By: Dr. Jayasree Nath
G20 or Group of 20 countries is a premier international intergovernmental forum comprised of 19 sovereign countries and the European Union (EU), initiated to address major issues related to global economic policies, later expanded its ambit to include major geo-strategic concerns, global health, pandemic, terrorism, sustainable development to climate consideration as all impact and affect the financial stability of a country and global economy. G20, initiated to strengthen the relations between the developed and developing economies, the forum has provided a rotation based presidentship to member countries. The forum gathers to discuss the issues and concerns of emerging economies that carry global consequences.
Being the current presidency of G20, Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi reveals the current theme, ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’ which reflects India’s position and advocacy for universal sense of oneness.
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Significance of G20
The G20 countries are composed of largest economies of the world, both developed industrialised and developing nations accounting around the 90 % of global GDP, 80 % of international trade, two-third of world’s population and 60 % of total land area. The initial purpose of the G20 was to provide an international platform to financial ministers and central bankers of the major and emerging economies to discuss the financial stability and vulnerability of the emerging economies. It established Financial Stability Board of G20 countries in the wake of Asian economic crisis 1997-98. Aftermath of 2008 global financial crisis, it upgraded to include the heads of states and government at first official summit in Washington DC and expanded its ambit towards other areas of global importance. The member countries of G20 includes the US, UK, Turkey, South Korea, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Mexico, Japan, Italy, Indonesia, India, Germany, France, China, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Argentina and EU. Major regional and international organisations such as UN, IMF, WTO, ASEAN were also joined the forum as a guest being invited by the host countries. The consensus based G20 summit mechanism shows the relevance and significance of interconnectedness and interdependence of global economy post-globalised era of development which is impossible to fix through the involvement and engagement of major developed economies only.
The relevance of Global South, importance of emerging economies globally, the importance of third world countries in decision making, the role of democratic country like India in leading the economies of the world signifies the role of India’s G20 membership and presidentship. Further, the emerging multi-polar global order buoyed by new emerging economies signifies the relevance of G20 groupings.
The Genesis
The origin of the development of G20 goes back to the period of 20th century in response of global financial crisis. Founded in 1999 on 26 September inviting countries to work together for economic development and financial cooperation. The initiative G20 is started by Martin and his former American counterpart Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. In later period, US and Germany played a crucial role establishing the multilateral grouping of the countries. It was created in the backdrop of the global massive financial crisis the countries had faced post disintegration of Soviet Union and embracement of economic liberation and globalization across emerging markets in the late 1990s by mostly countries of both developed and developing of the world. The crisis was started with Mexican peso crisis and followed by the Asian financial catastrophe of 1997, the Russian financial crisis of 1998 impacting on major economies of world including US and other developed countries as well. The G20 was established to meet the challenges the already operational international organisation such as G7, G8, World Bank and IMF enable to succeed in handling the challenges faced by emerging economies globally. It significantly realised post-globalisation, the need of an integrated forum to discuss issues pertaining in the newly emerging countries that has global impact.
G20 Presidentship and the role of India
India, being fifth largest economy, largest successful democratic country of the world has a vital role to play in the current global order which is becoming complex and polarised on many issues. India, initiator of the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) in foreign relations changed the approaches to turn out to be a neutral spectator towards an assertive leader of global concern. India’s recent approaches at both regional and global issues decisively confirm the evolving foreign policy New Delhi has been preceding. The successful experience of India in tackling and surviving global recession has vital stake in the stability of global economy.
Notwithstanding, since 1990s, India’s accomplishment in domestic economic growth and stable political development shaped the foreign policy priority persuading a cooperation-based engagement with likeminded countries based on the synergies of cultural, political, economic and geostrategic interest. It has been helping and assisting the countries of need in the form of humanitarian assistance, aid and amenities. India’s soft power approach, humanitarian assistance on Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, cooperation with South Africa, Bhutan and Nepal is recognised and applauded by international platforms of importance. It has been able to continue balanced relations between contradictory countries particularly with major developed countries such as the US, EU, UK, Israel while continuing its historical partnership with Russia and Iran. India is rising as an Asian regional powerhouse without having major contradiction with engaged countries. Democratic political stability added advantage for India helping to emerged as an attractive stable destination for investment for major economies.
Challenges:
The non-compliance, non-binding nature of decisions brands G20 a weak apparatus, talk show rather than result oriented mechanism. It left implementations of decisions on the political will of the individual countries. Besides, the over-dependence of emerging economies on major economies is another challenge of G20 in its ethos of representation. Besides, persistent pressure by developed countries influencing the decisions of developing countries is another shortcoming of G20. There are lot of critical issues on economic, environment, security related where countries are divided both at regionally and globally.
However, the evolving nature with equal representation on consensus-based discussions and decisions made the G20 an attractive platform among the countries. In this regard, India has significant role to play and being the host country, Indian government has invited countries of its importance as a guest those were not the member of G20. The invited countries are Bangladesh, Egypt, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Spain, UAE including International Solar Alliance, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure and Asian Development Bank. India confirms to hold more than 200 meetings across 50 cities involving ministers, officials, students and civil societies pertaining to discuss a range of issues restoring global financial stability and improvement to reformation of multilateral forums, policies on empowerment of women, tech-based development to digitalization of public infrastructure, climate financing, global food security, energy security etc. will be held on both bilateral and multilateral dialogue platform. The agendas on geostrategic equilibrium, the scourge of global debt, climate crisis mainly facing by developing and least developed countries are top most priorities in the coming G20 summit. (The author is an Assistant Professor from the Department of Political Science, Morigaon College & can be reached at jayasreemorigaoncollege@gmail.com or +91 8826388688)
