New Delhi: The upcoming G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil will be special as the African Union will be participating as a full member for the first time, following India’s initiative taken during its presidency last year to include the African grouping, a top official said on Wednesday ahead of PM Modi’s visit to Brazil.
“The G20 Summit will be very special as it is the first time that the African Union will take its place in the grouping as a member. It was at the New Delhi summit that the African Union was inducted as full member,” Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said at a briefing.
PM Modi travels to Nigeria, Brazil and Guyana from November 16-21 and will attend the G20 in Rio de Janeiro which is being held from November 18-19.
The summit will see the presence of the leaders of the 19 member countries, plus the African Union and the European Union.
This will be PM Modi’s third official visit to Brazil, earlier he went for two BRICS summits.
Brazil has invited 18 guest countries, and 15 international organisations to the summit.
“For India it will be important as we look to continuity of our priorities from the New Delhi summit when a number of issues of interest of developing countries and market economies were discussed,” said the FS.
He said the G20 provides an opportunity for leaders of the 21 largest economies – that represent 88 percent of the global GDP, 78 pc of the international trade and three-fourths of the population to discuss key issues impacting the world, including progress on the SDGs, climate change challenges, bridging the global economic divide.
The Brazilian theme for the summit is Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet, with three major points – of social inclusion and fight against hunger and poverty, of energy transition and sustainable development, and reform of global governance institutions.
FS Misri said the main session will be followed by a closing ceremony, and the chairmanship will be handed to South African president, which will cap the G20s run of four emerging market economy countries holding the presidency in succession – Indonesia, India, Brazil and South Africa.
He said the priorities of the Brazilian G20 align with India’s presidency, including the issue of hunger and poverty, reform of multilateral institutions, energy transition and empowerment of women working groups of women-led development.
“The ambitious language reflected in the New Delhi leaders declaration has provided the basis for many of the G20 documents adopted this year, like flagship Mission Life, women led development, have found resonance and reflection in the Brazilian presidency,” he added.
Secretary ER Dammu Ravi said the PM’s visit to Nigeria is the first visit by an Indian PM after 17 years, with the last one being by PM Manmohan Singh in 2007.
He said the Nigerian president visited India last year for the G20 as guest country, which paved the way for Nigeria to visit Brazil for the G20 as member.
PM Modi will be accorded a ceremonial welcome, and later have a one on one meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, followed by delegation level talks. Both sides will explore avenues to expand relations, with five MoUs set to be inked covering culture, digital public infrastructure among other things.
PM Modi will also interact with the Indian diaspora.
Nigeria’s active involvement in the AU has increased, and Nigeria is also partner country of BRICS, and is holding chairship of the regional bloc Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Ravi said.
Indian teachers have been teaching in Nigeria for decades, and have helped teach several generations of Nigerians. The defence cooperation is very active, with a National Defence Academy and a National War College set up.
There are 60,000 Indians in Nigeria, the largest diaspora in Africa.
The trade is 15 billion USD, mostly comprising oil imports to India. There are 200 Indian companies in Nigeria, and they are the second largest employment provider.
India’s ITEC scholarships have trained 27,500 Nigerians since the 1960s.
Jaideep Mazumder, Secretary West, said that PM Modi will be visiting Guyana, which will see an Indian prime ministerial visit there after more than half a century.
He said President Irfaan Ali was chief guest at the Pravasi Bharatiya Summit last year, and Vice President Bharat Jagdeo also visited India, and so did many of Guyanese ministers and the Chief of Defence was also in India.
PM Modi will hold delegation level talks with the President and address the diaspora.
He said the first Indians landed in Guyana in 1838, and now more than 100 years since then roughly 40 percent of the 800,000 population is of Indian origin.
Guyana has seen major discovery of oil and gas, and India hopes to partner in hydrocarbons, and in healthcare, defence and education, the Secretary added.
PM Modi will also attend the Second India-Caricom summit there.
UNI
