War to recession, India will face multiple challenges during its G20 Presidency, says Amitabh Kant

India will assume the Presidency of the G20 from December 1, 2022 for a year and Amitabh Kant, G20 Sherpa of India and former Niti Aayog CEO says it will have to deal with a range of issues like geopolitical tensions, the Russia-Ukraine war, inflation and prospects of a global recession.

“It is a very fractured world,” said Kant at the 9th Annual Forum 2022 of the Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI). Listing out the challenges, Kant said the world is witnessing the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the issue with China and Taiwan. At the same time, the dollar continues to rally and the US Federal Reserve has raised its rates, all of which affects countries across the world. There are also challenges around inflation, global supply chains are disrupted, and the enormous problem of climate change. “Growing without carbonising the world will be a major challenge and more than anything else, it is very important to understand that in a post Covid world, vast segments of the population around the world have been impacted in their education, health and nutrition. If you look at the SDG 2013, it has not progressed and has in fact regressed. These will be some of the key challenges,” says Kant.

The foremost challenge, according to Kant, would be how India deals with different countries during its G20 Presidency, something that Indonesia has struggled with during its current term. According to Kant, within the G20, there are the G7 countries that see the Russia-Ukraine war as an existential threat for themselves. “They feel that their very national existence has been impacted. The G20 is not a forum for discussing war and conflict and the United Nations Security Council should discuss issues of war and conflict. G20 is not the right forum, but when you talk to them [G7 nations], they say the war has severe implications on energy needs and hence impacts economics and finance. They say the food crisis as a consequence of the war has severe implications for survival in many parts of the world. Spill over from the war has bearings on economics and finance,” says Kant.

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