IBSA revival can bring more impetus to G20

Gurjit Singh

Former Ambassador

With India to assume the G20 chair for 2023, there is considerable focus on what direction it will provide to the G20 in a fractured world. The great push towards a bipolarisation of the world between the US and China is happening rapidly. Policies of strategic autonomy are emerging.

It is important to keep searching for a multipolar functional order by protecting the G20. This multipolarity is coincidentally aided by a string of G20 chairs across the global south (GS). Indonesia chairs the G20 this year; India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) will be the chairs between 2023 and 2025. During that period, Brazil and South Africa will also chair the BRICS and India the SCO.

The continuum of the chairmanships between these countries of the GS may be coincidental, but it is an opportunity to bring the agenda of the GS to bear on the G20, which is a victim of growing polarisation. It is important that the G20 not rusticate any of its members. It needs to emphasise the responsibility of all members towards the original objectives of the G20. These have altered particularly since the pandemic and public health commitments as also the weakening of the achievement of the SDGs, which are all troublesome.

The biggest impact of this is on the GS. There is a greater responsibility on Indonesia and IBSA to guide the agenda of the G20 purposefully and in a strong coalition. They should avoid opening issues of new permanent members to prevent diversion, but could creatively use the ability to invite relevant guests.

The troika system allows continuity among the G20 chairs to coordinate their work plans. However, is it not time for the IBSA to revive the IBSA spirit, which has been languishing for several years since the last summit held in 2011? The IBSA coalition could bring a greater impetus to the G20 by providing strategic and autonomous guidance. The G20 could become an agenda for the revival of the IBSA.

The IBSA was originally formed in 1997 as a three-continent, three-democracy initiative to promote South-South cooperation. It had fledgling ideas, but did not try to overstep itself. It worked through a Trilateral Commission of Foreign Ministers. It subsequently set up a small IBSA fund administered by the UN Office for South-South cooperation. Essentially, it looked to least developed countries (LDCs), particularly where India, Brazil and South Africa had a weaker imprint.

While it may not be necessary to wind up the current IBSA fund, it is necessary for the IBSA and Indonesia to think of a new fund, which can supplement trilateral or plurilateral efforts to help one another and the countries of the GS. This should seek to support complementarities and fulfil the needs of the people and communities in the GS. This need not depend on the models of funding from others, but could be a core-funded initiative of the three IBSA countries. The current model for this is the Trilateral Cooperation Development Fund established in the Ministry of External Affairs. Here, governments contribute money, but the management of the fund is given to a functional entity.

This can be done by an IBSA fund, which will seek the achievement of the SDGs in the GS under the G20. Other G20 countries will be invited to subscribe to it, but it will be good if the IBSA takes the lead in enunciating and managing such a fund. This fund should look for social entrepreneurship and impact investment. It may achieve the SDGs through a mix of financing schemes, with more investment rather than loans, grants and philanthropy. This should not enhance the debt stress in any of the developing countries but provide them with an alternative mode of funding.

For infrastructure, there are enough initiatives by the G7, the EU, Japan and others which are yet to take off. Programmes for the MSMEs and alleviating the problems emerging from a slower implementation of the SDGs after the pandemic recovery could benefit from a new IBSA fund. Rather than follow the G7 or China, the IBSA can play a lead facilitator and reduce the ideological baggage of such funding.

A new IBSA impetus should seek an improved coordination to giving the BRICS a better direction. Expansion of the BRICS and its New Development Bank (NDB) should not be a function of China’s ideas supported by Russia. The IBSA within BRICS must exert itself and to do that, it must first coordinate its own positions. Simply blocking the path of what China wants to do is not a long-term solution. The IBSA needs to take charge of the destiny of the BRICS and the G20 as effective leaders.

These ideas were discussed at a recent discussion between think tanks and academicians of India, South Africa and Brazil. There is much that the three countries are individually doing, in Africa for instance, but there is little coordinated action. Enhanced coordination, reordered objectives and effective implementation assured by bringing in the best of their financial and private business institutions could be pursued. The fund could support the creation of detailed project reports and feasibility studies so that bankable projects are available to be implemented. Support for such consulting work will help in the conversion of opportunities. The India-EU connectivity partnership or the Build Back Better Initiative of the G7 can benefit from this.

The IBSA fund may channelise the best practices of vocational training, entrepreneurship and skill development and use those to set up supportive institutions to new investments coming into the GS. The G7 countries already seek this trilaterally. This can become a G20 initiative led by the IBSA.

To achieve this, the IBSA must revive its ministerial and summit meetings. The IBSA foreign ministers will meet at the UNGA this month. The G20 summit in Bali is an opportunity to revive the IBSA spirit through regular dialogue to influence the G20 and global agenda to the best of its abilities. This will augment its individual autonomy through a broader coalition and help the GS and the world, too.

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