India’s G-20 presidency: Grand marketing exercise or substantive opportunity?

At airports and elsewhere, in cities from capital New Delhi, to Pune, Bengaluru, Guwahati, Kolkata, Mumbai and Shillong and everywhere else, India’s G-20 presidency is ubiquitous!

India assumed presidency of the G-20 on December 1, 2022 and will, through this year until the summit of leaders in New Delhi in September 2023, attempt to initiate some vital, sustainable measures to help propel the global economy ahead. Apparently, 43 Heads of Delegations – the largest ever in G-20 history– are scheduled to participate in the September New Delhi Summit. It is still unclear whether Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend in person. US President Jo Biden is due to attend.

Members of the G-20, comprising a group of 19 countries with the world’s largest economies and the European Union (EU), account for almost 85% of global GDP, 75% of international trade and two-thirds of the world’s population. The G-20 group was established in 1999 as a platform for finance ministers and Central Bank Governors to discuss international economic and financial issues. After the global financial crisis of 2007, the G-20 graduated to the of heads state/government level and became the “premier forum for international economic cooperation.”

Summits and presidencies of the G-20 are important, both as trendsetters and as opportunities to review the state of the world’s macro-economic health. But they have also become routine. The ability to properly guide a major global initiative over a year and, possibly, bring changes in perceptions and reality, provides an opportunity for statecraft and vision.

Given the nature of the organization, chairmanship of the group falls, by rotation, on each member nation. In 2023, India became the 17^th country to hold the G-20 presidency, taking over the reins from Indonesia. The group does not have a permanent secretariat and is supported by the previous, current, and future holders of the presidency, known as the troika. In 2023, the troika includes Indonesia, Brazil, and India, all developing nations.

However, what is really unique about this G-20, with India assuming the presidency, is the way the government has marketed the annual event as a tourism promotion extravaganza for incredible India. From an esoteric entity, the G-20 has become an exercise in re-packaging India for the world, and a domestic exercise to rush through much required infrastructure projects and impress upon the nation’s people how important India is in global affairs.

It is interesting that India’s G-20 presidency, allowing for a country-wide projection of India’s “visionary leadership,” comes just ahead of national elections, due in 2024. In fact, the Indian government asked to host the G-20 presidency in 2023, after requesting Italy to swap places and host the 2021 presidency instead of India, whose turn it then was.

Posters have appeared in every corner of the country proclaiming India’s G-20 presidency, almost as a gift from the prime minister. Equally, venues for the close to 200 G – 20 related meetings have been spread across the country, throughout the year, with host cities for meetings including in the Andaman Islands, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Indore, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Khajuraho, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Pune, Rann of Kutch, Srinagar, Surat, Thiruvananthapuram and Udaipur.

The choice of Srinagar as a venue for the G-20 Tourism group did evoke some controversy, with several member countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, along with China, choosing to boycott the event.

India, the world’s largest democracy and largest major economy, appears to have taken a vital step ahead by championing what it calls the Global South, a group of small, middling and rising/developing nations like the G-77 – probably best described as akin to Non-Alignment 2.0 – and has urged members to accept the African Union (AU) as the 21^st member of the group. The United States and several other nations have supported India’s call to include the AU in  the G-20.

With the global geopolitical and geo-economic order in turmoil, evidenced by the war in Ukraine which entered the second year on February 24th this year, and energy and food supplies in a flux as the world  emerges from the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, India has its task set. Heading the G-20 requires deft management of the interests of the China-Russia partnership with those of the US–led West, while championing the developing countries of the Global South. Attempting to steer this thorny path requires diplomatic skill and, like in Bali, a final joint declaration looks difficult. The G-20 Finance Ministers’ meet failed to deliver a joint communique, as did the Foreign Ministers’ meeting in March.

So India is aiming to focus on what it has set as its priorities, around the theme of “One Earth, One Family, One Future,” or “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”: LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment), which aims to promote environmentally-conscious practices and a sustainable way of living. With a clear plan and a development-oriented approach, India aims to promote a rules-based order, peace and just growth for all. The 200+ events in the run up to the September 2023 Summit will strengthen India’s global agenda and the six thematic priorities of India’s G-20 presidency.

These are: Green Development, Climate Finance & LiFE (focus on climate change, with particular emphasis on climate finance and technology, while ensuring just energy transitions for developing countries); Accelerated, Inclusive & Resilient Growth (focus on areas with potential to bring structural transformation, including supporting SMEs in global trade, labour rights and welfare, addressing the global skills gap, and building inclusive agricultural value chains and food systems); Accelerating Progress on SDGs (post-pandemic revival to attain UN’s SDGs by 2030); Technological Transformation & Digital Public Infrastructure (promoting a human-centric approach to technology and increased knowledge-sharing in areas like digital public infrastructure, financial inclusion); Multilateral Institutions for the 21^st

 Century (promoting inclusivity); Women-led Development (inclusive growth and development, with a focus on women empowerment and representation).

In a year when India is chairing both the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the G-20, it has the herculean task of bringing the two blocks on the same platform, while tackling challenges emerging from the Ukraine war in the economic, energy and food security domains. Whether it can and how well the foreign policy establishment manages to steer the difficult geopolitical course will only become clear when the final summit documents are issued. That will also determine India’s true stature in the arena of global politics.