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G20 Summit: Two-day Infrastructure Working Group meet concludes in Pune
The flagship theme discussed in this meeting was ‘Financing Cities of Tomorrow: Inclusive, resilient and sustainable’
The two-day G20 Infrastructure Working Group (IWG) meeting under G20 India Presidency concluded in Pune on Tuesday. This convention was attended by approximately 65 delegates from G20 countries, invited countries and international entities to discuss the 2023 infrastructure agenda under the Indian G20 Presidency.
The flagship theme discussed in this meeting was ‘Financing Cities of Tomorrow: Inclusive, resilient and sustainable’.
Giving the details of two days G20 IWG meet held in Pune at a press briefing session, Solomon Arokiaraj, joint secretary, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, said, “On the first day of the inaugural session, union minister Narayan Rane delivered a speech about India’s presidency. The following sessions included in-depth discussions of the IWG flagship theme. We are working on five major themes: how to make sustainable cities, resilient cities, inclusive cities, city financing needs, and how cities must plan dynamically with a people-centric approach. These were the main topics of conversation during the two-day conclave.”
“The delegates then went to Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) for an Asian Development Bank workshop on attracting private funds for urban infrastructure development. There were three-panel discussions, and 14 experts from various countries and entities participated. The discussion was of high quality, with the goal of gathering feedback for the main project on which we are working. They provide successful project models and examples “Arokiaraj stated.
“The second important deliberation of this workshop was on capacity building, specifically how urban and municipal government employees or other stakeholders in this ecosystem attract private sector finance,” he added.
The Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance and Government of India hosted the two-day IWG meetings, which were co-chaired by Australia and Brazil. The G20 IWG discussed various aspects of infrastructure investments, such as developing infrastructure as an asset class, promoting quality infrastructure investment, and identifying innovative financial instruments for infrastructure investment.
“On the second day, sessions were held at the hotel. The first session was about the infra tracker, as legacy work is ongoing across presidencies, and this year we proposed various improvements. Overall, it was an interesting two-day meeting, and we hope that all of these inputs will be processed at the next meeting, which is scheduled for March Arokiaraj added.
“The one thing that came was the pace of urbanisation is very rapid, everybody is going to look at climate change and reduction of the carbon footprint was the theme around which many of the discussions were done,” he said of the points of concern discussed about the IWG theme.
