What the G20 does, and how a summit reaches agreement
When G20 leaders announce that they have reached agreement, what have they actually agreed to, and what happens next? The answer lies in the work behind the summit. The presidency guides the agenda, negotiations run across two tracks, and the declaration records the agreement. India's 2023 presidency shows both what this process can produce and why announcing a commitment is different from carrying it out.
What the G20 does
The G20 is a forum for international economic cooperation. According to the Press Information Bureau's explainer, it began in 1999 after the Asian financial crisis, bringing finance ministers and central bank governors together to discuss economic and financial issues.
Its agenda has since grown. Trade, sustainable development, health, agriculture, energy, the environment, climate change and anti-corruption are now part of its work. These subjects explain why a summit on economic cooperation discusses matters well beyond the work of finance ministries.
Who belongs to it
The name can mislead. The membership includes 19 countries and two regional bodies, the European Union and the African Union. The countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, also called South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The African Union became a permanent member during India's 2023 presidency. South Africa remains a member in its own right. The 21 members therefore include both countries and regional bodies.
Participation is broader than membership. Representatives of invited countries and international organisations take part in working groups alongside the relevant ministries of members. These countries and organisations participate as guests, rather than as G20 members.
The presidency and the troika
The presidency steers the agenda for one year and hosts the summit. The G20 has no permanent secretariat. Its presidency is supported by the troika, which brings together the previous, current and incoming presidencies.
During India's presidency, that meant Indonesia, India and Brazil respectively. The troika changes with the presidency, connecting the country leading the year's work with the countries that lead it before and after.
India's presidency ran from 1 December 2022 to 30 November 2023. Its theme was Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, expressed as One Earth, One Family, One Future. The leaders met in New Delhi on 9 to 10 September 2023, so the presidency covered considerably more than the summit and continued after it closed.
Two tracks prepare the ground
The Finance Track and the Sherpa Track run in parallel. Finance ministers and central bank governors lead the Finance Track. Sherpas lead the Sherpa Track. The Ministry of External Affairs describes Sherpas as the leaders' personal emissaries. They coordinate the substantive work and oversee negotiations throughout the year.
Within both tracks, working groups bring together people responsible for particular subjects. The summit is part of this wider G20 process. The leaders' meeting draws on work that ministries, officials and other participants have already done.
Engagement groups also bring perspectives from civil society, parliamentarians, think tanks, women, youth, labour, business and researchers. Their role is to contribute perspectives to the process. The leaders' role is to adopt the final declaration.
How negotiations become a declaration
A March 2023 PIB account explained how the Sherpa process worked. Sherpa meetings would take forward outcomes from both tracks and form the basis of the leaders' declaration. The sequence is easier to follow than the terminology suggests: work across the tracks feeds into Sherpa deliberations, which help prepare the text for adoption at the summit.
The G20's 2025 review describes its consensus method as decisions taken without objections. Agreement therefore requires decisions that no member objects to. A simple majority cannot outvote an objection, and the presidency can guide the agenda but cannot impose the final agreement.
Members can agree on a text while holding different views. The New Delhi declaration's discussion of the war in Ukraine explicitly acknowledged different views and assessments. A common text can record disagreement as well as agreement.
The same declaration recognised that geopolitical and security issues affect the global economy, while saying the G20 is not the platform to resolve them. The forum can therefore discuss their economic effects while leaving responsibility for resolving them elsewhere.
The New Delhi declaration was adopted on 9 September 2023, as PIB's announcement that day records. Leaders adopted it during the summit, before the final day.
What India’s presidency produced
The African Union's accession was a concrete change to the G20's membership. The declaration also set out commitments, welcomed frameworks and recognised initiatives. The verbs tell the reader what kind of outcome each statement records.
On sustainable development, leaders committed to collective action for effective and timely implementation of the G20 2023 Action Plan to Accelerate Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. This committed leaders to work towards the goals; achieving them remained the task ahead.
On digital public infrastructure, leaders welcomed a framework explicitly described as voluntary and suggested. They also welcomed India's plan for a repository of voluntarily shared digital public infrastructure. Both left members free to choose whether to adopt India's digital systems.
On energy, the declaration committed to pursuing and encouraging efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030, through existing targets and policies and in line with national circumstances. It also referred to other zero- and low-emission technologies. The ambition was to triple global capacity, with no binding requirement for each country to triple its own.
Leaders also committed to pursuing reforms of multilateral development banks. They agreed to create a Working Group on Empowerment of Women, with its first meeting envisaged under Brazil's presidency. The declaration recognised sustainable biofuels and noted the setting up of a Global Biofuels Alliance. Readers would need separate evidence to know whether every G20 member joined it.
Agreement is not implementation
A government reply reproduced in a 2024 parliamentary committee report states that G20 declarations are not legally binding. Adopting a declaration leaves Indian law unchanged. Read each outcome for what it is: a reform commitment, a voluntary framework or a completed institutional change.
The 2023 declaration tells us what leaders agreed, welcomed or intended at that point. To judge delivery, look for later evidence that the commitments were carried out. This could show whether an energy ambition has been met or development-bank reforms have been completed.
How to read the next summit
Start with three questions: who participated, what does the agreed text actually say, and what evidence would show that its commitments were carried out? Keep the presidency's agenda, the leaders' agreement and later implementation separate. This helps you assess each announcement and judge what has been completed.
One Young India's Model G20 Summit offers a simulation in which participants take the roles of world leaders and negotiate global economic cooperation, with work across the Sherpa and Finance tracks.