G20 Leaders' Summit 2023: The world knocks on a door more than ajar

A rich, many-faceted dialogue is underway in India as part of the G20 meetings, and diplomats hope for a successful summit, never mind the alarm bells

As events during India’s Presidency of the Group of Twenty (G20) proceed apace, it is as if a treasure trove of the world’s best thinking on a variety of issues, ranging from regulation of outer space to gender empowerment, lies at India’s feet.

But all eyes are on September 9 and 10, when the heads of state and government summit are due in New Delhi. Indian diplomats worry that judging by recent global events, the outcome of the summit could be suboptimal.

The summit will be a culmination of all the G20 processes and meetings held throughout the year among ministers, senior officials, and civil society.

A G20 Leaders’ Declaration will be adopted at the end of the summit, committing the leaders to the priorities discussed and agreed upon during ministerial and working group meetings that have been held through 2023, with some engagements taken up at India’s initiative.

For instance, the Startup20 Engagement Group was initiated by India; it aspires to create a global narrative for supporting start-ups and enabling synergies between start-ups, corporations, investors, innovation agencies, and other stakeholders, like banking agencies.

A start-up sabha in Sikkim has already taken place, attended by more than 300 start-up entrepreneurs and several ministers from G20 countries.

The summit meeting in Gurugram is scheduled for July 3 and 4, where top start-up honchos and government leaders across the world will suggest ways “in which a common platform for start-ups to come together to develop actionable guidance in the form of building enablers’ capacities, identification of funding gaps, enhancement of employment opportunities, achievement of sustainable development goals targets and climate resilience, and growth of an inclusive ecosystem”, says Amitabh Kant, Sherpa, G20.

The draft of a global start-up policy suggested by India includes a target of 1-2 per cent of gross domestic product of the G20 nations towards funding the G20 start-up ecosystem; facilitating the flow of public and private capital into the start-up ecosystem by promoting various mechanisms such as fund-of-funds, corporate venture funds, and university endowment funds; and making debt and venture debt products accessible to start-ups. These ideas come amid reports that funds for Indian start-ups in Silicon Valley are drying up.

The G20 Chief Science Advisers Roundtable (CSAR) at Gandhinagar on August 27 and 29 is also an Indian initiative. The G20-CSAR will bring together chief scientific advisers of the G20 to advise the heads of the G20 governments to create an effective institutional arrangement to discuss global science and technology policy issues, ultimately resulting in a global science advice mechanism. India is laying special emphasis on the idea of ‘One Health’.

Later this month, as part of the Business 20, or B20, Delhi will host a Cloud Summit on June 9, followed by a Post-Harvest & Logistics Summit on June 23; a Manufacturing Conclave will be held in Kolkata on June 15; Mumbai will see a conference on building a workforce for Industry 4.0 and addressing the supply-demand conundrum; followed by a conference on jobs and mobility in Bengaluru on June 28.

And that’s just in June.

But even as G20 consultations forge ahead, two recent events suggest there is turbulence in store.

India last week announced it would be hosting the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) virtually.

“As everyone is aware, in the past few years, several events have taken place virtually, so taking all factors into account, we decided that the summit of the SCO Council of Heads of State will be held in a virtual format on July 4,” Ministry of External Affairs Spokesman Arindam Bagchi said.

However, the last SCO meeting was held in an in-person format in Samarkand.

Ahead of the Delhi meeting, leaders of some SCO countries had not confirmed their participation, specifically Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and China’s leader Xi Jinping.

Many Delhi-based diplomats think this could have been the reason for New Delhi’s decision to hold the event virtually and an indication of the stance Pakistan and China will likely take at the G20 summit meeting and its possible impact on the communiqué that the G20 is expected to issue.

“If we can avoid too much difference over text, that is a modest success,” said a former foreign secretary.

“The best outcome is a full physical meeting and a successful outcome in the form of a communiqué, but our (India’s) situation is very difficult,” he said.

Of equal concern was a development in South Africa last week.

“South Africa is mulling legal options if Russian President Vladimir Putin, the subject of a war crimes arrest warrant, attends a BRICS (an acronym for five regional economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) emerging economies summit in Johannesburg in August,” South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said last Thursday.

India, China, and Brazil have also been invited to this meeting.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) seated in The Hague has issued a warrant for Putin related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and South Africa, as a member of the ICC, would theoretically be required to arrest him if he attends the BRICS summit.

As a result, South Africa is considering moving the venue of the BRICS meeting to neighbouring Mozambique or even asking China to host the meeting.

Former Indian ambassador to Indonesia Gurjit Singh said India is not a signatory to the ICC and therefore, this stricture does not apply.

“In any case, Putin (recently) rarely attends such meetings; the Russian Prime Minister is detailed to such events as the East Asia Summit. And the G20 meeting in Indonesia (the previous hosts) was attended by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov,” he said.

But other diplomats feel India’s role is not just minding the logistics but also keeping the G20 agenda on track and “keeping everyone involved and informed”.

“We can only hope for the best: that the global situation does not deteriorate further,” said another.

Whatever the end result, the September summit, when an array of world leaders will arrive in New Delhi, is expected to be the Next Big celebration for the government and will likely be the subject of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s August 15 speech from the Red Fort to segue into a campaign point in the 2024 general elections.