World is looking positively at India amidst crisis & G-20 forum is platform to live up to it
New Delhi, Jan 13 (FN Agency) The Third Annual Lecture of the Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI) was held on Friday here where Amitabh Kant, G20 Sherpa, Government of India, spoke on the ‘Role of Business in G20’. Amitabh Kant was welcomed on the stage by Mr. TS Vishwanath, Director General, Past President, and Founding Member, PAFI. Mr. Kant began the lecture by sharing the context in which India has taken over the G20 presidency, where there are multiple crises facing the world—economic, inflation, geo-political, energy, global debt, war, post-COVID impact. “To my mind every crisis has a huge opportunity and G20 in the past has demonstrated the ability to deliver in times of adversity,” he said. Amitabh Kant said, “India’s focus would be on highlighting the need to address climate crisis, progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDG), global debt, geopolitical tensions and the ensuing food and energy crisis.”
He pointed out that there will be a renewed push for green development and climate finance, with the concept of Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) woven in. Spending a considerable time on talking about the climate crisis, Mr Kant said, “The promise of climate finance is not being lived up to by the developed world. It is important to have the flow of resources from multilateral institutions, besides the USD 100 billion funding from the developed countries. Nudging them is a key part of the agenda of the Prime Minister.” He reiterated that another key focus area for the Prime Minister is an emphasis on women-led development. “The challenge is to ensure that we break out of the cycle of malnutrition, improving health outcomes, especially of pregnant women and ensure greater levels of financial inclusion.” Detailing the roadmap for the year, Mr Kant said, “There will be 215 events in 56 cities of India, so this will also be a massive opportunity for states, cities, to drive business as well as soft power through culture, travel, tourism, handicrafts.” Closing the lecture, Mr Kant stressed on the importance of the 4Ds—demographics, digitisation, decarbonisation, and de-globalisation.
“Most importantly, though, we need to de-monopolise the world, and it is for the Indian businesses to use the opportunity of G20 to do that,” he concluded. About PAFI, he said , PAFI is dedicated to raise and maintain standards in Public Affairs to enable the profession to attain recognition and credibility by bringing in a paradigm shift in the way businesses engage with stakeholders – Government, Media, Civil Society and Academia. It acts as a cross-sector networking platform for public affairs professionals and provides opportunities to benefit from interactions with one other as well as with key policymakers and influencers through evidence-based research, closed-door dialogues, interactive panel discussions.