PM Modi urges G20 delegates to rise above differences

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his opening address of the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting (FMM) talked about acknowledging the “deep global divisions” and that “multilateralism is in crisis”.

In his virtual address, the PM stated that the G20 has the capacity to deliver concrete results and to build consensus, adding that several developing nations, while ensuring food and energy security for their citizens, are struggling with unsustainable debt.

To ease the challenges of economic resilience, development, growth, disaster resilience, terrorism, food and energy security, financial stability, transnational crime, corruption, all look at G20, he said.

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The Prime Minister also urged the G20 countries to build consensus on important global challenges and not to allow the geopolitical tensions to affect overall cooperation.

In his speech PM Modi also highlighted the development goals of the developing nations and underlined “food and energy security” as among the most important issues before the Global South. He also added, “No group can claim global leadership without listening to those most affected by its decisions.”

In his opening remarks, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar echoed the opening statement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that the G20 member countries “must be sensitive to the priorities and economic concerns of all our partners, especially those most vulnerable.” He said that all have come together in the midst of a global crisis and are once again confronting multiple ones. These include the concerns of fragile supply chains, impact of COVID pandemic, and the knock-on effects of ongoing conflicts, anxiety of debt crisis and disruption of climate events.

Under India’s G20 presidency today’s meeting was the second in the list of ministerial meetings this year ahead of the summit in September. The meeting started with Dr Jaishankar calling for a minute’s silence in memory of the victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.

EAM said that Global decision making must be democratized if it has to have a future. And urged the G20 member countries to strengthen multilateralism and strengthen it to deal with the “changing world”.  He mentioned the need to reform the United Nations which has not been changed since 1945.

In his remarks he stated :“Since 2005, we have heard sentiments for reform being expressed at the highest level. But as we all know, these are not materialized. The reasons are no secret either. The longer we put it off, the more the credibility of multilateralism stands eroded.