Under Ukraine shadow, India to keep focus of G20 meet on global challenges

India will seek to keep the focus of the meeting of G20 foreign ministers next month on global challenges such as rising food and fuel costs, spiralling inflation and growing indebtedness amid concerns of the Ukraine crisis casting a shadow on the gathering, people familiar with the matter said on Monday.

Concerns have been growing in the West about a possible fresh Russian offensive around the time of the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, and any such move by Moscow would add to the complexities of India’s G20 presidency. The G20 foreign ministers are set to gather in New Delhi during March 1-2 and the meeting is expected to have a packed agenda, the people said.

India has sought to act as the voice of the Global South or the developing nations for its G20 presidency, and these countries have been expressing concerns about declining economic growth, increasing inflation, reduced demand for goods and services, rise in the cost of food, fuel and fertilisers, and indebtedness, which is currently impacting about 70 countries around the world, the people said.

“The focus will be finding solutions to these challenges, some of which are an outcome of the Ukraine crisis. The focus of the G20 has to be on areas for which it was created and has been working on – macroeconomic and financial stability at the global level,” one of the people said.

Russia has already confirmed foreign minister Sergey Lavrov’s participation in next month’s meeting, though the people acknowledged that even a joint photo op involving all the foreign ministers is unlikely, given how deeply polarising the Ukraine crisis continues to be.

External affairs minister S Jaishankar will host a networking dinner for the foreign ministers on March 1 and there is a possibility of some discussions during the day. The substantive discussions will be conducted during several sessions on March 2. The Indian side will attempt to fashion an inclusive agenda, though the people said it will not be possible to brush contentious issues such as Ukraine under the carpet.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said India’s G20 presidency will be inclusive, ambitious, decisive and action-oriented, and his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that “today’s era is not of war” found an echo in the joint communique issued at the G20 Summit in Indonesia last year. That document was finalised following intense lobbying by Indian and Indonesian diplomats after most G20 meetings in 2022 ended without consensus outcomes.

On Monday, US President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv and announced $500 million in additional military aid, emphasising his country’s “unwavering commitment” to Ukraine ahead of the first anniversary of the invasion. In a separate development, China’s top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, travelled to Russia.

The people noted that many developing countries are not a party to the Ukraine conflict or even close to the conflict zone, but had all been affected by the crisis because of the interconnected and interlinked nature of today’s world. These countries are looking at India’s G20 presidency to deal with their challenges in keeping with the primary aim for the G20’s creation, to bring in economic stability, amid a feeling that developed countries hadn’t been giving adequate attention to such matters.

There is also a feeling that the Ukraine crisis is being brought to the G20 because of the failure of multilateral bodies such as the United Nations to effectively deal with it. India, as a member of bodies as diverse as the Quad, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (ISO), is able to bring together countries, bridge gaps and address polarisation, the people added.

The Indian agenda for the G20 presidency includes ways to give impetus to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), green growth, digital inclusion, and reforms of the Bretton Woods system and multilateral financial institutions.

As part of efforts aimed at financial inclusion, India will host the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) meeting in Hyderabad on March 4. This event will bring together 50 developing countries, including India’s neighbours, and G20 members.

“GPFI is an important initiative as part of India’s inclusive approach that brings in other countries so that they benefit from the G20. It will be an opportunity for developing countries to articulate their concerns and expectations,” the person cited above said. Pakistan is not among the neighbours invited to this meeting.