On the eve of a maiden four-day meeting of the G20 Development Working Group (DWG) in Mumbai, India’s Sherpa Mr Amitabh Kant on Monday said that this is for the first time that India which is a developing country and an emerging superpower, will set an agenda of G20 Presidency. ‘’India can transform and become the global leader, exporter, producer of an electrolyzer and global champion of green hydrogen, but for that, multilateral institutions must also finance our entrepreneurs; many of those issues will be discussed at G20. This is a huge opportunity to create a win-win collaboration between developing countries, the global south and advancing countries. While we shape an inclusive future, we are also sharing India's experiences,‘’ he said.
‘’First time India will be setting the agenda of the G20 Presidency. We have done a lot of developmental work, opened ~40 crore new bank accounts since 2015, 4,800 crore transactions in digital payments, distributed 36.7 crore LED bulbs, ~ 3 crore affordable houses,’’ said Mr Kant.
Mr Kant said at a time when the world is facing recession, India is a silver spot and it can play a major role in deciding a policy to transform the present scenario. Besides, India along with other G20 countries can play a major role in making the multilateral financial institutions to change their lending norms so that climate financing will become easy. ‘’Basic challenge is that many of the multilateral institutions do direct lending, they don't do lending based on first-loss guarantee or credit enhancement or blended finance; US Treasury Secretary has said that these institutions should be restructured,’’ he added.
On the eve of a maiden four day meeting of the G20 Development Working Group in Mumbai, the India’s Sherpa Mr Amitabh Kant on Monday said that this is for the first time that India which is a developing country and an emerging super power, will set an agenda of G20 Presidency. | FPJ
Mr Kant said at a time when the world is facing recession, India is a silver spot and it can play a major role in deciding a policy to transform the present scenario. | FPJ
‘’G20 is a whole-of-government approach, comprising Finance Track, Sherpa Track, Foreign Ministers' Meeting and Empowered Initiatives. About 215 meetings in 56 cities of India are being held, in every state and Union Territory. For the first time, India has created a new group in G20 called Startup 20, since India today has more than 80,000 startups, we are giving a big thrust to startups,’’ he said. ‘’This is a huge opportunity to create a win-win collaboration between developing countries, global south and advancing countries. While we shape an inclusive future, we are also sharing India's experiences,’’he noted.
Mr Kant outlined India's DWG priorities as Green Development including climate action and financing, just energy transitions and LiFE (LifeStyle for Environment); Accelerating implementation of SDGs and (iDigital Public Goods/Data for Development. He added that DWG conversations would also include debt distress, reformed multilateralism and women-led development and that India will highlight the importance of inclusive growth and collective action to achieve it.
The three-day meeting will focus on G20 collective actions for accelerating progress on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), support to developing countries in dealing with immediate concerns relating to food and energy security and debt distress, and a 2023 G20 New Delhi Update on SDGs.
