It was an ecstatic Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who held aloft the symbolic gavel passed on to him, as part of the rotational presidency, by Indonesian President Joko Widido, at the 2022 Bali G20 Summit, to chair the next Summit in 2023, in New Delhi, India.
There is a certain perfunctoriness built into these yearly summits that allow 20 of the world’s most important nations to come together to grapple with the issues of the world economy.
However, Modi took the gavel with both hands to turn the hosting of the G20 into an opportunity to project the achievements of his term to his countrymen and the world, as he embarks on an election campaign to win a third term in office.
A productive day at the Bali G-20 Summit. Met world leaders and shared my thoughts on key issues. Sharing today’s highlights... pic.twitter.com/e3DB1XjwOV
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 16, 2022
When he took over the presidency of G20, Prime Minister Modi may not have realised how rapidly the global balance of power will change in 2023 and also how difficult his job would become to host a meaningful summit with tangible outcomes.
Conceived in 2008, the G20 has been effective in finding solutions to countering the global meltdown that gripped the world after the collapse of the US investment firm, Lehman Brothers.
In this forum, heads of state from 20 countries sat with their Sherpas to candidly share their views to devise strategies to lift the global economy during the period of slowdown. The fact that they succeeded in using monetarist tools to revive moribund economies suggests that the G20 was a success.