Inclusive digitisation: G20 nations need to adopt inter-operable platforms

G-20 nations need to create and adopt open source and inter-operable platforms such as Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Aadhaar to promote inclusive digitisation across the world, said Anurag Jain, secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), on Monday.

“G-20 should work towards creating and adopting guiding principles for open source and inter-operable platforms. This will promote inclusive digitisation across the world,” Jain said at the B20 Indonesia Global Dialogue, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Jain said the growth of start-ups globally is curtailed by several challenges with respect to access to finance, proper guidance, and policy support. “To deliberate on such issues, India has proposed a new engagement group…Start-up-20 under India’s G-20 presidency,” he said.

Business 20 (B20) was formed in 2010, and is the official G20 dialogue forum with the global business community.

B20 aims to deliver concrete actionable policy recommendations on the priorities by each rotating presidency to spur economic development.

Indonesia is currently holding the presidency of G-20. All eyes will now be on India as it will hold the presidency for a year, starting December.

Amitabh Kant, India’s G-20 Sherpa, said the forum should drive economic growth and financial progress across the world. This is especially at a time when the world is facing several challenges due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. This has deep implications on food and energy security.

He said G-20 member nations will have to discuss all these issues irrespective of the conflict and arrive at certain principles to take the world forward. “It is important because by the time India takes over the presidency, global growth will be impacted and there is no other forum other than G-20 to drive global growth,” Kant said.

He also said timely, fair and adequate finance by the developed world is the key and commitments made by them should be fulfilled. He called for reforms in global institutions like the World Bank and IMF.

According to him, such institutions need to be the institutions for climate finance. They do not provide blended finance, he said.

G-20 is a group of 19 countries and the European Union, representing around 85 per cent of the global GDP, 75 per cent of global trade, and 60 per cent of the world’s population.

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With inputs from PTI