Everyone knows that the Presidency of G20 is held by India this year. That means, all the summits and forums among the top 20 countries of the world, will be hosted by India. The main summit will be held on the 9th and 10th September in New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan. Which will be attended by the heads of States of the world, i.e., Presidents and Prime Ministers.
But one question that might be bothering you is; What is G20? Why does this group exist? What was the purpose behind creating it? Why do these countries meet at different places every year? Let’s understand it in this video. “India has formally taken over the presidencies of the G20.” “Hosting this G20 session is a great opportunity for India.
” “India is readying itself to host the mega event.” Friends, before understanding G20, we need to understand G7. Because G7 was formed before G20. It all began in the early 1970s. The economic condition of the world was worsening. There were many reasons behind it. But the biggest reason was the oil crisis of 1973.
This crisis started when the Arab countries imposed an oil embargo. They stopped selling oil to those countries that were supporting Israel. Mostly, the Western countries like America and Europe. These Western countries relied heavily on oil coming from the Middle East and because of this, these countries witnessed a heavy economic recession.
“11 Arab countries cut off all oil shipments to the United States.” “We are heading for the most acute, shortages of energy since World War II.” Their governments decided that if they wanted to improve the economic situation, they needed to take action together. To bring the economy back on track, they needed to sit together and make economic policies.
Because of this, there were some informal meetings in the White House, USA between the finance ministers of these countries. It was in early 1973, that the finance ministers of the USA, France, the UK and West Germany met. Two years later, they included Italy and Japan. And in 1975, the first G6 meeting took place.
This was the first official meeting. After this, in 1976, Canada joined the group. And the G6 group became the G7 group. These seven countries were among the most developed countries of their time. Their economies were among the top economies in the world. But there were many other commonalities among them.
All these countries were liberal democracies and promoted values like human rights and individual freedom. Politically, during the Cold War, these countries were part of the Western Bloc. So you can say that they were ideologically similar too. And economically, of course. They were struggling with problems like the oil crisis and recession.
So their main aim was to sit together and make economic strategies. In 1998, Russia was also included in this group. G7 became G8. But in 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea, Russia was expelled from this group. For this reason, this group is still G7. Now, if we come to G20, it was also started due to the economic crisis.
The Asian financial crisis of 1997. There was a huge financial crisis in South Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand. “The global markets worried that other Asian countries might have similar hidden flaws.” I won’t talk about the reason behind it as it will divert the topic too much. But this crisis was so big that it affected Hong Kong, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines and to some extent China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam.
The value of the currency started to fall rapidly in these countries, unemployment started to rise and riots were also seen. In the next year, in 1998, Russia also faced a financial crisis. This was the reason that Russia was included in G7 at this time. But other members of G7 also realized that the world is becoming more interconnected with time.
Globalization was so prominent that if there were problems in one country, its effects were felt by other countries too. And so, if we want to bring economic stability to the world and stop heavy recessions, we will have to sit with the emerging economies of the world to make action plans. So, on 26th September, 1999, during the meeting of the finance ministers of G7, the G20 group was established.
In this group, these developed countries included the developing countries as well. But the question was, in this G20, which countries should be kept and which should not be kept? The very first criterion was that the G7 members would definitely remain.
Then they saw which were the biggest countries in the world the ones that were handling the biggest economies. On this basis, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Russia were included. Then they looked for the biggest regional powers. Because it was necessary to have a representation of every region in the world.
For this reason, Indonesia and South Korea from Asia, Brazil and Argentina from South America, Mexico from North America, Australia from Oceania, Saudi Arabia and Turkey from the Middle East, and in Europe, apart from the G7 countries, European Union was considered as a whole to represent the rest of Europe.
So, today, there are 19 countries in the G20 and one European Union. Broadly speaking, you can say that these 20 countries are among the top 20 countries in the world. Not only politically and economically, but also military and population-wise. The interesting thing is that since the real purpose behind making the G20 was to deal with the financial crisis.
The G20 group meetings were attended by only the finance ministers and the central bank governors of these countries. This continued for many years until the global financial crisis of 2008. “The signs were everywhere, but now it’s official, we are in a recession!” “There’s been a widespread loss of confidence and major sectors of America’s financial system are at risk of shutting down.
” Then these countries realized that they should have more serious meetings. Not only the finance ministers but the presidents and prime ministers also needed to meet. The cooperation between all the countries should be at the next level if future financial crises were to be prevented. That’s why the first official summit of G20 leaders was held in 2008.
This first summit was held in America where these countries collectively decided to reduce the trade barriers between them. Increase the spending. In total, they aimed to spend $4 trillion so that all the economies could be revived. In total, the G20 countries collectively contribute 85% of the global economic output.
More than 75% of the global trade is in these countries. And more than 2/3rds of the world’s population live in these countries. Since 2008, the G20 Summit has been held every year. And it happens in a different country every year. To set the agenda of these G20 meetings and to ensure that it’s working smoothly a Troika System is used.
Under the Troika System, three countries work together. Current G20 President, G20 President of the previous year, and G20 President of the upcoming year. Last year, the G20 Summit was held in Indonesia. This year, it’ll be in India. And in 2024, it will be held in Brazil. So, Indonesia, India, and Brazil are the current Troika countries.
The G20 Presidency works on a rotational basis. Among the 20 members of G20, every year, a member becomes the President. The media would like you to believe that this is a huge achievement of the government that the G20 Summit is being held in India this year. But this is part of the process. If not this year, then some other year, The G20 Summit was bound to take place in India.
If you look at the list from the first Summit in 2008, this is the 18th G20 summit. America is the only country where this summit has been hosted twice. In 2008 and 2009. The reason behind that might be that the financial crisis of 2008 started in the US. But after that, every country has taken turns. If you start from 2009, the UK, Canada, South Korea, France, in 2012, Mexico, in 2013, Russia, then Australia, Turkey, China, Germany, Argentina, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Indonesia, and in 2023, India.
Only two G20 members remain where no G20 Summit has been held yet. Brazil and South Africa. And that’s why next year it will be held in Brazil, in 2024 and in 2025 in South Africa. After that, this order will start repeating again with the USA in 2026. If this pattern continues like this, then the next G20 Summit to be held in India will be around 2042.
Now, apart from these 20 countries, some guest countries are also invited to G20 Summits. Like Spain has a permanent invitation to these summits. Apart from this, host countries can also invite other countries. So this year, India has invited 9 more countries. Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Singapore, Spain, the UAE, Bangladesh, Egypt, and Oman. Apart from this, the permanent guest list also includes some other major institutions like the African Union, United Nations, WHO, WTO, IMF, and the chair countries of ASEAN. It is interesting to note that although the main purpose of the G20 remains to promote international financial stability, but over the years, it has started addressing many other major issues.
Like fighting climate change and promoting sustainable development. But the problem in addressing the other issues is that these 20 countries have their own foreign policies, priorities, and agendas. And it is very difficult to get these 20 countries to agree unanimously on any issue. This is the reason why Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend the main meeting in New Delhi.
And this is why the G20 Tourism meeting held in Sri Nagar a few months ago, was boycotted by China and Saudi Arabia. Apart from this, Russian President Vladimir Putin will also not be attending the main meeting in Delhi because an arrest warrant is in force against him since Russia has invaded Ukraine. This tells you how much the decisions taken in meetings depend on individual leaders.
Donald Trump did not sign the famous Paris Climate Agreement of 2016. “The United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.” Only after Joe Biden became president, was it signed. So it shows that even on dire issues like climate change is not easy to reach a consensus between these 20 countries.
In this year’s G20, India has set the theme of ‘Vasudev Kutumbakam’ and has placed importance on themes like Green Development and Sustainable Development Goals. Along with it, digital public infrastructure and women-led development are also focused on. Now you must be thinking, where is the time to discuss all these issues? Since the G20 meeting is scheduled for 2-3 days only.
So friends, here I would like to tell you that only the main G20 Summit lasts 2 days. It is called the Summit of State Leaders. But apart from this, there are many other summits in G20, such as minister-level summits. Where the finance ministers of these 20 countries meet together or health ministers or agriculture ministers meet together.
In this graphic, you can see that on 22nd July, the Energy Ministers’ meeting was held. On 21st July, the Labour and Employment Ministers’ meeting was held. On 26th August, the Culture Ministers’ meeting was held. And the locations of all these meetings are also different. The Culture Ministers’ meeting was held in Varanasi.
The Energy Ministers’ meeting was in Goa and the Labour and Employment Ministers’ meeting was in Indore. And apart from the Ministers, there are also different engagement groups in G20. Like B20, for the meeting of business groups. C20, for the meetings of civil society. W20, for women. Y20, for the Youth20 meeting and T20 too.
Not for cricket, but for the meeting of think tanks. The think tanks of these 20 countries meet. Apart from this, there was a Sherpa meeting between 3rd to 6th September. Sherpa usually refers to a nomadic tribe of Nepal. But here, ‘Sherpa’ meant a personal representative of every G20 leader. Appointed as the Sherpa.
Meaning that, for every country, there will be a person acting as the main point of contact. They will be the voice of their country. So, before the main meeting, there is a meeting of these Sherpas. There is a lot to know here. I hope you got a good idea about G20 and G7.
