Jakarta – Activities under Indonesia’s G20 Presidency will start on December 7 and 8, 2021 with the first Sherpas’ meeting, Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Retno LP Marsudi said during a briefing with foreign mediapersons on Friday.
“The first Sherpas’ meeting will be used to set the agenda of the Presidency, explain the planned meetings, and start working on deliverables,” Marsudi disclosed at the briefing, according to a written statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and received here on Friday.
To achieve its goals, the G20 Forum holds tiered meetings that follow two tracks, namely the Finance Track and the Sherpa Track.
The Finance Track, which will be coordinated by the Ministry of Finance and the central bank, will focus on macroeconomic, fiscal, monetary and financial issues, Marsudi said.
Discussions related to the financial track are carried out from the working group level to the level of the Minister of Finance and the Governor of the central bank, she added.
Meanwhile, the Sherpa Track, which will be coordinated by the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will focus on discussing areas of non-financial cooperation, the minister informed.
The non-financial areas will include development, education, health, employment, energy, environment and climate change, agriculture, digital economy, anti-corruption, trade-investment-industry, tourism, and women’s empowerment, she said.
“To enrich the discussion (at the Forum), Indonesia will invite prominent speakers who will share insights on the global health outlook as well as global economic outlook,” Marsudi stated.
The Indonesian Presidency will have 11 working groups and 1 initiative under the Sherpa Track, she revealed.
The working groups will focus on 11 fields: 1) agriculture, 2) anti-corruption, 3) development, 4) trade-industry-investment, 5) education, 6) employment, 7) energy transition, 8) environment and climate, 9) health, 10) tourism, and 11) digital economy.
“I should underline this will be the first time for digital economy to have a dedicated working group addressing the issue of digitalization,” Marsudi pointed out.
“On the issue of women’s empowerment, we will have the EMPOWER initiative,” she added.
Besides the working groups, which will cover the governmental element of the G20, the Indonesian Presidency will have 10 engagement groups that will be involved in non-governmental meetings, she said.
“In the Italian Presidency, there were 8 engagement groups. Now, there will be two additional engagement groups under the Indonesian Presidency: Supreme Audit Institution 20, or SAI-20, and the Parliament 20, or P-20 forum,” Marsudi added.
She further said that Indonesia is honored to hold the Presidency of G20 for 2022.
“We will work as hard as we can to assume this responsibility and bring benefit not only for the G20 but also to developing and least developed countries,” Marsudi remarked.
“Working together is key to recovering together and recovering stronger,” she added.
Anang Fadhilah/ant
