Context: 

While assuming the G­20 presidency in December 2022, India stated that its primary objectives are to build global consensus over critical development and security issues and deliver global goods. 

• This resulted in placing multilateral reform as one of the top presidential priorities for India. 
• Accordingly, the G­20 idea bank, Think 20, also placed multilateral reforms as one of its priorities. 

Why is Multilateralism Important?

• Cooperation and multilateral reform is the need of the hour. Most of the challenges nations face today are global in nature and require global solutions. 
• Pressing global issues such as conflicts, climate change, migration, macroeconomic instability, and cybersecurity can indeed only be solved collectively.
• Disruptions such as the COVID­19 pandemic have reversed the social and economic progress that the global society made in the past couple of decades.

Crises faced by multilateral cooperation:

• Loss of Trust in Multilateralism due to Deadlocks: Due to persistent deadlocks, multilateralism has lost the majority’s trust. 
• Utility Crisis for Multilateralism: Multilateralism is facing a utility crisis, where powerful member states think it is no longer useful for them. 
• Contributing Factors to the Impasse: Increasing great­ power tensions, de­globalisation, populist nationalism, the pandemic, and climate emergencies added to the hardships. 
  • This impasse led states to seek other arenas, including bilateral, plurilateral and minilateral groupings, which subsequently contributed to further polarisation of global politics.

Why is reform difficult?

• Multilateralism and Global Power Politics: Multilateralism is deeply entrenched in global power politics. 
  • As a result, any action in reforming multilateral institutions and frameworks automatically transforms into a move that seeks changes in the current distribution of power.
• Zero Sum Game in Multilateral Reforms: The status quo powers see multilateral reforms as a zero sum game. 
  • For instance, in the context of the Bretton Woods system, the U.S. and Europe believed reform would reduce their dominance. 
  • This makes decisions about reform, by consensus or voting, hard. 
• Challenges to Multilateralism in the Emerging Multiplex Global Order: Multilateralism appears at odds with the realities of the emerging multiplex global order. The emerging order seems more multipolar and multi centred. 
• Formation of New Clubs and Coalitions: Such a situation facilitates the formation of new clubs, concerts and coalitions of the like minded, which makes the reform of older institutions and frameworks more challenging.
• Limited Reach of Multilateralism Reform Narrative: Currently, the multilateralism reform narrative lives only in elite circles and some national capitals, particularly the emerging powers.

What can G­20 and India do?

• G­20 should first focus on setting proper narratives of multilateral reform. G­20 may constitute an engagement group dedicated to bringing the narrative to the forefront of global discourse. 
• India should also urge the upcoming chairs of the grouping, Brazil and South Africa, to place multilateral reforms as their presidential priorities.
• Need to acknowledge the limitations of multilateral cooperation:  
  1. G-20 should support both multilateral cooperation and minilateral groupings as a new form of multilateralism. 
     1. To address competing interests and the dominance of powerful states, G-20 can transform minilateral groupings into multi-stakeholder partnerships.
  2. Competing interests and the dominance of powerful states are there to stay in multilateral platforms. Therefore, while supporting multilateral cooperation, G­20 should continue encouraging minilateral groupings as a new form of multilateralism and try to transform them into multi stakeholder partnerships.
  3. Creating networks of issue based minilaterals, particularly in areas related to the governance of the global commons will be helpful in preventing competitive coalitions where other actors play the same game to their advantage, leading to a more fragmented world order. 
• Political will: Multilateral reforms also require mobilising the political will, subsequently giving concessions and conciliations.
• Inclusivity without sacrificing efficiency: Including the African Union as a permanent member and the UN Secretary­General and General Assembly President as permanent invitees would be helpful to enhance its legitimacy.

• Addressing the crisis of trust and utility: 

1. 1. G­20 should put all its efforts into solving one or two pressing global issues and showcase it as the model of new multilateralism. 
   2. Food, fuel and fertiliser security can be one such issue. It falls under the ‘low politics’ of world politics, so cooperation is more achievable. 
   3. On the other, it is a global cause of concern, since it can trigger stagflation and recession across the globe. This issue spreads across the overall priorities of India within and beyond the G­20.

News Source: The Hindu