Sushant Palakurthi Rao, who heads the Forum’s Asia team with responsibility for developing relationships with industry, government and institutions in Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Japan, as well as responsibility for marketing the Forum’s regional events in East Asia and India, reveals what’s new in this year’s Summit. Edited excerpts from an e-mail interview with Rajiv Shirali.
What is the significance of this year's theme, ‘Implementing India’?
We closed the last India Economic Summit with a broad consensus that while India has tremendous potential to sustain a high growth and inclusive economy, India needs to get from words to action by keeping up with crucial reforms and addressing the country’s poor infrastructure. As the Summit’s co-chairs stated last year, the time has come for India to close its “say-do” gap and to “get things done.”
The theme of ‘Implementing India’ reflects our objective to highlight the concrete actions which must be executed across India’s rural and urban areas to sustain progress over the long term. Secondly, our aim is to define how leaders from all walks of life must collaborate to ensure not only that these imperatives are implemented, but to ensure measures are put in place to hold leaders accountable for yielding real results.
What new elements have you added to the Summit this year?
The Summit is regarded as the most significant multi-stakeholder platform for addressing India’s need for rapid progress in infrastructure, education, healthcare, poverty alleviation, protection of the environment and sustainable development.
However, we are now paying closer attention to India’s external role as a major contributor to international cooperation. For this reason, this year’s programme also examines the role of India in the burgeoning south-south ties with Africa and Latin America. Those conversations will be further substantiated by the participation of leaders such as the prime minister of Kenya, the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, Canada’s minister of international trade and Panama’s minister of economy and finance. The programme is both inward and outward looking, given the ever increasing role of India in global affairs.
In what ways do this year’s sessions mark any major departures from those in previous Summits?
We are particularly proud of the diversity of our community of leaders, including women, civil society leaders, Social Entrepreneurs, NGOs and Young Global Leaders. No other platform brings together decision makers from all walks of life — not just business and government — to jointly address challenges and find solutions. For example, on the critical topic of food security, the session in the programme will convene voices from industry together with the chairman of a farmers lobby, an economist, an agricultural scientist and a chief minister!
What kind of brainstorming is needed over the months to finalise the agenda for this event?
The agenda for the summit is derived from both internal and external consultations. We leverage the deep knowledge of our strategic insight teams such as our Centre for Global Competitiveness and Performance and Global Risk Response Network. The Forum’s many initiatives in areas such as Global Health, Partnering Against Corruption and Agriculture and Food Security lend further insights on specific challenges. Our 72 Global Agenda Councils, which are composed of the world’s top thought leaders addressing a key issue, include a Regional Agenda Council on India, and it has also put forward suggestions that have shaped the agenda.
Is an ever-widening range of companies sending delegates?
Undoubtedly. One need only consider the striking number of top Indian companies which did not exist 10 to 15 years ago. Three years ago we established a second membership of companies designed to capture this phenomenon of rapidly growing, new generation companies. Our so-called Global Growth Companies (GGC) engage dynamic enterprises with the potential to be tomorrow’s industry leaders and to become a driving force of economic and social change. Already, we have 30 GGCs from India, and every one of these has its CEO or chairman represented at this year’s summit. Additionally, even compared with just last year, we have an increase in the number of nationalities represented at this year summit, which has gone up from 40 to 50 countries this year. That is a clear indicator of the increasing international interest in India.
What kind of an evolutionary path do you foresee for the Summit over the next several years?
Through our close partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry as well as our active engagement of leaders from government, academia and civil society and India, the India Economic Summit will continue as the pre-eminent platform to bring international and domestic decision-makers together to develop action plans for India’s future growth. In the years ahead, our objective is to further highlight India’s international commercial, economic and social engagement in other parts of the world such as Africa and ASEAN. And, while the summit is a country platform, the ongoing integration of leaders from India’s neighbouring countries will play a critical role in fostering dialogue, stability and prosperity in South Asia.