Some might say the big event of the G20 was David Cameron hitching a ride in Obama’s helicopter.
Perhaps not surprising then, that the G20 summit has been widely criticised as achieving little of substance – nothing much will change as a result of its proclamations on banking reform, climate change or even economic recovery plans. Those who anticipated progress on taxing the financial sector or disciplining fossil fuel subsidies were disappointed.
There were, however, some interesting elements tucked away in the text of the communique. The G20 have decided to set up a working group on development that will present plans in time for the Seoul Summit in November. There is also recognition that policy actions within the G20′s recovery framework will have an impact on low income countries that needs to be considered.
CAFOD has been consistently calling for such a gear change in G20 thinking. Since the promising rhetoric of the London Summit in 2009, the G20 has paid little attention to the plight of the poorest countries hard-hit by the crisis, preoccupied with internal crisis management. This needs to change if a broader, more inclusive recovery agenda is to emerge.
A G20 working group and a focus on development coherence is a good start, but the G20 does not have any low income countries as members. This means to get things right, the G20 will need to reach out to other countries, as well as to civil society. A G20 working group also cannot replace a process for developing countries to learn their own lessons from the crisis and plan their own recovery. The G20 needs to complement and support a more inclusive process, such as that of the United Nations.
The G20 also needs to acknowledge that development coherence does not mean business as usual perhaps with a bit of financial compensation on the side, it means asking hard questions about financial reforms, the Doha Round of trade talks and monetary policy coordination and their impacts on development.
The G20′s third annex on “further supporting the needs of the most vulnerable” talks about the needs of small businesses and farmers. This is key to the poverty impact of reforms, but our understanding of how reforms and their inclusion in international markets affects them is still too limited. CAFOD’s attention is now focused on precisely this topic, the G20 should do the same.
Latest posts
