India to host 2-day virtual meet of over 120 developing nations next week

Sandeep Dikshit

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New Delhi, January 6

India will host a virtual meeting of over 120 nations spread over two days next week titled “Voice of Global South Summit” which will provide an important feed into the deliberations of the G20 summit, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra announced here on Friday.

“India’s Presidency of G20 will be shaped not just in consultations with G20 partners but with those countries which are not members of G20 but have an ecosystem of concerns, priorities and interests which are very crucial for the success of G20. Evidence would show that relevant mechanisms that are supposed to take on board their concerns and mitigate them, both in multilateral framework and in plurilateral settings, have proved inadequate,” explained the Foreign Secretary.

“Countries of the Global South often do not receive due attention and space on the global stage. The relevant existing international platforms are inadequate to address these challenges,” said Kwatra.

The two-day summit will begin on January 12 with an inaugural session to be addressed by PM Narendra Modi that will be attended by several heads of government.

It is essentially envisaged to bring together countries of the Global South and share their perspective and priorities on a common platform, said Kwatra, while pointing out that the initiative is inspired by PM Modi’s vision of ‘sabka saath, sabka vishwas, sabka prayas’.

India, he said, has always been in the forefront and very consistent in championing the cause of the developing world and decided on such a summit in view of the recent global developments that have severely impacted the developing world across many domains. The first disruption came from the Covid pandemic followed by the impact of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine which has put a question mark on the affordability of food, fertilisers and fuel. The issue of climate change with its attendant issues of financing will also come up for discussions. Talks will also be held on the increasing burden on developing countries of mounting debt and inflationary pressures that are beginning to take a toll on the structural parameters of these economies.

“A consultative and outcome oriented conversation focusing on the most pressing concerns, interests and priorities of developing countries is the need of the hour. India’s endeavor is to provide a common platform to deliberate on the concerns and priorities that concern developing countries as also to exchange ideas and solutions,” said the Foreign Secretary.

India, he said, will work to ensure that inputs from countries of the Global South receive due cognisance globally as it feels that its ongoing presidency of G20 provides a special and strong opportunity to channelise these inputs in deliberation and discourse of G20.

The summit envisages 10 sessions over two days of which two will be at the head of state/government and eight at the ministerial level. Each session would have a group of 10 to 20 participating countries. Many of the sessions will be held in parallel because of the need to factor in different time zones.