India world-ready, world India-ready: Jaishankar at G20 Summit
The leaders’ declaration focuses on promoting strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth, seeks to accelerate progress on the sustainable development goals
New Delhi The country’s G20 presidency has made “India world-ready and the world India-ready” even as New Delhi ensured that the concerns of the Global South constituted the core agenda of deliberations within the grouping, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday.
Jaishankar made the remarks while addressing a media briefing along with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant, chief G20 coordinator Harsh Shringla and foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra, shortly after the Indian side clinched a consensus leaders’ declaration.
“The G20 has contributed to making India world-ready and the world India-ready,” he said. “No one left behind” has now become a goal for foreign policy as much as domestic policies, he pointed out.
The leaders’ declaration focuses on promoting strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth, seeks to accelerate progress on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), envisages a green development pact for a sustainable future, and endorses high-level principles on a lifestyle for sustainable development, he added.
The declaration also includes voluntary principles on green hydrogen, the Chennai principles for a sustainable resilient blue economy and the Deccan principles for food security and nutrition.
While noting that the G20 is not the platform to resolve geopolitical and security issues, the leaders recognised they can have significant consequences for the global economy. “In particular, they dwelt on the ongoing war in Ukraine and the impact it has had, especially on developing and least developing nations still recovering from the pandemic and economic disruptions,” Jaishankar said.
In keeping with India’s focus on the Global South, food, fuel and fertilisers were issues of special concern. The G20 leaders also focused on countering terror and money laundering, and condemned all forms of terrorism while recognising it as one of the “most serious threats to international peace”.
Most ambitious presidency
Kant listed among the key achievements the fact that every single country had come together to focus on the green development pact which includes financing, reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030 and the doubling of adaptation finance by 2025.
“The New Delhi leaders’ declaration has 83 paras in all. All 83 paras have 100% consensus across all countries. There are eight paras on the geopolitical issue which is entitled planet, people, peace and prosperity. All those eight paras have 100% acceptance...This is one declaration without a single footnote and without any chair’s summary,” Kant said, in an apparent reference to the lack of consensus outcome documents at all the ministerial meetings hosted by India throughout the year.
Kant also contended this had been the most “ambitious” presidency in the G20’s history because it has about 112 outcome and annex documents – more than two-and-a-half times the achievement of past summits. The leaders’ declaration also has a “huge India narrative and India footprint” in terms of food security, tourism, land restoration and enhanced MSMEs, he added.
No other G20 document has focused so much on the developing and emerging markets of the Global South, he said. “This is a document of the Global South, this is a document of the developing countries which came together and spelt out their priorities and India has been the spokesperson of all the Global South,” he added.
Jaishankar said India had ensured that the concerns of the Global South constituted a core agenda of the deliberations at the G20 since many developing countries had been impacted in quick succession by the Covid-19 pandemic, economic disruptions, climate events and the consequences of the Ukraine conflict. The distress of these countries had not been fully recognised till now and India had distilled their views by organising the Voice of Global South Summit and putting these across to the G20, he said.
Jaishankar further said China was very supportive of various outcomes at the G20 Summit. Responding to a question about the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the summit, he said: “It’s for every country to decide at what level they will be represented. I don’t think one should overly read meanings into it. What I think is important is what is the position that country has taken, and how much that country has contributed to deliberations and outcomes, and I would say that China was very supportive of the various outcomes.”
China was represented at the summit by Premier Li Qiang. No reason was given the Chinese government for Xi’s decision to skip the meet.
Asked about a line in the leaders’ declaration that said there were “different views and assessments” of the situation in Ukraine, Jaishankar said the G20 members were only being transparent about a “very polarising issue”. He added: “There are a spectrum of views on this, and it was only right to record the reality in the meeting rooms.”
The emerging economies played a major role in getting the leaders’ declaration adopted as they have a strong history of working together in the past. “Bear in mind that actually you have four developing countries in succession as G20 presidencies – Indonesia, India, Brazil and South Africa – but I would say rather than who helped, the point to be recognised is that a common landing point was ultimately fashioned out,” Jaishankar said.
The leaders’ declaration also promotes strong sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth while accelerating progress on the SDGs and has come up with an action plan for this, he said. The G20 also recognised the need for a post-pandemic world order that differs from the previous one, he added.
The declaration also highlighted the crucial role of tourism and culture in sustainable socio-economic development and economic prosperity and took note of the Goa Roadmap for Tourism as one of the vehicles for achieving the SDGs.