EDITORIAL ANALYSIS : A new global vision for G20

Source: The Hindu,

• Prelims: Current events of international importance, G20, G7 etc.
• Mains GS Paper II: Significance of G20 countries, Bilateral, regional and global grouping and agreements involving India or affecting India’s interests.

ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS

• The 17th G20 Heads of State and Government Summit is in November in Bali. After Indonesia, India will assume the presidency of G20 from December 2022.
• While India has taken a clear view of the role of the G20, there is concern that the agenda, themes and focus areas which India will set for 2023 lack vision.
• According to the Ministry of External Affairs, in 190 meetings, India will strengthen international support for priorities of vital importance to developing countries in diverse social and economic sectors, ranging from energy, agriculture, trade, digital economy, health and environment to employment, tourism, anti-corruption and women empowerment, including in focus areas that impact the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.

INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE

Context

G20:

• The G20 is an informal group of 19 countries and the European Union, with representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
• The G20 membership comprises a mix of the world’s largest advanced and emerging economies, representing about two-thirds of the world’s population, 85% of global gross domestic product, 80% of global investment and over 75% of global trade.

Origin:

• 1997-1999 ASIAN Financial Crisis: This was a ministerial-level forum which emerged after G7 invited both developed and developing economies. The finance ministers and central bank governors began meeting in 1999.
• Amid the 2008 Financial Crisis the world saw the need for a new consensus building at the highest political level. It was decided that the G20 leaders would begin meeting once annually.
• To help prepare these summits, the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors continue to meet on their own twice a year.
• They meet at the same time as the International Monetary Fund and The World Bank.

How does the G20 Works?

• The working of G20 is divided into two tracks:
  • The finance track: It comprises all meetings with G20 finance ministers and central bank governors and their deputies.
    • Meeting several times throughout the year they focus on monetary and fiscal issues, financial regulations, etc.
  • The Sherpa track: It focuses on broader issues such as political engagement, anti-corruption, development, energy, etc.
    • Each G20 country is represented by its Sherpa; who plans, guides, implements, etc. on behalf of the leader of their respective country.

Structure and Functioning of G20:

• The G20 Presidency rotates annually according to a system that ensures a regional balance over time.
• For the selection of the presidency, the 19 countries are divided into 5 groups, each having no more than 4 countries. The presidency rotates between each group.
• Every year the G20 selects a country from another group to be president.
  • India is in Group 2 which also has Russia, South Africa, and Turkey.
• The G20 does not have a permanent secretariat or Headquarters. Instead, the G20 president is responsible for bringing together the G20 agenda in consultation with other members and in response to developments in the global economy.
• TROIKA: Every year when a new country takes on the presidency, it works hand in hand with the previous presidency and the next presidency and this is collectively known as TROIKA. This ensures continuity and consistency of the group’s agenda.

The work of G20 members is supported by several international organizations:

• They provide policy advice.
• These organizations include:
  • The Financial Stability Board (FSB). The FSB, which was established by G20 leaders following the onset of the global financial crisis,
  • The International Labour Organization (ILO).
  • The International Monetary Fund (IMF).
  • The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
  • United Nations (UN)
  • World Bank
  • The World Trade Organization (WTO)

Why it is Collaboration not commitment:

• Multilateralism: The fractured world makes trade-offs, the essence of current multilateralism, difficult and suggests a new model of international cooperation.
• Multilateral commitments on aid and trade are faltering: Governance in a world that is steadily becoming more equal needs institutional innovation.
  • This is because the role of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization in securing cooperation between donor and recipient country groups is losing centrality.
  • There are now three socio-economic systems — the G7, China-Russia, and India and the others — and they will jointly set the global agenda.
• Reluctance to take sides: Ukraine’s long shadow, rival finance, the expanding influence of the trade and value chains dominated by the U.S. and China, and the reluctance of developing countries to take sides in the strategic competition as they have a real choice requires fresh thinking on the nature and form of collaboration from the G20.
• The primary role of the G20: which accounts for 95% of the world’s patents, 85% of global GDP, 75% of international trade and 65% of the world population, needs to be reoriented to prevent a clash of ideas to the detriment of the global good.
  • The solution lies in a new conceptual model seeking agreement on an agenda limited to principles rather than long negotiated anodyne text.

Common concerns:

• Expansion of unity to other areas: The presumed equality that we are all in the same boat, recognised in the case of climate change, needs to be expanded to other areas with a global impact redefining ‘common concerns’.
• Source of solutions to shared problems: Emerging economies are no longer to be considered the source of problems needing external solutions but source of solutions to shared problems.
• BRICS model: The BRICS provides an appropriate model for governance institutions suitable for the 21st century where a narrow group of states dominated by one power will not shape the agenda.

Present global challenges that need to be addressed:

Solutions:

• Vienna Declaration: The starting point should be building on the global consensus in the Vienna Declaration on Human Rights 1993 reaffirming the indivisibility of all human rights.
  • There is a growing recognition of economic and social rights — for example, in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Ensuring adequate food, housing, education, health, water and sanitation and work for all should guide international cooperation.
• Common but differentiated responsibilities: Principles of common but differentiated responsibilities for improving the quality of life of all households can guide deliberations in other fora on problems that seem intractable in multilateralism based on trade and aid.
• Economic diversification: The global agenda has been tilted towards investment, whereas science and technology are the driving force for economic diversification, sustainably urbanizing the world, and ushering the hydrogen economy and new crop varieties as the answer to both human well-being and global climate changes.
  • Innovation supports dematerialising production and consumption and moving towards renewable sources of energy.
• Employment and environment: A forum to exchange experiences on societal benefits and growth as complementary goals would lead to fresh thinking on employment and environment.
• Digital-information-technology revolution: Harnessing the potential of the digital-information-technology revolution requires redefining digital access as a “universal service” that goes beyond physical connectivity to sharing specific opportunities available.
• Open access software: For global society to reap the fruits of the new set of network technologies, open access software should be offered for more cost-effective service delivery options, good governance and sustainable development.
• Solution through use of space: Space is the next frontier for finding solutions to problems of natural resource management ranging from climate change-related natural disasters, supporting agricultural innovation to urban and infrastructure planning.
  • Analyzing Earth observation data will require regional and international collaboration through existing centers which have massive computing capacities, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
  • Open access to geospatial data, data products and services and lower costs of geospatial information technology facilities do not require huge financial resources.
• Focus on public health: Public health has to learn from the COVID-19 fiasco with infectious diseases representing a market failure.
  • A major global challenge is the rapidly growing antimicrobial resistance which needs new antibiotics and collaboration between existing biotechnology facilities.

Way Forward

• Avoiding strategic competition: Overriding priority to development suggests avoiding strategic competition.
  • Countries in the region will support building on the 1971 UNGA Declaration designating for all time the Indian Ocean as a zone of peace and non-extension into the region of rivalries and conflicts that are foreign to it.
• Review of Global Financial Transaction Tax: A Global Financial Transaction Tax, considered by the G20 in 2011, needs to be revived to be paid to a Green Technology Fund for Least Developed Countries.
• Use of G20 platform by India: As a founding member of the G20, India has used the platform to raise issues of vital importance and those that impact on the most vulnerable around the world.
• Strengthening partnership: The G20 must strengthen the partnership with international organizations such as the IMF, the OECD, the WHO, the World Bank and the WTO, and delegate them the task of monitoring progress.
• International Institute for Regulatory Development (IIRD): Upcoming G20 meet is an opportunity for India to initiate the reshaping of the global regulatory construct through the establishment of an International Institute for Regulatory Development (IIRD). India can be a torchbearer for a new regulatory framework.
• Collaboration on S&T: India should seek collaboration on limited focus areas around science and technology, building on resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and other multilateral bodies.

QUESTION FOR PRACTICE

1. The long sustained image of India as a leader of the oppressed and marginalized nations has disappeared on account of its new found role in the emerging global order.’ Elaborate(UPSC 2019)

(200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)