Tracking the progress in six key G20 focus areas

India's G20 presidency focused on growth, climate crisis, sustainable development, digital public infrastructure, and women-led development.

India’s G20 presidency focused on the theme of one earth, one family and one future, but in more concrete terms, it identified six lines of effort: Ensuring growth, addressing the climate crisis, reversing the setbacks on sustainable development goals, pushing digital public infrastructure, reforming multilateral institutions and promoting women-led development

India was able to incorporate the concerns of the Global South in its key concern areas. (AFP)

No single presidency, no single country, and no set of meetings in a span of 10 months can resolve or address the structural issues embedded in some of the most complex challenges that India decided to take up. And in an international system marked by anarchy — defined literally as the absence of an overarching global governance unit where each state is possessive of its sovereignty — there are limits to influencing governments. To top it, the differences over Ukraine and geopolitical divisions have continued to overshadow the other work done under the presidency.

Still, a reading of the outcome statements from the various ministerials indicates that India was able to first, keep the focus on these issues and push global conversations on it. Two, in some cases, even achieve substantive progress in the key domains that it identified. And three, it was able to incorporate the concerns of the global south, especially the most marginalised, in its policy push.

While the theme of sustainable development goals found its way across all domains, here is a snapshot of some of the key issues discussed and outcomes agreed upon, which will find a reflection in the New Delhi declaration — either in the form of a joint communique or an outcome statement and chair’s summary — over the weekend.

Growth

At the third G20 finance ministers and central bank governors (FMCBG) meeting in Gandhinagar, the G20 members recognised that global economic growth is “below its long-run average” and uneven; there was tightening in global financial conditions which could “worsen debt vulnerabilities, persistent inflation and geoeconomic tensions”; and the balance of risks remained tilted downside.

This, G20 leaders agreed, called for “well calibrated monetary, fiscal, financial and structural policies”. Central banks said they remained committed to achieving price stability, ensuring inflation expectations were well anchored, and clearly communicating their policy stances as all agreed on the need to maintain central bank independence. On the fiscal front, G20 members agreed to prioritise temporary and targeted fiscal measures to protect the poor, but also promised to maintain medium term fiscal sustainability and ensure coherence of fiscal and monetary policies. And on the supply side, G20 members recognised the importance of policies that increased labour supply and enhanced productivity. The ministerial also recognised that there remained volatility in food and energy markets, that the climate crisis posed macroeconomic risks, and that inaction would have costs.

The global economy is somewhat better placed in 2023 than it was in 2022, but the Indian presidency, while recognising the agency of sovereign nations, has clearly underlined the risks and the importance of measured economic policymaking to restore growth while taming inflation.

MDB reform

A key Indian initiative during its presidency was the effort to reform multilateral development banks (MDBs), for which it set up an independent expert group led by former US treasury secretary Larry Summers and veteran Indian policymaker NK Singh.

The FMCBG meeting called for the implementation of the recommendations of the G20 independent review of MDB capital adequacy frameworks. It asked MDBs to “evolve their vision, incentive structures, operational approaches, and financial capacities” and it welcomed the report on the evolution of the World Bank Group. This report called for an expansion of the Bank’s mandate from eradicating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity to also addressing climate challenges and fragility.

The work of the expert group, which emphasizes that the Bank’s expanded mandate must not come at the cost of its poverty reduction role, and has offered specific advice on finance mobilisation is likely to find its way in the final outcome.

Climate

The same meeting reaffirmed G20’s commitment to the Paris Agreement, but also pointedly recalled the commitment of the developed countries to mobilise jointly $100 billion climate finance per year by 2020, and annually through 2025, a target that has remained elusive. The FMCBG meeting also highlighted the significant role of public finance in enabling climate actions, including leveraging much-needed private finance through “blended financial instruments, mechanisms, and risk-sharing facilities to address both adaptation and mitigation measures”. The meet also endorsed the Technical Assistance Action Plan to overcome data-related barriers to climate investments.

Separately, the G20 environment and climate ministerial in July recognised that climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, desertification, deforestation, water quality and accessibility, land and ocean degradation were all linked; acknowledged that action hadn’t been sufficient to meet the goal of keeping global temperature increase well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels; and agreed that levels of adaptation hadn’t kept up with levels needed to respond to the crisis.

G20 urged governments that hadn’t aligned their nationally determined contributions with the Paris Agreement goals to revisit their 2030 targets and recalled that developed countries should “undertake economy-wide absolute emission reduction targets”, developing countries should enhance mitigation efforts and move over time to economy wide emission reduction “in light of different national circumstances”. The ministers also emphasised the importance of the global stocktake at the upcoming COP28. Separately, G20 saw India push Mission Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE).

Women-led development

The ministerial on women’s empowerment, in its statement in August, recognised women and girls are held back from enjoying their potential and exercise human rights due to different forms of gender discrimination and violence; acknowledged the importance of overcoming structural barriers and why gender equality wasn’t just a women’s issue; and underlined their commitment to a “decisive gender mainstreaming” approach as essential to achieving equality and women-led development. To achieve this, the Indian presidency focused on four specific themes.

The first is education where G20 members agreed on the need to increase investment for “affordable, inclusive, equitable, safe, and quality education”; address harmful gender norms in the education curricula; bridge the gender digital divide by improving access to digital technologies and participation and employment in new fields, invest in digital literacy and address risks due to harmful gender bias in Artificial intelligence and algorithms; and reduce gender gaps in all relevant socioeconomic sectors.

The second is women’s entrepreneurship, where G20 members agreed to promote women’s financial inclusion, strengthen their access to markets, facilitate their capacity building. The third theme is promoting women’s leadership at the grassroots by ensuring their equal participation in political systems and governance and supporting women’s organisations. And the fourth is recognising the role of women and girl as “change makers” in the domain of climate, food security and nutrition.

India also took forward the G20 Empowerment and Progression of Women’s Economic Representation (EMPOWER) alliance, with working groups on corporate women empowerment, digital inclusion, financial inclusion and business acceleration, mentorship, and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), all of which have made recommendations which may find their way in the New Delhi declaration.

DPI

Among India’s most important objectives, and achievements, was getting the G20 to accept the idea of digital public infrastructure and arrive at a common definition.

The outcome statement of digital economy ministers’ meeting defined DPI as a “set of shared digital systems that should be secure and interoperable, and can be built on open standards and specifications to deliver and provide equitable access to public and/or private services at societal scale and are governed by applicable legal frameworks and enabling rules to drive development, inclusion, innovation, trust, and competition and respect human rights and freedom”.

The August ministerial also adopted the G20 framework for Systems of DPI, recognised India building a Global DPI repository, acknowledged the growing demand for financing and implementation of DPI in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), and spoke of India’s proposal of a global one future alliance which can help provide technical assistance, sustainable funding and capacity building capabilities to LMICs to develop their own versions of DPIs. Experts also believe that a separate document on global partnership for financial inclusion is now among the most important outcomes of the presidency which is linked to the use of DPI in expanding financing access.

The final document may or may not reflect all that’s been outlined. But there is little doubt that beyond the form, in the more unglamorous world of closed door meetings where texts are carefully negotiated, India’s presidency steered substantive discussions on some of the most pressing issues in the world.