Goa hosts the third Development Working Group meeting of the G20 in India

By: WE Staff | Tuesday, 9 May 2023

According to a senior central government source, the third G20 Development Working Group (DWG) meeting, which starts in Goa, will establish development objectives that will be discussed at the final ministerial conference planned for Varanasi.

The G20 meeting in Goa is a crucial component of the negotiations at this point, according to Nagaraj Naidu Kakanur, Joint Secretary (G20), Ministry of External Affairs, who was speaking at a press conference. "We are discussing the text (of the earlier discussion) with all the G20 members," he said. There will be a lot of "give and take" between the nations during the difficult process, but he expressed optimism that the DWG will provide a convincing result.

DWGs' initial two meetings were place in Kerala and Mumbai. The Goa conference, slated for May 9–11, will focus on creating development objectives that would be discussed in the final ministerial meeting in Varanasi, according to Nagaraj.

As it deals with the development mandate, which is extremely important in the current situation, he claimed that DWG serves as the G20's pivot. In particular, he said, "The world is looking at accelerating the progress to achieve the sustainable development goals."

According to Nagaraj, the globe has seen a series of crises, starting with the COVID-19 epidemic and continuing through the current geopolitical scenario. What we previously referred to as the "decade of action" (from 2021 to 2030) has changed into a "decade of recovery."

"It's unclear when the world will recover. There are seven more years till 2030 as of the year 2023. The source stated that "all nations had initially agreed that they will achieve their SDG objectives by then. He claimed that this is a difficult period, especially for nations in the south.

"The economic growth has been hampered by the COVID (pandemic). The debt-related difficulties have become more prominent. They are in financial hardship. The DWG is investigating ways to hasten the SDG's progress. In this context, we want to achieve highly ambitious but doable results," he continued.

Nagaraj said that the DWG is considering ways to quicken the transition as the globe watches the digital transformation. "We're also considering raising our goals for the world's climate. He said that DWG is also looking at how can women-led development help with this transformation. "If a developing country in the global south has to accelerate its pace to achieve climate ambition, it needs assistance in terms of financing and technology," he said.