India called on Wednesday for urgent reforms of the international decision-making structures, especially the Security Council, to give the G...
India called on Wednesday for urgent reforms of the international decision-making structures, especially the Security Council, to give the Global South its due representation.
Speaking at the Foreign Ministers’ meeting of the
G20, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said reforming the UN to ensure it
was representative, credible, and effective was imperative and urgent.
EAM Jaishankar said the reforms should include the expansion of both permanent and elected seats on the Security Council.
The ministers of the G20, the group of major
developed and emerging countries, met on the sidelines of the UN General
Assembly’s high-level meeting.
In a speech that dealt at length with the
international financial and development organizations, S. Jaishankar said it was imperative to bring reforms to make the international financial
architecture more “robust, expansive, and effective”.
In this context, he mentioned India’s efforts when
it was the chair of the G20 to reform multilateral development banks (MDBs) to
meet the aspirations of the developing world.
During its presidency of the G20, India set up a
panel of international economic experts to recommend reforms to the MDBs, by and
their suggestions were adopted by the G20.
The panel’s recommendations included raising more
capital, tripling by 2030 lending for sustainable development, streamlining
procedures, and encouraging more risk-taking in funding programmes.
S. Jaishankar took aim at the World Trade
Organisation (WTO), calling for its comprehensive reform to ensure a
rules-based, non-discriminatory and fair multilateral trading system.
He also had a brief conversation with WTO
Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala before the meeting.
He said that protectionism and market-distorting
practices of the international trading system worked against developing
countries.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the G20
countries should be strongly engaged in reforming the UN and making “the
Security Council truly representative by addressing the under-representation of
Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean”.
The External Affairs Minister stressed the role of
the G20 in promoting reforms in all areas of the international structures.
The G20, the UN, and the so-called Bretton Woods
institutions – which include the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
– are trying to deal with “some of the most important challenges of our time:
inequality, financing for development, the climate crisis, the impact of new
technologies”, he said.
“In all these areas, progress is slipping out of
reach as our world becomes more unsustainable, unequal, and unpredictable,” S.
Jaishankar said.
“I look to all G20 countries to push for deep
reforms so that global financial institutions reflect today’s world and respond
to today’s challenges,” he said.
The External Affairs Minister added: “We
need ambitious reforms of the international financial architecture to make it
fully representative of today’s global economy, so it can provide strong
support to implement the Sustainable Development Goals.”
On fighting climate change, he noted
that clean energy investments have increased in India and China, but hardly in
other emerging and developing economies since 2015.
“The energy transition must be based on justice and
equity so that all countries benefit,” S. Jaishankar said.
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