India’s G20 Presidency: A Historic Responsibility

Hello friends, everyone knows that this year India has the presidency of G20, which means all the summits and forums between the top 20 countries of the world will be hosted by India.

The main summit is here. It will be held on 9th and 10th September at Pragati Medhan in New Delhi, where the heads of states of the world will come, i.e., Presidents and Prime Ministers. But a question must be coming to your mind, what is this G20? Why does this group exist? What is the purpose behind forming it?

The Roots: From Oil Embargo to Global Cooperation

India has the presidency of G20. It is a very big honour for India to host this G20. India will host it itself. Friends, before understanding G20, we have to understand G7. This crisis started when Arab countries imposed an embargo on oil. They stopped selling oil to those countries which were in support of Israel. Mostly they were western countries like America and Europe.

Their governments decided that if we want to improve this economic situation, then we need to take action together. To bring the economy back on track, we should sit together and make economic policies.

Birth of G7: Informal Talks to Formal Summits

Due to this, some informal meetings were held in the White House of America, between the finance ministers of these countries. It is about early 1973, the finance ministers of America, France, UK and West Germany meet each other. Two years later they also included Italy and Japan and in 1975 the first G6 meeting was held. This was the first official meeting.

These countries were among the most developed countries of their time. Their economies were among the top economies of the world. But apart from this, there were many common things between them. All these countries had liberal democracies, which were based on human rights and politically, during the Cold War, all these countries were part of the Western Bloc. So ideologically you can say they were the same and economically, of course, they were all facing problems like oil crisis and recession. So this was their sole aim.

Russia’s Inclusion and Exclusion: From G8 to G7

In 1998, Russia was also included in this group. G7 became G8. But in 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea, Russia was thrown out of this group. Due to this reason, this group is still G7 today.

The Rise of Emerging Economies and the Birth of G20

Now G20. I will not talk about the reason behind this. It will divert from the topic. But this crisis was so big that due to it, Hong Kong, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines and to some extent China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan were affected. Next year in 1998, Russia also faced a financial crisis. This was the reason why Russia was included in G7 at this time.

But other members of G7 also realized that the world is becoming more interconnected with time. Globalization is being seen so much that if there is a problem in any one country, then it affects others too. So if we have to bring economic stability in the whole world and prevent huge recessions from happening, then we will have to sit together with the emerging economies of the world and make action plans. So on 26th September 1999, during the meetings of Finance Ministers of G7, G20 Group is established.

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G20 Membership: A Mix of Developed and Emerging Giants

Now let’s come back to G20. In this group, these developed countries are joined by the biggest countries of the world—those handling the biggest economies. On this basis, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Russia are included. Then it is seen that representation from every region is covered—Australia due to Oceania, Saudi Arabia and Turkey due to the Middle East, and in Europe, apart from the G7 countries, the European Union is considered as a whole to represent the whole of Europe.

So today there are 19 countries in G20 and one is European Union. Broadly speaking, not only politically and economically, but also militarily or population-wise, they are influential.

G20’s Purpose: Global Financial Stability

Now the interesting thing is that the real purpose behind forming G20 was to deal with the financial crisis. So this G20 group meeting was organized in 1999. Then these countries realized that we should hold a more serious meeting. Not only our finance ministers but also the presidents and prime ministers of our countries should meet.

The cooperation between all our countries should be at the next level if we have to stop such a financial crisis. Therefore, friends, the first official summit of G20 leaders was held in 2008. This first summit was held in America, in which all the countries together decided to reduce the trade barriers between them.

G20’s Global Influence: Economy, Trade, and People

In total, all the countries of G20 together contribute 85% to the global GDP. More than 75% of global trade takes place in these countries and more than two-thirds of the world’s population lives here. The G20 summit has been held every year since 2008. And every year the G20 is the largest single-day summit in the world.

Troika System and Summit Rotation

In Troika, three countries work together: the current G20 President, last year’s G20 President, and next year’s G20 President. Last year, the G20 summit was held in Indonesia, this year it will be held in India and in 2024 in Brazil. So listening to the video, you will feel that it is a big achievement of the government that G20 has come to India this year. But this is part of the process. If not this year, then next year G20 summit was bound to be held in India. If you look at the list from the first summit in 2008, then this is the 18th G20 summit.

G20 Summit Hosts Timeline

Only America is doing this. If you start looking from 2009, UK, then Canada, South Korea, France, Mexico in 2012, Russia in 2013, then Australia, Turkey, China, Germany, Argentina, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Indonesia, and India in 2023.

Only two members of G20 are left where no G20 summit has been held: Brazil and Africa. So next year it will be held in Brazil in 2024 and in Africa in 2025. After that, this order will start repeating again in 2026 with the USA. If this pattern continues like this, then the next G20 summit will be held in India around 2042.

Guest Countries and Organizations at G20

Now apart from these 20 countries, some guest countries are also invited to G20 summits. Like Spain has a permanent invitation to these summits. Apart from this, some other big institutions are also included in the permanent guest list, such as African Union, United Nations, WHO, WTO, IMF and the four countries of ASEAN.

G20 Challenges: Conflicting Agendas and Boycotts

Interesting things to note are fighting against climate change or promoting sustainable development. But the problem in addressing other issues is that these 20 big countries, all these countries have their own foreign policies, their own priorities, their own agenda and it is very difficult for all these 20 countries to agree on any issue. This is the reason why the Chinese President and Saudi Arabia boycotted the G20 tourism meeting in Srinagar.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is also not present in the meeting being held in Delhi. This tells you how much the decisions taken in meetings depend on individual leaders. The famous Paris Climate Agreement of 2016 was not signed by Donald Trump. When Joe Biden became President, the US rejoined.

India’s 2023 G20 Theme and Focus Areas

In this year’s G20, India has set the theme of Vasudev Kutumbakam and has given importance to things like green development and Sustainable Development Goals. Along with this, digital public infrastructure and women-led development are key areas of focus.

Ministerial and Engagement Group Meetings

The G20 meetings are to last for only 2–3 days, so here I would like to tell you friends that the main summit of G20 lasts only for 2 days, which is called the summit of state leaders. But apart from this, there are many other summits in G20 like minister-level summits where finance ministers of these 20 countries meet together.

In this graphic, you can see that on 22nd July there was a meeting of energy ministers, on 21st July there was a meeting of labour and employment ministers, and on 26th August there was a meeting of culture ministers. The locations of all these meetings are also different.

B20, C20, W20, Y20 and T20: Engagement Beyond Governments

And apart from ministers, different engagement groups have also been formed in G20 like B20 for business groups, C20 for civil society, W20 for women, Y20 for youth, and T20 for Think Tanks. (Not cricket—these are actual Think Tanks.)

Sherpa Meetings: Behind-the-Scenes Diplomacy

Apart from this, there will also be a Sherpa meeting between 3rd and 6th September. Sherpas are people of the nomadic tribe living in Nepal who will put forward the views of their country. So before the summit, there is a meeting of these Sherpas as well.