What Is G20? What Happened At G20 Foreign Ministers Meet 2022?

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The News

The G20 foreign ministers meeting began in Bali, Indonesia in July 2022 with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in attendance.
This is the first instance of top US and Russian envoys gathering together since the launch of Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Indian EAM S Jaishankar met Chinese FM Wang Yi at the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting and it is said that the two ministers discussed border issues.

The G20 or Group of Twenty is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union (EU). It works to address major issues related to the global economy, such as international financial stability, climate change mitigation, and sustainable development.
Together, the G20 members represent more than 80 percent of world GDP, 75 percent of international trade and 60 percent of the world population.
The G20 Member Countries include the Australia, USA, UK, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, China, India, Russia, Italy, Indonesia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, Republic of Korea, Mexico and the European Union.
Note: Spain is also invited as a permanent guest.

History of G20
- G20 was conceived by G7 in 1999 in response to the series of massive debt crises that had spread across emerging markets in the late 1990s, beginning with the Mexican peso crisis 1994, followed by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the 1998 Russian financial crisis, and eventually impacting the United States through collapse of Long-Term Capital Management (LCTM ) in the autumn of 1998.
- Its basic aim was to secure global financial stability by involving middle-income countries. Over the years its agenda has been expanded to climate change mitigation, sustainable development & other global challenges resolution.

How does it work?
- G20 has no permanent secretariat…!!!
- Its agenda and work are coordinated by representatives of the G20 countries, known as ‘Sherpas’.
- Sherpas work together with the finance ministers and governors of the central banks. Indian G20 sherpa is Ex-NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.
- Yearly, there are Sherpa meet, Expert group meet, Finance Ministers meet, Central Bank Governors meet, Foreign ministers meet and G20 head of the states summit.

The presidency of the G20 rotates every year among its members, with the country that holds the presidency working together with its predecessor and successor, also known as Troika, to ensure the continuity of the agenda.
Currently Italy, Indonesia, and India are the Troika countries.

In the Group of 20, Western countries highlighted the Ukraine war and accused Moscow of war crimes in They have also imposed strict sanctions Russian economy. Russia in turn accused US of forcing EU & others to abandon cheap energy sources.
G20 members like China, Indonesia, India and South Africa have been muted in their response over Ukraine issue.
Germany’s FM Annalena Baerbock and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ruled out separate meetings with Russian FM Sergei Lavrov. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss left Indonesia early amid the political drama around PM Boris Johnson’s resignation.

Foreign Ministers stressed the continued importance of multilateralism in upholding an open and rules-based international order. All countries must adhere to the principles of the UN Charter.

G20 also called for combined fight against food and energy crisis. Foreign ministers called for strategic actions to combat
1. Inflation
2. Food insecurity
3. Fertilizer shortage
4. Rising energy costs