Jaishankar lauded India’s efforts to become the 'voice of the Global South' and emphasised that the hard work behind achieving the G20 presidency had paid off for the country

New Delhi: It is to India’s credit that it has managed to get the influential G20 grouping back on track to pursue its real business, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday.

The minister was speaking at Network18’s Rising India Summit 2023.

Jaishankar lauded India’s efforts to become the “voice of the Global South” and emphasised that the “hard work behind achieving the G20 presidency” had paid off. The country had also succeeded in contributing something new to the organisation, he added.

“I think our real contribution was to get the G20 back to the G20’s real business. The G20 is not the UN Security Council. It’s not the primary forum to debate international peace and security,” he said at the session India’s G20 Moment.

“I’m not saying international peace and security doesn’t matter or doesn’t have economic consequences. They do. But if you look today at the world, there are serious issues for the world to worry about: food and energy security, green financing…Agenda 2030…trade issues, debt issues.”

India got something very novel for the G20 to look at and something which could later be built on, said Jaishankar.

“It is something called Global Skills Mapping, that where are the skills in the world and where is the demand in the world and they are in two different geographies. So how do we actually put that together? I think that’s a very interesting avenue that we have opened up for the G20,” the minister said.