G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting:
Italy hosted the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting to discuss the fight against Covid-19 and how to speed up the recovery of the global economy and boost sustainable development in Africa.
- Currently, Italy holds the presidency of G-20. The G-20 summit is scheduled to be held in Italy in October, 2021.
India is expected to hold the presidency of the G-20 in 2023.
About the Meeting:
- On Covid-19:
- Criticized China and Russia for engaging in vaccine diplomacy.
- Vaccine diplomacy is the branch of global health diplomacy in which a nation uses the development or delivery of vaccines to strengthen ties with other nations.
- Promoting a science-based holistic One Health approach.
- ‘One Health’ is an approach to designing and implementing programmes, policies, legislation and research in which multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes.
- On Climate Change:
- Increased climate variability and extreme weather events impact agriculture output and are among the forces driving the rise in global hunger.
- On Africa:
- The Covid-19 pandemic, conflict, drought, economic woes, and extreme weather are reversing years of progress.
- In the whole of Africa, 250 million people were experiencing hunger, which is nearly 20% of the population (as of 2019).
