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India, which holds the Presidency of G20 for 2023, has proposed five key parameters — sustainable, resilience, inclusive, financing and people-centric — for building cities of tomorrow for discussion in the Infrastructure Working Group (IWG).
“We have proposed five key things which we are working on. They are how do we make cities sustainable, resilient, inclusive, how to meet the financing needs of the cities as well as how do we attract funding for infrastructure and how cities have to plan dynamically with a people-centric approach. We have put forward a robust framework, which was highly appreciated and participants contributed with their suggestions,” said Solomon Arokiaraj, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, after the conclusion of the two-day G20 meet of IWG in Pune on Tuesday.
He said it was a productive two days and its outcome would be carried forward for discussion in three more meetings in future.
A total of 64 delegates from 18 member countries along with representatives from eight guest countries and eight international organisations participated in the IWG, sharing their inputs and suggestions, Arokiaraj said, adding that the outcome of these deliberations would be taken up for discussion in the next meeting in Visakhapatnam in March.
“Pace of urbanisation is very rapid and everybody is going to look at climate change and reduction of carbon emission or carbon footprint and moving to net zero,” he added.
Arokiaraj said that broad generic guidelines will be evolved by studying different cities and aspects. “When principles are approved it will be broad guidelines and non-binding voluntary kind of thing. We have three more meetings and the agenda is going to be common. In the first meeting, ideas have been introduced. It will be refined and timeline for delivering priorities listed for finalising principles have been fixed,” he said.
There was no discord on any new issues except for some legacy issues which are continuing from several presidencies, Arokiaraj said.
On the concerns due to growth of population in cities, he said that 50 percent of the world population is now in cities and it is going to increase one and half times. “Six billion people will live in cities by 2025. You cannot stop someone’s aspiration of moving to a better place. All that we can facilitate is how they get better quality of life when coming to cities,” he added.
