G20: Outcome document adopted; Russia, China object to para on Ukraine war

The G20-Chief Science Advisers' Roundtable in Gujarat on Monday concluded with the unanimous adoption of the 'Outcome Document' which focussed on the need to have a 'One Health' approach to collectively address health threats to humans, animals and the environment for better disease prevention, control, and pandemic preparedness.

Owing to the objections raised by both Russia and China, a paragraph on the war in Ukraine was classified as 'Chair Summary', while remaining 16 paragraphs became part of the 'Outcome Document' that was unanimously adopted by all the member countries, said an official release.

Chief science advisers and the nominated equivalents from G20 members and guest countries met during the day at Mahatma Mandir here for the second meeting of the G20-Chief Science Advisers' Roundtable under India's G20 presidency.

"We are very hopeful and convinced that the next presidency of Brazil will take it forward. In this roundtable, the focus was on three themes - One Health for better disease prevention, control, and pandemic preparedness, efforts to expand access to scholarly scientific knowledge and ensuring diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in science and technology ecosystem" Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the government, said at a press conference.

All the member countries collectively deliberated on these issues and expressed commitment towards fulfilling these common priorities, Sood added.

"We recognise that interdependent health threats to human, animal, plant and environmental health should be addressed collectively through the One Health approach. We emphasise the need for exploring virtual spaces for collaborations and capacity development for knowledge and technologies related to disease control," said the Outcome Document.

On synergising global efforts to expand access to scholarly scientific knowledge, the document said there is "need to enable immediate and universal access to appropriate publicly funded scholarly scientific knowledge to communities within and beyond G20 members".

International collaborative efforts on this policy matter can further strengthen national priorities and ambitions and foster innovation, it said.

"We acknowledge the importance of working together to synergise and align our open and public access policies and programs based on best practices in cognizance with the respective national legislations and policies" the document further said.

It added that such open and public access policies should uphold respect for universal human rights, the protection of national security, and principles and rules related to academic freedom, research integrity, privacy, and protection of intellectual property rights.

The G20 countries underlined that "addressing structural inequalities is central to increasing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the scientific and educational ecosystem".

The member countries also agreed on nurturing and growing critical scientific human capital and fulfilling shared societal commitments.

"We acknowledge the contribution of traditional and indigenous knowledge systems and recommend these systems to be taken into account with contemporary science to foster evidence-based innovations that are culturally-inspired and locally relevant. We emphasise that the plurality of languages and knowledge systems be duly recognised in any inclusion-related policy discourse." it said.

The paragraph which has been declared as 'Chair's Summary' was about the between Russia and Ukraine.

"This year, we have also witnessed the war in Ukraine further adversely impact the global economy. There was a discussion on the issue...Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy." it said.

Recognizing that G20 is not the forum to resolve security issues, we acknowledge that security issues can have significant consequences for the global economy, said the Chair's Summary.

The document said Russia rejected the inclusion of geopolitical para 13 on the basis that it does not conform to the G20 mandate and recognized the status of Para 13 as Chair's Summary.

Russia agrees with the rest of the text, it added.

China stated that the G20-CSAR is not the right forum to discuss geopolitical issues and did not support the inclusion of the geopolitical-related content, it said.