The Govt of India has appointed Mata Amritanandamayi Devi (Amma) as the Chair of the country’s Civil 20 (C20), an official engagement group of the Group of 20 (G20).
The G20 is the premier intergovernmental forum for the world’s developed and emerging economies to address financial stability on a global basis.
The C20 is its platform for civil-society organizations (CSOs) to bring forth non-government and non-business voices to the G20 leaders.
- The Govt of India has appointed Mata Amritanandamayi Devi as Chair of India’s Civil 20 (C20), an official G20 engagement group for civil-society organisations worldwide.
- India will assume the Presidency of the G20 for one year from December 1, 2022 to November 30, 2023 and host next year’s G20 Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi.
- Mata Amritanandamayi Devi said that poverty in rural areas is one of the key issues to address in terms of moving ahead as a society overall.
India will assume the Presidency of the G20 for one year from December 1, 2022 to November 30, 2023. The pinnacle of events is September 9-10, 2023 when the G20 Leaders’ Summit will take place in New Delhi at the level of Heads of State and Government.
But in advance, India will host more than 200 meetings across the country, an endeavour that involves intense work by ministerial meetings, working groups, and engagement groups.
Upon accepting her role as Chair of India’s C20 engagement group, Amma expressed she was grateful to the Indian Government for arranging such a high-level representation of the voices of the common people.
In addition, members include Sri M, the Satsang Foundation as Participant; Sudha Murthy, Chair, Infosys Foundation as Participant; Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini as Secretariat; and the Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari as an Institutional Partner.
“The most significant problems facing the globe now are hunger, conflict, species extinction, and environmental damage. We should work sincerely to create solutions. If scientists from various disciplines—computer science, mathematics, physics, engineers, etc.—worked together, we could develop more cutting-edge techniques for anticipating environmental catastrophes and so save a great number of lives. We frequently observe a lack of an integrated, multidisciplinary effort. This is what is need right now”.
In the initial C20 online meeting Amma said:
She explained that poverty in rural areas is a key issue to address in terms of moving ahead as society overall. Especially since it is the people there who grow most of our food.
Amma has been studying the lives of people in villages all over India. And the world for more than 35 years.
She has experienced that when we superficially look at villages from on high, we will not find holistic solutions. We need to go to the ground level and understand the issues from their point of view.
“Hunger is one of the primary causes of conflict. The problem of hunger is quite intricate. When we visit villages in need, we frequently observe that the addictions of men contribute to poverty. As a result, women are unable to receive adequate nutrients during the crucial phases of pregnancy. Their offspring pass away at birth from malnutrition or even from ingesting toxins from tainted food. People must be made aware of the need of feeding women, particularly pregnant women.”
Amma said:
She also spoke about the need to educate villagers about adopting practices outside their traditional ways. As in this day and age many of them are no longer sustainable.
Sometimes existing infrastructures even lead to high-risk illnesses. In 2013, the Mata Amritanandamayi Math initiated Amrita SeRVe to help foster self-reliance in 108 impoverished villages throughout India.
“In the villages, we started a project called Jivamritam. Through this project, we provide clean drinking water and educate people on the importance of clean water. But there were people in some of the villages who blindly believed that they would only stay healthy by consuming the river water, which was polluted. They even believed that if they took the filtered water, they would develop kidney stones and bone diseases. So, in spite of being provided with clean, filtered water they continued to only drink the river water. As such, they continued to have various waterborne diseases,”
said Amma.
“Everything needs balance. Just taking antidiabetic medications alone will not lower our blood sugar as long as we continue consuming sugar. So, we need to bring about awareness in the villages, but we also need to go into the villages ourselves and understand all the subtle and individual issues pertaining to each area.”
Priorities for India at the G20 include inclusive, equitable, and sustainable growth, environmental sustainability, women’s empowerment, digital public infrastructure and tech-enabled development in a variety of sectors, including health, agriculture, and education as well as commerce, skill-mapping, culture, and tourism, climate financing; circular economy, global food security, energy security, green hydrogen, disaster-risk reduction and resilience, developmental cooperation, and fight against economics
“All the issues raised here are vitally important. However, this should go beyond a mere physical meeting and become a true meeting—a meeting of hearts and minds. This is the only way to awaken ourselves and others.”
Amma added:
The G20’s members consist of 19 countries plus the European Union. And India has been a member since its inception in 1999.
Overall, the G20 accounts for about 80% of gross world product (GWP), 59-77% of international trade, two-thirds of the world’s population, and roughly half of its land area.
Under the auspices of the G20, C20 engages more than 800 civil societies, representatives, and networks of various countries. Including organizations from countries who are not G20 members, to ensure that people of all strata of society are heard at the G20 Leaders’ Summit.
Representation of CSOs among G20 member nations began in 2010. Launched as an official G20 engagement group in 2013.
The G20 Presidency has a practise of inviting guest nations and International Organizations (IOs) to its G20 sessions and Summit in addition to G20 Members.
India will therefore invite Bangladesh, Egypt, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Spain, and UAE as guest countries. As well as ISA (International Solar Alliance), CDRI (Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure), and ADB (Asian Development Bank) as guest international organizations (IOs). In addition to regular IOs (UN, IMF, World Bank, WHO, WTO, ILO, FSB and OECD) and Chairs of Regional Organizations (AU, AUD
This year’s G20 Leaders’ Summit is about to take place November 15-16 in Indonesia with the theme of “Recover Together Recover Strong.”
Understanding the challenges and the need for collective action in the aftermath of COVID-19, Indonesia will focus on three main pillars for its Presidency: Global Health Architecture, Sustainable Energy Transition, and Digital Transformation.
About Mata Amritanandamayi Math
