Saudi Arabia chaired the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Extraordinary Meeting which was held in the virtual mode. External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar represented India in the virtual meeting that was convened in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. During the meeting, India proposed the setting up of voluntary ‘G20 Principles on Coordinated Cross-Border Movement of People’. This new set up will be based on following three pillars:
a) Standardisation of testing procedures and universal acceptability of test results
b) Standardisation of ‘Quarantine procedures’
c) Standardisation of ‘movement and transit’ protocols
The participants deliberated on strengthening international cooperation across borders amid COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The Ministers also discussed the national experiences and lessons acquired from the cross-border management initiatives taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Important takeaways for all competitive exams:
- The Group of Twenty (G20) is the premier forum for international economic cooperation which brings together the leaders of both developed and developing countries from every continent. ​
- The members of the G20 group are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, ​Republic o​f Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union (EU)​.