens. Under the given challenging scenarios, Indian leadership has a crucial task and responsibility to bring together all the G20 Leaders and particularly , Biden, Putin and Xi in the G20 Sumit-2023 likely to staged at New Delhi, the National Capital of India and prove her global leadership capability in bringing about a win-win negotiating table for both Putin and Zelensky which is certainly an uphill task for any global leader because of complexity of the Russia-Ukraine war. The current regime of Oli- supported -Nepalese Government has been observed to have started tilting towards China from day one it was installed in the Nepalese Parliament , Bangladesh is scheduled to go for the General Election in early 2024 and India herself has also to prepare for holding the Loksabha General Election in 2024. Further , Pakistan is likely to go for its National Assembly Election sometime in August- September 2023 which India needs to have vigilance over the new political and geopolitical developments out of the outcome of the election when there shall, in all probability, be a neck to neck contest between two major teams under the captaincy of Imran Khan and Shebaz-Bilabal Alliance and the role of the Pakistani Military Establishment in facilitating Shebaz-Bilabal in power is of high significance.
The G20 Presidency Year is likely to create new opportunities for India for making her strategic positioning more relevant and establishing new bondage with the regional and international institutions such as OECD, ILO, Asian Development Bank, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Working Group on Human Resource Development, the European Training Foundation, the EU Expert Group on New Skills for New Jobs, UNESCO, the World Bank, the ILO’s International Training Centre in Turin and the Inter-American Centre for Knowledge Development inVocational Training. The Inter-Agency Group on Technical and Vocational Education and Training are the significant enablers of providing skilled workforce for sustainable economic growth at the global level. The global economic environment is in dire needs of skilled and technology savvy workforce for improving efficiency and productivity. This is an opportunity for India to strengthen her position in the role of ‘Vishwaguru’ by exploring and recommending strategies for imparting education for all, lifelong learning, on job training and skills development strategies linked to the growth strategies and uninterrupted capacity development projects for quick economic growth and development. Women’s participation particularly in manufacturing sector is considerably low and all round socioeconomic development is not possible unless women’s participation in manufacturing sector is improved. The Indian G20 leadership should strengthen cooperation among the international agencies and use it as the fulcrum in bringing about economic progress of India and smooth-en the journey to the destination of becoming the third largest economic power in the globe in due course.
India is concerned about securing a permanent membership and a seat at the UN Security Council and the performance of the Indian leadership in the G20 Presidency seems to be one of the most prominent enabling determinants for achieving this long outstanding mission. Under the foregone narratives, immediate recommendation for India is to increase the number of her global allies in one hand and strengthen the existing bondage of friendships with Russia, Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea, OIC and balancing diplomacy with the neighbouring countries with the India’s long practiced policy of restoring global harmony, peace and ‘live and let live’ maxim. . Expectations from the G20 Presidency 2022-2023 are many at both the national and internal levels under the given time constraint and therefore, prioritizing the issues for addressing is the left over only option.
(The authors are Former Interim Vice Chancellor, SMVD University, Katra and Associate Professor , NMIMS University , Bangalore)
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