Three-day G-20 Development Ministers meet in Varanasi from Sunday to focus on SDGs, Global South

India will host development ministers of G-20 countries in Varanasi from June 11 to 13 with a goal to collectively agree on actions for accelerating achievement of the SDGs and fostering synergies between development, environment and climate agendas while avoiding costly trade-offs that hold back progress for the developing countries.

External affairs minister S Jaishankar will chair the meeting, which is being held under India’s G-20 presidency. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver a special video address at the beginning of the meeting.

The meeting takes place amidst mounting developmental challenges that have been further aggravated by economic slowdown, debt distress, impact of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, growing poverty and inequality, food and energy insecurity, cost-of-living crisis, global supply-chain disruptions, and geopolitical conflicts and tensions, officials said.


The decisions taken at the Varanasi meeting will also contribute to the United Nations SDG Summit, which will take place in September in New York.

The meeting follows the Voice of the Global South Summit that was hosted by India in January and the fourth and final Development Working Group (DWG) meeting, which was held here from June 6 to 9.

The meeting will have two main sessions—Multilateralism: Collective Actions for Accelerating Progress towards SDGs and Green Development: A LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) Approach.

The DWG, while building on the crucial work done by previous G-20 presidencies, has carried forward its mandate of enhancing G-20's contribution to accelerating progress towards SDGs and strengthening G-20 long-term vision in this regard, including by strengthening efforts towards fostering sustainable, inclusive and resilient economic growth.