G20's halfway mark: Diplomats are pessimistic about a communique

More than six months into India's Presidency of the G20, most diplomats are pessimistic about a communique - the Delhi Declaration - emerging from the summit. ADITI PHADNIS writes

As the September 9–10 summit meeting of world leaders under the Indian Presidency of the Group of Twenty (G20) draws closer, most diplomats are pessimistic about a communiqué — the Delhi Declaration — emerging from the summit. But while that would have represented a satisfactory outcome, they say India still has much to celebrate, including showcasing its unique financial offering to the world, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and IndiaStack.

No communiqué has emerged from any of the ministerial meetings that have been held so far.

“Western nations insist that meetings record, in some form, the ‘aggression’ mounted by Russia on Ukraine. This has been met with pushback from Russia and China,” says an Indian Ambassador located in a western capital.

The meeting of foreign ministers in March — where the Russian and Chinese objections to the wording of the communiqué blocked it — is testimony to the complexity of crafting a consensus, he adds.

There are other challenges to creating consensus as well.

The Labour20 (L20) meeting, one of the G20 Engagement Groups, has traditionally been led either by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) or a union affiliated with ITUC. However, in the run-up to the G20, the Indian government decided that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) should lead it. This has led to pushback from other unions, especially as BMS is not affiliated with ITUC.

“The coordinating committee for 10 Indian national trade unions, the platform of central trade union organisations, proposed that the Chair should be taken by the Indian National Trade Union Congress, an ITUC affiliate. The proposal was supported by the other nine trade union confederations in India, most of which are not ITUC affiliates,” reads a statement from ITUC.

As the government did not accept their recommendation and BMS continues to be the official host, most Indian trade unions and ITUC have boycotted all L20 meetings so far.

ITUC Acting General Secretary Luc Triangle says: “For years, governments hosting the G20 have accepted the role of the world’s leading independent trade union confederation in representing working people at the G20. This was respected by China and Saudi Arabia, countries without independent unions. Yet the Government of India, the world’s largest democracy, and one with a vibrant independent trade union movement, will host the worst G20 we have ever seen in terms of its representation of working people.”

Most Indian trade unions will be missing from the Labour and Employment Ministers Meeting scheduled for July 21 as well.
 

However, Minister of Labour and Employment Bhupender Yadav does not see this as a problem.

He says: “The adoption of two crucial joint statements: one on the universalisation of social security and the portability of social security funds, and another on empowering women in the future of work and upskilling the women workforce in technology-intensive environments, is a real gain, and hopefully this will be reflected at the summit meeting later this year.”

Another central challenge that goes beyond politics is yet to come. This is the adoption by G20 ministers of India’s signature offering in the arena of digital public infrastructure (DPI), a democratic and low-cost financial payments system that will become an alternative to agencies like Western Union and PayPal in the seamless transfer of funds within and across countries.

India has offered UPI to the world, but especially to the Global South, the grouping of countries that it has mobilised as ‘new’ and pledged to give voice to.

Bankers, credit card companies, and other operators are watching carefully the spread and growth of UPI and the RuPay credit card system.

A Singapore-based investment banker, who is associated with its sovereign wealth fund, tells Business Standard that UPI’s success, except for a few initial operational glitches, is phenomenal.

Several meetings of the Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG) have already been held. At the first meeting in Lucknow earlier this year, Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said India had signed memoranda of understanding with 13 countries that want to adopt the UPI interface for digital payments and that Singapore had completed its UPI integration.

Indian delegates who attended the Lucknow meeting told Business Standard that Indian Co-Chair Sharad Sharma (of Bengaluru’s iSPIRT) was aggressive in asserting that India’s gains on DPI be projected to the rest of the world as a way to reduce digital inequity.

However, this was met with pushback from Brazil and Australia. Delegates from both countries said that while they appreciated India’s efforts, they would not be comfortable being saddled with financial technology (fintech) systems that their countries saw as incompatible.

In former diplomat Rajiv Bhatia’s assessment, “in stressing the global relevance of India’s digital public goods, the government has shown exceptional activism. A strong formulation in the final declaration seems certain”.

Others, however, are less sanguine.

Some experts who have been following the issue feel that there should be greater clarity on data protection and other issues before India pushes the IndiaStack and other fintech solutions that might be more democratic but are not as ‘safe’.

A closed-door meeting of DEWG on June 13 saw the participation of delegates from 77 foreign countries, nine guest countries, five international organisations, and two regional organisations.

In addition to discussions on the future of the digital economy, the concepts of ‘One Future Alliance’ and ‘One Future Fund’ for DPI were also proposed. There is, as yet, no clarity on the fund or who will pay for it.

However, if this formulation is reflected in the final consensus document that emerges and is endorsed by the September summit, diplomats feel India will have won a big part of the digital inclusion battle it is fighting as a leader of the Global South.