G20 Summit 2023: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during the 'One Future' session of the G20 Summit in New Delhi, formally handed over India's presidency to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Brazil will preside over the G20 in 2024, after which it will hand over the presidency to South Africa for the G20 Summit in 2025. The United States will host the G20 Summit in 2026.
"We will support Brazil and we are confident that under their presidency, G20 till take forward our shared objectives. I congratulate Brazil President and my friend Lula da Silva and now I hand over the gavel of G20 presidency to him," said PM Modi at the Summit.
On the occasion, Lula da Silva said that Brazil's G20 presidency will have three priorities - social inclusion and fight against hunger, energy transition and sustainable development, and reform of global governance institutions.
"All these priorities are part of the Brazilian presidency motto which says 'Building a fair world and a sustainable planet'. Two task forces will be created - Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty & the Global Mobilisation against Climate Change," he said.
He also called on leaders to address the challenges of global inequality and said that it threatens sustainable development worldwide. ".We are living in a world where wealth is more concentrated in which millions of human beings still go hungry, where sustainable development is always threatened, in which government institutions still reflect the reality of middle of the last century. We will only be able to face all these problems if we address the issue of inequality - inequality of income, of access to healthcare, education, food, gender and race and also of representation is at the origin of these anomalies," he added.
Lula da Silva also expressed that he felt emotional while paying tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat earlier today. He credited Gandhi's role in his political life and highlighted his method of non-violence that he himself has followed for decades as a member of the Labour Movement.
G20 Summit concludes
Prime Minister Modi, who led the two-day G20 Leaders' Summit in New Delhi, has announced the conclusion of the mega event. He requested G20 leaders to schedule a virtual meeting again in November.
"As you all know India has the responsibility of G20 presidency till November 2023. In these two days, all of you gave a lot of suggestions and placed proposals. It is our duty that the suggestions we have received be reviewed once again so as to see how their progress can be sped up," said PM Modi in his concluding remarks.
He proposed for a range of topics to be discussed by G20 leaders in November's virtual session. Notably, India scored a major diplomatic win by managing to reach a consensus among world leaders on the New Delhi G20 Leaders' Declaration, the Global Biofuels Alliance and the India-Middle East-Europe approach
PM Modi highlights human-centric approach
In the final session of the G20 session, PM Modi once again highlighted the role of human-centric approach of cooperation, rather than GDP-centric approach. He also underscored the role of technology being used in inclusive development in India.
"India has used technology for last mile delivery. Even our smallest villages and traders are using digital payments. I am happy that under India's presidency, there has been a consensus for a strong framework for Digital Public Infrastructure," he said.
He also suggested a framework for a responsible human-centric AI governance. "We will make efforts to ensure that all countries reap the benefits of AI in areas like socio-economic development, global workforce and R&D," he added.
"We are familiar with the challenges of cyber security and crypto-currency. The field of crypto-currency, social order, monetary and financial stability has emerged as a new theme for everyone. Therefore, we have to develop global standards to regulate crypto-currencies," the PM further said.
PM Modi also called for reform of global institutions to address the challenges of the changing world, while emphasising the need for transformation, sustainability and stability. "Let us pledge that we will take our resolutions of Green Development Pact, Action Plan on SDGs, High level Principles on Anti-corruption, Digital Public Infrastructure, and MDB Reforms to fruition," he said.
(with agency inputs)
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