External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. ANI

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday said that overall there was a sense in global diplomacy that this G20 actually delivered very substantively on what were the most pressing issues of the day.

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Addressing the G20 Tree Plantation Ceremony at Nehru Park in New Delhi, Jaishankar said, “About 3 weeks ago, I was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. I must share with you that the G20 was very much the subject of conversation. A lot of people were still a little surprised that the G20 could bridge what were strong positions and deep divides. Many other countries also took particular satisfaction at the permanent membership of African Union at the G20. But overall there was a sense in global diplomacy that this G20 actually delivered very substantively on what were the most pressing issues of the day. It turned out far better than most people expected.”

Listing out reasons to be satisfied, he said, firstly, in the totality of global diplomacy at a very difficult time in international politics, G20 was actually a big plus on the positive side of the global ledger.

Secondly, he said, it has made a country, which is today the fifth largest economy, which in many ways is globalising at a very rapid rate, it has made this society far more connected with the rest of the world.

Jaishankar said as India basks in the afterglow of the G20 Summit, he is often asked what did you really get done?

“When I look at what we got done, to me the 4-5 key takeaways were the action plan for the SDG which directly fed into the SDG Summit which happened after the G20 – the Green Development Pact, the message of women led development, the support for digital public infrastructure, the LiFE Mission. At the end of it all, there was a very strong sustainability, green, global south image that came out of the G20…,” added the external affairs minister.

The 2023 G20 Summit hosted in New Delhi was the eighteenth meeting of G20 (Group of Twenty). It was held in Bharat Mandapam International Exhibition-Convention Centre in Pragati Maidan on 9–10 September.

India was successfully able to achieve consensus around the New Delhi Declaration early on in the G20 Summit, which saw a dilution in the position taken by the US and EU on Russia, besides focus on UN Sustainable Development Goals, climate action and green development initiatives, multilateral financing, digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI), and international taxation, among others.

All 83 paragraphs of the 2023 G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration were unanimously approved, achieving a remarkable 100 percent consensus, even with China and Russia in agreement. Notably, this declaration stood out by containing no footnotes or Chair’s Summary, marking a historic moment.

With inputs from agencies