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New Delhi [India]January 14 (ANI): The Think20 kick-off meeting, the first major T20 meeting under India’s G20 presidency, concluded here on Saturday, with participants discussing how engagement groups from international agencies can more effectively tackle climate change and food Security and other challenges are suggested.
The T20, the “ideas pool” of the G20, is made up of seven working groups that will delve into issues ranging from digital public infrastructure to macroeconomic policy.
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As the Think20 Secretariat for the Indian Presidency of the G20, the Observer Research Foundation hosted the Think20 Kickoff Meeting on 13-14 January, the first of many important meetings to take place during the Presidency.
The meeting was attended by more than 250 participants, including more than 50 international delegates, who presented key ideas and priorities and laid the groundwork for their respective working groups. India officially assumed the G20 rotating presidency on December 1 last year.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Ambassador Sujan Chinoy, Chairman of the T20 India Caucus, said that an important element of special focus for T20 India was to encourage the exchange of ideas among the seven working groups.
“This conference will allow further interaction among participants and create synergies,” he said.
India’s G20 coordinator, Amitabh Kant, echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the role the T20 and its intellectual input will play in shaping the way the G20 develops in the coming years.
“The real think tank of the G20 is the T20. How India performs in the G20, how the G20 unfolds in the next few years and how the G20 is shaped will depend on the T20 and its intellectual input,” he said.
Oil and Gas Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri reminded participants why the G20 was formed and its relevance.
“The G20 was born and established when the world economy was in crisis. It leveraged the power of the G20; it calmed down the problems. The actions of the G20 made the world feel safer,” he said.
Think20 (T20) is the official engagement group of the G20. It acts as a “think tank” for the G20 by bringing together think tanks and senior experts to discuss G20-related policy issues.
Samir Saran, Chair of the T20 Secretariat, described the G20’s ability to build relationships.
“The most important task before us all today is to rebuild friendships, strengthen communities and build networks of believers in the G20.”
The opening session was followed by the first plenary session, “Reformed Multilateralism: A Global Imperative”, which explored the limits of multilateralism in an increasingly multipolar world.
“Multilateral institutions are not built for multipolarity,” said Ebtesam Al-Ketbi, president and founder of the UAE Policy Center in the United Arab Emirates.
Multilateralism is worth preserving, asserts Stormy-Annika Mildner, executive director of the Aspen Institute in Germany.
“We need to make the G20 more effective, especially the engagement group, to address global challenges like climate change, pandemics, food security,” she said.
The second plenary session on “Global Financial Order and Macroeconomic Stability” drew attention to growing macroeconomic vulnerabilities as the world faced yet another global crisis.
Bambang PS Brodjonegoro, a professor at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Indonesia, asserted that the G20 must start dealing with “not the financial sector but the real sector – how to deal with supply-side disruptions post-pandemic”.
Niti Aayog vice-chairman Suman Bery highlighted how the T20 should respond to uncertainties in the macroeconomic environment.
“India is well positioned to articulate what the new growth model should be. T20 has the opportunity and the obligation to demonstrate to global leaders the various aspects of the new growth model,” he said in a release.
The need to promote sustainable development also took center stage at the meeting.
Climate action was highlighted by MP Jayant Sinha MP, Chairman of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance.
“The world is exhausted; we live in a time of crises — global crises, energy crises, food crises. Amid all these crises, we must take the time to focus on climate action.”
The impact of the pandemic on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals has prompted the need for greater focus on sustainability.
John J Kirton, director and founder of the G20 research group at the University of Toronto in Canada, pointed out at the third plenary meeting that it is now clear that “the United Nations has failed to bring the progress of the SDGs back on track.”
“Of the global governance institutions available, only the G20 has the capacity to do the job,” Cotton said.
However, in the face of these challenges, the G20 has an opportunity to become more inclusive and sustainable, as pointed out by Abhay Thakur, Deputy G20 Coordinator for India.
“As Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the Bali summit, we want our G20 presidency to be inclusive, ambitious, action-oriented and decisive,” he said. (Arnie)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the body of content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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