Russian FM Previews Rio G-20 Meet

An FYI posting

Lots of activity at the Russian FM website for a Sunday with many meetings between Moscow based West Asian diplomats and Russia’s #1 inhouse diplomat for the region, Deputy FM Bogdanov, although little can be learned from the short, boilerplate readouts of those half-dozen meetings aside from the unusual volume for a Sunday. Is Iran getting close to launching, or is it something else? The long Media Notice you’re about to read is also unusual although very welcome. Lavrov will be in Rio as Russia’s #1 delegate, but to address the great volume of work, he’ll need a rather large team. The Summit begins tomorrow, and what follows sets the aims:

On November 18-19, the Group of Twenty (G20) summit will be held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The Russian delegation at the upcoming meeting will be headed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the President's instructions. Most of the leaders of the G20 member countries are expected to attend.

Brasilia considers the G20 to be the core element of a polycentric system of international economic relations, characterized by an effective decision-making mechanism due to the optimal number of participants and the principle of consensus. The motto of Brazil's first-ever chairmanship of the forum is "Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet."

Partners are aiming for consensus agreements at the Rio summit. Reaching such a result is considered through the prism of the country's international prestige. The main practical result should be a leadership declaration (an unsigned document approved in the absence of objections from the parties).

In line with the approaches of its predecessors, Brazil emphasizes that the G20 should not focus exclusively on the interests of the "golden billion", but should focus equally, if not more, on the needs of developing countries. In this regard, its ambitious range of priorities is built around the challenge of combating inequality in all its manifestations and includes the following areas: social inclusion and the eradication of hunger; energy transitions and sustainable development; reforming the institutions of global governance. These stories will set the tone during the summit in Rio de Janeiro, where three thematic panel sessions are planned.

One of the key initiatives of the Brazilian Chairmanship is the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty. The main goal of this mechanism is the formation of effective national measures of the G20 countries in specialized areas for their subsequent application in the countries in need. Colleagues from the BRICS countries have already expressed support for Brazil's initiative in the Kazan Declaration adopted at the end of the XVI summit of the association.

Russia took an active part in the development and coordination of the organizational and substantive aspects of the Brazilian project, and has already contributed to the data bank advanced domestic solutions in the areas of food security and poverty eradication.

The leaders' meeting in Rio de Janeiro will open with the inauguration of the Global Alliance to Fight Hunger and Poverty. Russia's planned official accession to this platform will provide another opportunity for our country to raise at the international level the problems that are relevant to the world majority, in particular, countering illegal unilateral sanctions and promoting domestic experience.

The G20, along with other global structures, including the UN, is experiencing the negative impact of tensions and divisions on the world stage, as well as the confrontational mood of the West. In the G20, contrary to its economic competence, at the instigation of the G7, a polemic on geopolitics was launched. This forum began to be used by the United States and its allies to aggressively promote their anti-Russian approaches.

In the context of the politicization of the G20, Brazil seeks to exercise its leadership in an unbiased manner with a view to restoring the spirit of trust and solidarity in the forum. An important agreement was reached on the removal of geopolitics from the G20 ministerial communiqués, which began to be reflected in the president's unilateral statements. This decision made it possible to return to the issuance of declarations by full consensus, and the activities of the G20 working groups to focus exclusively on sectoral dossiers in their areas of competence. The next achievement was that the results of the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly High-Level Week (New York, September 25) managed to do without geopolitics. The "Call to Action" agreed upon by the foreign ministers does not contain the relevant elements and is not accompanied by a presidential statement.

The G20 under the Brazilian Presidency is distinguished by an intensive "production" schedule and a busy agenda. In total, the program includes more than 120 official events, including a record number of ministerial meetings - 25.

Brasilia's innovation was the organization in 2024 of not one, according to tradition, but two CFMs [Council of Foreign Ministers]-- on February 21-22 in Rio de Janeiro and September 25 in New York. The UN meeting on global governance reform was open to participation not only by G20 members, but also by all other interested states.

For the first time this year, under the auspices of the Brazilian Presidency in Rio de Janeiro, summits of the supreme and constitutional courts (May 12-14), as well as prosecutorial services (October 20-22) were held. A major partner initiative was the organization of the 1st Meeting of Women Parliamentarians (Maceió, 1-2 July). In addition, the 5th meeting of space economy leaders was held (Foz do Iguaçu, September 11-13).

One of the central events of the Brazilian presidency is the Social Summit (Rio de Janeiro, 14-16 November). President Lula has repeatedly drawn attention to the need for more active involvement of civil society in the G20 efforts. To this end, Brazilians have created a special mechanism – the G20 Social – as a platform for cooperation between the various G20 network groups.

The G20 remains focused on maintaining the stability of markets and the financial system, responding to crises and disruptions in the global economy, as well as preventing them. The benchmark is to ensure continuous and inclusive economic growth.

In recent years, the Forum's agenda has expanded significantly to include social and humanitarian issues. Working groups were established for interstate cooperation in the fields of culture, science, women's empowerment, and disaster risk reduction. Under the auspices of the G20, a dialogue between supreme audit institutions, supreme and constitutional courts, and prosecutorial services began to take place.

Discussions at the G20 are becoming increasingly complex and interconnected, combining energy and climate, labour and the environment, education and digitalisation. Particular attention is paid to the development of technologies, primarily artificial intelligence, on all tracks.

Russia occupies a leading position in the G20 and effectively influences the course and direction of the negotiations and the content of the agreements. This platform is regarded by Moscow as a key forum for global economic governance.

The G20 is actively used to promote Russia's theses on the importance of building an open and non-discriminatory world economy, the rejection of unilateral restrictive measures, trade wars and protectionism. Attention is drawn to the long-overdue reform of the global governance architecture in the interests of emerging markets. The focus is on ending the dominance of Western powers in international financial, economic and trade institutions, de-dollarization and increasing settlements in national currencies.

Russia is making a significant contribution to raising the voice of developing countries in the G20 and coordinating them in order to jointly uphold the priorities of the Global South and the East. It was one of the first to support the initiative to include the African Union in the membership of the forum in 2023. At Russia's instigation, an informal mechanism of consultations is successfully functioning, allowing like-minded people to compare notes on the most pressing issues on the agenda.

Russia has consistently defended the existential need to depoliticise the G20. It should focus on its direct responsibilities to stimulate economic growth and sustainable development. Attempts by opponents to bring peace and security issues beyond the scope of its mandate into the agenda of the G-20 are counterproductive. This destructive line slows down progress in profile areas and multiplies dividing lines between members.

Russia's priority is to reach constructive agreements in the G20 based on consensus that take into account the interests of all participating countries. Moscow seeks an adequate and balanced interpretation of the tasks in the field of sustainable development, taking into account the national interests of states. It seeks to effectively use the G20 to give impetus to the democratization of international financial and economic structures, in particular, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, to diversify mutual settlement mechanisms, and to build independent cross-border supply chains.

In the G20, Russia consistently emphasizes the high dynamics of the country's economic growth despite the unprecedented sanctions pressure from the West, thanks to which Russia has become one of the four largest economies in the world in terms of GDP.

There are obvious Russian achievements in the development of logistics and the expansion of the geography of cooperation, primarily in favor of the countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America; increasing foreign trade settlements in national currencies; increase in the volume of non-energy exports. Russia reaffirms its readiness to remain a reliable supplier of agricultural products, fertilizers and energy resources to international markets, including in the form of gratuitous assistance to the poorest states.

Moscow pays special attention to the efforts of like-minded countries aimed at stimulating integration processes, in particular, through the Eurasian Economic Union, and highlights the prospects for promoting Russia's flagship foreign policy initiative, the Greater Eurasian Partnership. Successes are emphasized at the BRICS, EAEU, SCO platforms, within the framework of bilateral ties in the development of transport corridors, independent settlement mechanisms in national currencies, reinsurance and exchange infrastructure. [My Emphasis]

Brazil took a very ambitious attitude toward its first ever G-20 Presidency and much was accomplished. We shall see how it performs with these last two major events, the Social Summit that just ended and the Main Annual G-20 Summit over the next two days. Escobar’s in Rio, so we can expect a good summation by Thursday at latest. The Summit’s topic happens to be the first two goals of the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, which are the elimination of hunger and reduction of poverty. IMO, those two ought to be the sole focus as to solve them many other issues must also be addressed, some of which were mentioned above. One of those issues is debt relief and the need to repudiate odious debt which greatly debilitates the ability of many post-colonial nations to develop. I should note the Xi met with Biden in Lima at the APEC Meeting, which I’ll be writing about tomorrow along with several other topics using this brief Global Times item as one source.

So, take a break and do the Samba before moving on to your next activity!

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