India and the United States will be discussing the expansion of the G-20 grouping to include the African Union (AU) during the bilateral talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden this week, New Delhi has said.
The AU is an inter-governmental continental grouping comprising 55 countries.
In his departure statement before embarking on a plane to the US on Tuesday, Prime Minister Modi indicated that his upcoming talks with President Biden would also figure cooperation in plurailateral fora such as G-20, Quad and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF).
Modi and Biden are scheduled to hold formal consultations at the White House on June 22.
Addressing a press conference on Monday, Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said that the Indian leader would explain to Biden the “focus” of New Delhi’s G-20 presidency, especially highlighting the concerns of the Global South.
Kwatra underlined that the low and middle-income nations remained “unrepresented” in the G-20 and other global groupings, with New Delhi having organized the Voice of Global South Summit this year to focus on the concerns of these countries.
“The idea is to put that on the table…and put that on the table with the importance that it deserves, in terms of being included onto the G20 agenda. Naturally, in that, the interest of the African countries, which represents a large section of the Global South, are important and they would feature in the discussions…discussions between the Honorable Prime Minister and the President,” Kwatra stated.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Modi also wrote to leaders of G-20 leaders, seeking full-member status for the AU at the G-20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi later this year.
New Delhi has said that Prime Minister Modi’s letter reflected his commitment to strengthen Africa’s role in shaping global affairs.
New Delhi also invited the AU to the G-20 Development Ministers’ Meeting (DMM) in Varanasi last week. The meeting, chaired by Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, was also attended by nine "Guest" countries and officials from other multilateral groupings such as International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Bank.