New Delhi: In an unprecedented first virtual summit meeting of G20 top leaders and leading international organisations including WHO, UN, IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank that lasted for more than 90 minutes, Prime Minister Modi stressed on the need to find a human approach to globalisation.
The extraordinary G20 Summit was a culmination of the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting and G20 Sherpas Meeting on the COVID-19 pandemic. In a first the global grouping that joined hands to mitigate 2008 the financial crisis did not deal with economic-political issues but rather on the international public health challenge today.
According to sources in the closed-door interventions, PM Modi underlined that since the 2008 crisis, G20 was focusing mostly on purely economic agenda and balancing competing individual interests rather than cumulative interests of humankind. Prime Minister underscored the need ‘to put human beings at the centre of global prosperity and cooperation, freely and openly share the benefits of medical research and development, develop adaptive, responsive and humane health care systems’ said sources.
Batting for an interconnected global village, PM Modi also flagged the need to promote new crisis management protocols and strengthen and reform intergovernmental organisations like WHO and work together to reduce economic hardships resulting from COVID-19 particularly for the economically distressed, added sources.
"Essentially what the Prime Minister said was that human aspects of our global collective conscience has really been subsumed by an economic and financial focus.
Essentially while the Covid pandemic was a challenge, it also offered a unique opportunity for the G20 and the international community to look at a new concept of the globalisation that focused on humanity, on collective interests of all humankind whether it was combatting terrorism or climate change rather than the focus it had on economic and financial aspects of countries dealing with each other” said an official privy to discussions.
The summit meeting idea was first discussed by PM Modi in his conversations with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia which is the current chair of G20. The leaders felt
the need to reconvene again before the physical summit meet scheduled in Riyadh later this year. PM Modi in his remarks reminded that 90% of the COVID-19 cases
and 88% of deaths were in G20 countries even as they share 80% of world GDP and 60% of the world population.
At the meeting, the world Leaders agreed to find a coordinated response to contain the pandemic and protect people. The countries have committed to injecting over USD 5 trillion into the global economy to counter the social and economic impact of COVID-19. Leaders also agreed to contribute to the separate WHO-led COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund on a voluntary basis. They also supported the strengthening of the WHO’s mandate in the fight against pandemics, including the delivery of medical supplies, diagnostic tools, treatments, medicines and vaccines.
"The Prime Minister highlighted that International Organisations like WHO need to be strengthened and reformed. WHO initially did not have the mandate to deal with a pandemic of this sort. Which is why empowering of WHO is necessary be it in terms of its capacity of early warnings or development of effective vaccines or capacity building," said the official source.
The deliberations also saw the top world leaders commit to all available policy tools to restore global growth, market stability and strengthening economic resilience.
Sources added that the teleconferencing was cooperative in spirit with no indulging in the blame game. Leaders appreciated India’s early response to contain Corona Virus and PM Modi’s ‘constant messaging with the public’ and domestic policy including fiscal stimulus measures announced today, claimed sources. Sources stressed that the spirit of the meeting was one of cooperation and did not seek to pin blame on China or anyone else for the outbreak.
"There was no reference at all to the origin of the crisis as to who is responsible. All the focus on what can we do collectively to address this challenge, to mitigate hardships created by this challenge, what can we do to help other states and build-up our preparedness not only at post covid 19 stages when we have to go into recovery but also to prepare for future challenges of global pandemics of this nature or even worse in terms of scope of the crisis that could come. This is like a wake-up call. But let I again emphasise that there was no effort to ascertain blame," added the source.
The G20 summit meet follows a series of virtual meetings starting with India led SAARC online conference to find a regional response and the G7 world leaders meet the next day. Today’s world meeting comes on a day when health professionals from all SAARC member nations attended a two-hour-long teleconference to take forward ideas proposed by the top leaders earlier and utilise the emergency covid fund which has seen a contribution of 10 million USD from India and more than 5 million USD all other members of the eight-nation South Asian grouping except Pakistan.
"Had this initiative not been taken you would not have had regional cooperation today dealing with SAARC across our land borders, across our maritime borders. How are we working and helping each other? Our assistance has already gone to many SAARC countries. We are there at the forefront of helping SAARC countries in developing protocols, dealing with testing issues, providing medicines, protective gears. We have also now taken the initiative to take up this issue globally," said an Indian official.
The G20 countries welcomed the decision by the International Olympic Committee to reschedule the Olympic Games to a date no later than summer 2021. The leaders hoped that the restrictions and lockdowns would be of a temporary nature though agreed that the length cannot be defined. The grouping is also considering the draft for an action paper separate from the joint communique issued today to decide on the blueprint moving ahead. The Framework joint working group under G20 Sherpas will now meet to finalise the broad actionable plan.
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