RIYADH: Governments should ensure their people’s voices are heard, the Saudi co-chair of the C20 “virtual” summit said on Saturday.
Dania Al-Maeena was wrapping up the C20, the civil society engagement group for the G20 countries, during a virtual meeting from Oct. 6 to 10, with more than 20,000 participants from 109 countries.
Saudi Arabia is host of this year's G20 Leaders' Summit, scheduled on November 21-22, 2020.
“We must always listen to voices without discrimination or proxy,” she said. “Rules-based, fair and solidarity-driven multilateralism is our best way to tackle our complex cross-border problems.”
The C20 said civil society was being “sidelined from global and local decision-making.”
It urged G20 leaders to “adopt just policies for an inclusive recovery, restore faith in multilateralism, and attend immediately to the climate and ecological crisis.”
According to the C20 website, the group “provides a platform of Civil Society Organizations around the world to bring forth a non-government and non-business voice” and “provides a space through which CSOs can contribute in a structured and sustained manner to the G20.”
The summit’s agenda had 65 discussion sessions and workshops, in which the more than 380 speakers included representatives of the governments of twenty countries, international civil society organizations and specialized international organizations, as well as experts and decision-makers.
Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman, the minister of energy, participated in a special dialogue on the future of green energy.
A number of representatives of the Saudi presidency of the G20 countries also took part in the summit, including Fahd Al-Mubarak, minister of state; Munir Al-Desouki, assistant minister of communications and information technology; and Abdul Aziz Al-Rasheed, assistant minister of finance for international affairs and macro-financial policies.
The work of the summit was concluded when the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development Ahmed Al-Rajhi received the final statement of the Contact Group on behalf of King Salman during a meeting with the steering and advisory committees of the C20 group.
