Charting a Sustainable and Inclusive Future: India’s G20 Presidency

India’s G20 presidency comes at a critical juncture for the world. The world was dealing with a climate crisis and slow progress on sustainable development goals (SDGs) before covid hit. Debt levels ballooned across the world, especially in developing ones. The UkraineRussia war saw an unprecedented food and energy crisis across the world. Despite this challenging scenario, India is a bright spot in the global economy. This is not by accident. Our policies have placed India in a position where we are taking up the mantle of global leadership. Our digital public infrastructure, economic reforms, investments in infrastructure and human capital, along with our decarbonization efforts have found resonance across the world. Our G20 theme of “One Earth, One Family, One Future” is reflected in our priorities. As emphasised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s presidency will be ambitious, inclusive, decisive and action oriented. The priorities of the presidency aim to shape an inclusive sustainable global future and further aims to share India’s best practices across sectors. Some of the priorities include: technological transformation & digital public infrastructure; women-led development; multilateral institutions for the 21st Century & 3Fs- food, fuel and fertilisers; accelerated, inclusive and resilient growth; lifestyle for environment (LiFE), green development, climate finance and accelerating progress on SDGs.

Technological transformation through digital public infrastructure (DPI) is a key priority of our presidency. Through our DPI, we have enabled financial inclusion, better delivery of government benefits, and fostered innovation. We transfer $66 billion into the bank accounts of beneficiaries, directly. Our digital payments system processes billions of transactions each month. This DPI is also being leveraged in the health sector. CoWIN, our vaccination platform, has enabled 2.5 billion+ vaccine doses to be administered, with the entire process paperless and online. Our successful model of building DPI can hold valuable lessons for the world, as it is both adaptable, and scalable. Globally, 4 billion people do not have access to digital identity, 2 billion remain unbanked and 130+ countries do not have digital payment systems. We have achieved 50 years’ worth of progress in less than a decade. India has one of the world’s best digital public infrastructure models and the presidency will further aim to strengthen its competency by exploring action-oriented synergies across working groups, whilst collaborating with other G20 nations on the topics of mutual interest. India also aims to bring to the fore the power of innovation and of startups to solve the world’s most pressing issues. Today, India’s startups are solving not building new businesses leveraging India’s DPI, but also some of India’s most pressing problems. Reflecting the importance that India places on startups, our presidency has introduced a new engagement group, Startup20, to act as the voice of the global startup ecosystem. Climate action is another key area where India’s presidency aims to deliver actionable outcomes. Despite being home to 17% of the world’s population, and being the fifth largest economy in the world, India’s per-capita emissions are less than a third of the global average. Despite being the fastest growing large economy, and intensifying demand for energy, India has demonstrated unwavering commitment in the fight against climate change. In fact, India is the only

10 of the Climate Change Performance Index. India recognizes that the developing world is not responsible for the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and that the energy transitions in developing countries must be incentivized by developed ones. Our presidency seeks to embed sustainability, climate change, and green development across working groups. Through its presidency, India will aim to explore synergies across its working groups on the topics of climate finance, accessible alternative fuels (such as green hydrogen and biofuels), climate resilient infrastructure, circular economy & decentralized renewables. Recognising that the fight against climate change is a collective one, rooted in individual action, Prime Minister Modi launched Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE). Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) brings together the development and climate agenda with the overarching aim of resolving and easing growth imbalances through collaborative actions of various stakeholders, with a special focus on individual and community actions and behaviour.

The mammoth investments required in the energy transition mean that public sources of funding will not be enough. Private capital must also be leveraged. However, to make this a reality, reform of multilateral development banks (MDBs) is critical. Established in the post Bretton Woods era, the MDBs of today were designed for another era. Today, MDBs can play a pivotal role in ensuring flow of climate and SDG finance to developing nations, and also in building capacities. We aim to deliver on risk mitigation strategies to incentivise climate friendly investments in developing economies, unlocking private investment. Women-led development is another key priority area in our presidency. India’s G20 presidency seeks to position women as the drivers of growth and prosperity, rather than beneficiaries of