At G20, divisions hinder bid to blame Russia for inflation crisis

With food and energy prices already spiking worldwide, the summit is taking place just days ahead of the November 19 expiry of a United Nations-brokered deal guaranteeing the safe passage of grain ships through the Black Sea.

Russia, which briefly backed out of the deal before rejoining it earlier this month, has warned that the deal may not be renewed unless the country is granted greater access to the international financial system, which has been hobbled by sanctions.

Washington has insisted that the majority of the G20, which includes 19 countries and the European Union, is prepared to condemn Russia’s war.

In a briefing with reporters in Bali on Tuesday, a US official said G20 members would sign a declaration condemning the war before the end of the week and were in agreement that the conflict was “the root source of immense economic and humanitarian suffering in the world.”

The official, who was quoted anonymously, declined to be drawn on which countries would and would not support the declaration, according to media reports.

According to a draft communique seen circulated among media outlets, the G20 members would state that they have witnessed the war “adversely impact the global economy” and “most members” condemn the war, while also noting that members reiterate their “national positions” and the G20 is “not the forum to resolve security issues.”

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who has stressed the neutrality of the summit and rebuffed calls to exclude Russia, opened the summit on Tuesday with a call to reject “zero-sum situations” and “end the war”.

“If the war does not end, it will be difficult for the world to move forward,” Widodo said.

But with Russian President Vladimir Putin skipping the summit and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is participating by videolink, rejecting Russian proposals for Kyiv to adopt a non-aligned status similar to Sweden or Austria, hopes for a negotiated peace deal or ceasefire appear slim.

In her address to the summit, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva called on the G20 to reduce trade barriers, assist developing economies with their debt burdens and invest in climate-resilient agriculture.

But Georgieva did not address the need to end the war, which she noted as one of a number of factors behind the “abrupt slowdown” in the global economy, or hold Russia responsible.

“We are seeing a reversal of all we had been fighting for: bringing poverty down, bringing hunger down,” Georgieva said. “Now we have 345 million people that are suffering from a food crisis.

William Chen, the director of food science and technology programme at NTU Singapore, said the G20 members could focus on ways to improve food security through greater investment in agriculture.

“I am of the view that many external factors can impact on food security. And sometimes these are beyond our control but we can take these as a wake up call for us to change current practices for the better,” Chen told Al Jazeera.

“The way forward would be to mount a global and collective effort to turn the crises into opportunities, by making current farming practices more efficient,” Chen said.

“This can be done by improving agriculture yield, relying less on chemical fertilisers, and developing urban farming for alternative food sources.”