Feride İnan
09/09/2016
The Hangzhou Summit set an ambitious task: transforming the G20 to lead the world economy.
The G20 leaders’ communique delivered at the Hangzhou summit in 2016 provides a framework to give a new direction to the world economy. The communique’s most unique significance is that it reflects diversity of voices and interests of developed and developing economies, in and outside of the G20. Previous communiques had been shy of reflecting the diversity of opinions in a body that represents 85 percent of global output, 80 percent of global trade, and two-thirds of the world’s population. The present communique, however, is in no way shy about addressing such diversity, which allows for in-depth engagement with multiplicity of issues. In this sense, the G20 caught up with and exceeded the scope of vision presented by other global economic governance bodies including the G7.
Feride İnan
05/09/2016
The G20 leaders annual meeting is being held in Hangzhou. The city holds significance for its natural beauty – heaven on earth as the Chinese describe it – and for being the hometown of Alibaba, China's world famous e-commerce company, a symbol for Chinese transformation from the world's factory to a high-tech economy. Indeed, the Global Innovation Index(GII) 2016 released this month, placed China in the top 25 among 128 countries to become the first middle-income economy to join this group.
Feride İnan
18/08/2016
A backload of issues will be addressed at next month's G20 Leaders' Summit in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. At a time when the world economy is struggling to recover from global financial crisis, still showing a low growth trajectory and high unemployment, the G20 is striving to turn itself from immediate crisis management to a mechanism for establishing long term governance strategies for better macroeconomic coordination and cooperation to prevent future crises.
A more structured policy coordination framework has been in the works since 2014, when the Brisbane G20 summit set a target of an additional 2 percent growth by 2018 using "1,000-plus actions". Every G20 member state prepared growth strategies with a large number of macroeconomic and structural reform commitments. The "Brisbane agenda" was further developed last year when Turkey held the G20 chair－for instance, country-specific investment strategies were adopted to address shortfalls in growth commitments.
T20 Turkey
17/11/2015
Internet. The word “Internet” was for the first time adopted in a Leaders Communiqué. Paragraph 26 included two important statements on internet technologies. First, it called for cooperation on cyber security, especially against attacks on businesses. Second, it called for broader access to the Internet, which is an important driver of economic development.
The T20’s studies had emphasized the effect of the Internet on economic development, cyber security and data protection. It argued that achieving the G20’s developmental goals required overcoming the digital divide. T20 held a special session on Internet economy at its Izmir Workshop in June, and recently published a 
policy note on Internet and the G20.
T20 Turkey
14/11/2015
Now in its fourth year, the Think 20 (T20) is an official engagement group of the G20. This year, the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), an independent think tank in Ankara, coordinated the T20 activities. The T20 serves as an “ideas bank” for G20 governments, bringing innovativeness to the G20 agenda. In this role, T20 develops new policies, new ideas, new initiatives, and new projects to support the agendas of G20 policymakers and other official G20 engagements groups.
In 2015, building on the idea that think tanks and academia are less likely to be constrained by political considerations and are free to think “outside of the box”, T20 Turkey introduced discussion around technological transformation and innovation into the G20 agenda. This initiative also coincided with the Turkish government’s initiative to incorporate the Innovation 20 – an unofficial effort that began during Australia’s 2014 G20 presidency – into the T20 framework.
T20 Turkey
13/11/2015
Technological transformation is a vital contributor to the G20’s goals of strong, sustainable and balanced growth, and runs through and affects all agenda items of G20 from development to employment, from growth to trade. Technological upgrading of developing economies and SMEs are critical for them to compete in global markets and for achieving sustainable global growth. Emerging technologies, from biotechnology to nanotechnology, offer opportunities to address significant environmental, socio-economic and public health risks.
Technological transformation presents both opportunities and multidimensional challenges for public agencies and global governance institutions. On the one hand, technological and economic development generates disruption, especially to labor markets and employment patterns. Consequently, in addressing the disruptive aspects of technological progress, it is essential to minimize unacceptable inequalities in income and wealth both within and among nations. On the other hand, technology-driven productivity improves access to goods and services and the quality of life. For instance, advancements in ICT such as digital payment technologies offer opportunities for greater inclusiveness by facilitating remittance transfers at lower cost.
Kevin Carmichael
06/11/2015
They gathered because they want to be permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. But the show of unity in New York by the leaders of Brazil, Germany, India and Japan in September stood out because it was a rare image of what geopolitical affairs should look like. The meeting of the “Group of Four” (G4) had an equal number of men and women, just as one would expect in a world where the proportion of males and females is roughly equal.
The “family photo” will look much different at the Antalya G20 Summit in November. Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, Germany’s Angela Merkel, India’s Narendra Modi and Japan’s Shinzo Abe will all be there. However, the gender balance of the G4 will be gone. Only four of 19 heads of state in the G20 are women. The lack of women decision makers makes it difficult to win change. The World Bank said in a report published in September 2015 that 155 of 173 economies surveyed had at least one law that impedes women from working outside the home (World Bank Group 2015). The McKinsey Global Institute created a “Gender Parity Score” to study the economic and social divide between women and men (McKinsey & Company 2015). A perfect score is one, implying perfect gender balance. On political representation, the overall result for the more than 90 countries studied was 0.217. That’s a long way from one.
Thomas A. Bernes
03/11/2015
At their 2014 summit in Brisbane, Australia, G20 leaders adopted the Brisbane Action Plan, which was intended to raise potential world growth by two percent over the subsequent five years. Australia’s G20 presidency worked mightily for this result, recognizing that the credibility of the G20 to deliver was being questioned by many who saw the G20 increasingly as little more than a talk shop.
This action plan, we were told, would raise world output by an additional US$2 trillion over what would otherwise be expected, and create tens of millions of new jobs. Some 1,100 measures were put forth by the G20 member governments — ostensibly new policy measures that would be in addition to policy measures previously announced by governments. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reviewed the proposed measures and announced that they could succeed in raising global growth potential by 2.1 percent “if fully implemented” (G20 Leaders 2014, para. 3).
Olaf Weber
04/11/2015
The Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney recently delivered a well-received speech in London, United Kingdom, to a community of financial sector representatives emphasizing the impact that climate change could have on financial sector stability.
The impact could be threefold. The first type of risk is direct — the increasing frequency of extreme weather events such as floods could have impacts on the insurance sector in particular, which will have to pay for the damage to insured property caused by these events. A second type of risk will be the liability risk for insurance firms from claims made by parties suffering damage due to climate change caused by others. If such claims are successful, they could be passed to insurance firms that would then have to pay.
Camila Villard Duran
06/11/2015
SAO PAULO – This month, G-20 leaders will meet in Antalya, Turkey, for their tenth summit since the 2007 global financial crisis. But, despite all of these meetings – high-profile events involving top decision-makers from the world’s most influential economies – no real progress has been made toward reforming the international financial architecture. Indeed, the group has not seriously engaged with the subject since the 2010 summit in Seoul. Put simply, the G-20 is failing in its primary and original purpose of enhancing global financial and monetary stability.
Hongying Wang
05/11/2015
Cross-border investment is an increasingly important part of the global economy. In the last two decades, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow has grown from about 10 percent to 35 percent of the global GDP (see Figure 1). However, the governance of international investment remains highly fragmented and contested. Unlike international trade, which has been governed by a global framework since the end of World War II — first under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and then the World Trade Organization (WTO) — FDI has been governed by nearly 3,000 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and over 300 other international investment agreements.
Güven Sak
23/10/2015
The G20 comes to Turkey mid-November this year. As you know, Turkey chairs the G20 this year. World leaders will be meeting in Antalya in three weeks but I don’t sense any buzz around. Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama will be in Antalya. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will also come to Turkey three weeks after her prior visit. President Erdoğan will be hosting them. And what will they do in Turkey? What will they discuss?
The G20 was born out of a need precipitated by the globalization process. As all the countries in the world started to resemble one another with globalization and the coordination among the G7 countries failed to suffice to manage the world, the G20 emerged. The G20 sort of comprises of the G7 plus the BRICS plus the MIKTA. G7 included Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US. Add BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. That makes 12. When the remaining countries felt like outcasts they started to come together under the name MIKTA. That includes Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey and Australia. Nowadays these countries also seek to conjure up a role for themselves as well. That makes 17 countries altogether. Include Argentina, Saudi Arabia and the European Union, they add up to 20. The weight stems not from the size of the national income but rather the status of the country within the system.
Ussal Sahbaz, Anna Kurguzova and Sarp Kalkan
29/10/2015
As we are coming closer to the B20 Summit in November, B20 Turkey is getting ready to pass the baton on to its partners from China.
The B20 started as a loose network of global businesses to engage with the G20 in South Korea in 2010. Hosted by the business community of a G20 recipient country ever since, the B20 is now the G20’s oldest and most structured engagement group. B20 Turkey, under leadership of M Rifat Hisarciklioglu, chairman of Union of Chamber of Turkey (TOBB), brought a totally new impetus in this community. At the end of Turkey’s tenure, here is a summary of what we achieved.
Sumru Altug
27/10/2015
I made a whirlwind trip to India to take part in an event organized by TEPAV and Gateway House under the auspices of the T-20 Turkey 2015 activities. I already had many pre-conceived notions about India, and as I entered my evening flight to Mumbai on October 18, some of them began to get confirmed. For one, my flight was full of young Indian professionals and their spouses. There were at least three couples in my immediate vicinity who fit this description. Two of them had young babies or children with them, and the husband and wife took turns caring for them. The babies had all the modern accoutrements that typify modern families these days - fancy strollers, backpacks full of baby food, clothes, and other needed items - but they also had their beautiful Asian looks, petite, with dark lockets and dusky eyes. The lovely mother in front of me changed from her comfortable clothes on the flight to white leggings, a royal blue tunic, and a white chained handbag as we were about to embark. In Asia, women still care about their looks, and maintain them even in the face of many household duties.
Alisha Clancy
09/10/2015
In a packed theatre in the middle of Lima at the 2015 International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (WBG) Annual Meetings in Peru, Christine Lagarde, (Managing Director of the IMF, declares, “The threat is real!” at the flagship conversation on climate change. What does this mean for the global debate on climate change and sustainable finance? According to Lagarde, the days of talking about next steps are numbered. Finance ministers need to go home to their respective countries, set-up a national carbon tax, and eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. The directions were heard loud and clear in the theatre,but will they be heard by the finance ministers deciding these policies?
Colin I. Bradford
05/10/2015
"2015 is a pivotal year for global development; this fall is a pivotal moment. Meetings this fall will determine the global vision for sustainable development for 2030.
Three papers being released today—“Action implications focusing now on implementation of the post-2015 agenda,” “Systemic sustainability as the strategic imperative for the post-2015 agenda,” and “Political decisions and institutional innovations required for systemic transformations envisioned in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda”—set out some foundational ideas and specific proposals for political decisions and institutional innovations, which focus now on the implementation of the new global vision for 2030. This blog summarizes the key points in the three papers listed below.."
Lowy Institute
16/09/2015
The G20 has become a key international forum since it was set up in 1999. When Australia began its presidency of the 2014 summit in Brisbane, many commentators suggested that Australia’s chairing of the G20 would reinvigorate it. This timely book looks at what that meeting achieved and what has happened in its wake. Crucially, it asks whether the G20 is poised to broaden its influence and scope beyond economic regulation into issues of security and climate change.
In The G20 and the Future of International Economic Governance, expert contributors, many of them inside players, assess the impact of the summit in the context of the year’s broader geopolitical challenges, including Russia’s temporary expulsion from the G8 and the failure of the US to ratify its governance reforms to the IMF. Taking stock, the authors question the effectiveness of the G20, many optimistic about the leadership it can offer on key global issues to do with trade liberalisation and international tax, not to mention climate change. Together they ask, what is the future of the G20 and other ‘Gs’?
The G20 and the Future of International Economic Governance will be available in October 2015.
Tristram Sainsbury & Hannah Wurf
Lowy Institute
28/08/2015
Next week, G20 finance ministers and central bank governors will gather for their third meeting during Turkey's presidency. With just two and half months until leaders assemble in Antalya for this year's summit, these meetings give the G20 an opportunity to confirm 2015 outcomes and demonstrate that the G20 remains the premier forum for international economic cooperation.
While Turkey is gearing up for the G20 Summit, the government remains in a precarious situation. President Erdogan's Justice and Development Party has not won the majority it needs to govern alone, and a coalition seems increasingly unlikely. The next round of elections could take place on 1 November, two weeks before the G20 summit. In the meantime, Erdogan has announced his intention to lead the summit. This is against the backdrop of a Turkish bombing campaign against ISIS, the 1.8 million-strong Syrian refugee crisis, and another terrorist attack in Istanbul this month.
Kati Suominen
Tradeup Capital Fund and Nextrade Group
21/08/2015
The world needs a new policy agenda to unleash the power of the digital economy.
The world economy is flailing, with growth expected to slow to the weakest pace since the 2008-09 crisis. Growth of cross-border trade remains well below 2007 levels. And global middle classes have not expanded as assumed — to just 13 percent — compared to 56 percent who are still low income.
Güven Sak
TEPAV
27/06/2015
What would you do if someone asked you to summarize the major tensions of human beings on this blue planet of ours? I’m talking about the big, systemic issues – the problems of capitalism, war, climate change and development. These things are too complicated for any one person or a single generation to solve.
Luckily though, there are neat summaries of world leaders trying to do just that: the G7 and G20 communiques. This past June, the “Group of 7” met in Germany and produced such a document. Remember that the G7 added on Russia after the Cold War, but suspended the country in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. The G20 is the G7 plus “systemically important” countries such as China, India, Mexico, and yes, Turkey. Both of these groups organize summits with their leaders, the results of which are published in a Leaders Communique. Comparing these – even in format – yields a striking summary of the differences between the so-called West and the Rest.
M. Sait Akman, Simon J. Evenett, and Patrick Low
18/06/2015
Apparently a number of assumptions appear to have been made in Brussels and Washington DC about how the rest of the world will react to the successful conclusion of a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Many of the contributions to a new ebook
identify alternatives for third countries that do not involve throwing themselves at the mercy of US and European trade negotiators. TTIP may not trigger the chain reaction that its advocates seek.
Sergey Drobyshevsky & Svetlana Shatalova
06/05/2015
OECD and G20 Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) was adopted in 2013. It consists of 15 actions including transfer pricing, taxation of controlled foreign corporations (CFC), digital commerce, hybrid instruments, international information exchange, tax treaty shopping etc. In 2013, OECD working group prepared draft documents regarding a number of the above issues and continues working on the rest, which should be finalized later this year.
Improving its tax legislation, Russia is already taking steps on a number of the Action plan items. On the other items, Russia is waiting for the final OECD documents so that it can act in line with them.
Paul Martin
05/05/2015
Just as the 2010 summit in South Korea was the first time the G20 leaders were hosted by an Asian country, and the 2012 Mexican Summit the first time they had been hosted by a Latin American nation, this year’s summit in Turkey will be the first held by a country with a Muslim majority. Together, these meetings should serve as a reminder that the purpose of G20, with its many cultures, religions and political systems, is to make globalization work in a world of differences.
Now and over the years to come, the issues the G20 will have to confront will be as varied as there are pebbles on the beach. From increasing economic interdependence to the migration of people, from the spread of disease to threats to food security, for better or for worse, the most pressing realities the world faces are ones no borders can withstand.
Daniel Bradlow
University of Pretoria
30/04/2015
Towards the end of this year, at least 40 countries are expected to sign a treaty establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
The purpose of this Chinese-led multilateral development bank is to fund Asian infrastructure projects.
Usually, the only South Africans interested in the creation of an Asian multilateral development bank would be serious policy wonks. However, recent developments should make South African policy makers sit up and pay close attention to the AIIB.
Sergey Drobyshevsky & Alexandra Morozkina
Russia’s G20 Expert Council
28/04/2015
On 14th April Russia joined Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – the new institution proposed by China. AIIB is expected to serve as a platform for infrastructure development and improvement in Asia and therefore it seems justified for Russia to join it as a founding member.
Since 2012 Russian policy was aimed at development of Far East region on the base of industries oriented to Asia-Pacific region and attracting FDI from eastern partners. The Government combines different measures to encourage investment and enhance social and economic development of the region: creation of territories of accelerated development and special economic zones with preferential tax regimes, introduction of incentives and preferential regulation. Lack of transport infrastructure is one of the most important issues in the region and therefore the bank could become a source of new projects with Asian partners in this sphere.
Bengisu Özenç
TEPAV
24/04/2015
Fossil fuel subsidies have long been among the key issues on the G20 energy agenda. A quick glance at Leaders’ Communiqués reveals that, except for the opening summit in Washington (2008), the G20 leaders have denounced inefficient fossil fuel subsidies for encouraging wasteful consumption, distorting markets, impeding investment in clean energy sources and undermining efforts to deal with the threat of climate change.
While the rationalizing and phasing out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies numbers among the G20 leaders’ commitments, the importance of knowledge, expertise and capacity sharing with respect to such programs and policies have also been recognized at some summits, such as in Seoul (2010). Starting from the Cannes Summit (2011), Finance and Energy Ministries have been encouraged to work together to design reforms and report on progress made. Los Cabos (2012) was the start of the discussion of the voluntary peer review process that was supposed to increase accountability and transparency. But what has been done so far?
Ussal Şahbaz
TEPAV
22/04/2015
The Turkish G20 Presidency hosted the second finance ministers’ meeting in Washington D.C. last week. The first meeting was held in Istanbul on February 9th and 10th. The communiqué from that meeting was criticized as having “a clear disconnect [with] a vision that will allow the G20 to achieve all of the Turkish presidency's three I's (investment, implementation and inclusiveness)”. The Washington D.C. communiqué, I would argue, has closed this disconnect. There are still areas for improvement, but overall the communiqué is a clear and concise communication of some of the key messages of the Turkish presidency.
As the Antalya Summit approaches, the global economic context is changing. When the G20 was elevated to leaders’ level after the global financial crisis in 2008, emerging market economies were growing while developed markets were in acute crisis. The contrast between emerging and developed economies is not that clear now. The BRICS economies are not growing at the same pace that they previously were. Some, like Russia and Brazil, are actually sliding into recession. Global economic growth depends on American and Chinese demand.
Cihan Urhan & Daniel Drucker
TEPAV
15/04/2015
“Inclusiveness” is a priority for the Turkish G20 Presidency this year. But what can the G20 do to support inclusive business? Before we can answer that question, we must answer the question of what inclusive business actually is. The G20-B20 Workshop on Inclusive Business helped us in this regard, as we examined various case studies on inclusive business, as well as the challenges, shortfalls, and misconceptions that plague the field.
The G20-B20 Workshop on Inclusive Business took place in Ankara on April 8th, with participants from a variety of international organizations, such as the World Bank, OECD, UNDP, IFC, ILO, along with the ministries of various countries and representatives from the private sector.
Inclusive business is not new to the G20. The Group has been focusing on the concept of inclusive business since 2011, and several workshops have been held since then to strengthen industry relationships and develop multi-stakeholder approaches for overcoming the existing challenges inclusive businesses face. Previously, a policy note on inclusive business policies was produced by G20 Russia.
Sumru Altug
Koç University and CEPR
14/04/2015
We live in extraordinary times. Just last year the World Bank announced that China had surpassed the US as the largest economy in PPP terms - this from a country which, in 1978, had a GDP per capita that was one fortieth of the US and one tenth of Brazil. As China prepares to assume the G-20 presidency in 2016, we can almost hear the reverberations of its approach from afar. At the upcoming IMF-World Bank meetings to be held in Washington, DC next week, one of the key issues under discussion will be the inclusion of the Renminbi in the basket of currencies that make up the Special Drawing Rights, the special reserve asset created by the IMF in 1969 as a supplement to member countries' reserves.
I witnessed the great energy of Asia itself, not only of China, during my stay in Hong Kong as a Visiting Professor at the City University of Hong Kong last fall. As my plane approached the city from the air, I was struck by the beauty of its location but also how organized and well developed the city was.
Akshay Mathur
Gateway House
13/04/2015
A powerful new fora for global business is emerging and it is called the B20. Business leaders were first invited to this forum at the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting in Canada in 2010. Since then, the B20 has become an important bridge between business and foreign economic policy the B20 has become an important bridge between business and foreign economic policy. The forum has met regularly since then on the sidelines of the G20 Summits – South Korea (2010), France (2011), Mexico (2012), Russia (2013) and Australia (2014) – to advise world leaders on global economic governance. This year, Turkey is the President of the G20; its leadership of the accompanying B20 will be closely watched.
So far, the B20 has made over 400 recommendations to the world leaders. Many have been incorporated into the final G20 vision. At the last G20 Summit in Australia, the B20 task forces comprising of 300 global business leaders made recommendations on a range of business issues from infrastructure to energy.
Leon Berkelmans
Lowy Institute
10/04/2015
In 2002 David Dollar and Art Kraay, both at the World Bank at the time, published an article in the Journal of Economic Growth called 'Growth is Good for the Poor'. Dollar and Kraay showed that if an economy's growth increased by a percentage point, then growth of the incomes of the poor increased by one percentage point too.
This study was updated in 2013 with a more extensive set of data covering 118 countries over four decades. The robust one-to-one relationship is still there.
Dollar and Kraay find that growth is most pro-poor in Latin America, where the relationship is slightly above one-for-one, and least pro-poor in Asia, where it is slightly below. However, because Asia grew the most, the poor in those countries actually saw the most growth in their incomes compared to other countries.
Tristram Sainsbury
Lowy Institute
09/04/2015
In the world of international economic policy-making, it can often feel as if 1995 Nobel economics laureate Robert Lucas was on to something when he famously said 'once you start thinking about growth, it's hard to think about anything else'. The collective search for policies that promote growth and deliver better living standards and employment outcomes remains the core focus of the G20.
In 2015, Turkey indicated that the G20's central growth narrative will focus on inclusive and robust growth, through a special emphasis on the three 'i's of inclusiveness, implementation, and investment. As I point out in the latest G20 Monitor, Turkey's efforts are widely supported, and they can be the basis for real outcomes at the Leaders' summit in Antalya in November.
Mike Callaghan & Barry Carin
Lowy Institute & CIGI
08/04/2015
With a goal of developed countries mobilizing jointly USD 100 billion per year by 2020 to address the climate change needs of developing countries, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established the Green Climate Fund (GCF) as its financial mechanism. According to the UNFCCC a significant share of the putative new multilateral funding for adaptation was intended to flow through the GCF.
The good news is that following a recent round of pledges, as at end 2014 the total amount pledged to the GCF was USD 10.14 billion. The bad news is that the prospects of the GCF being the main source of mobilizing the needed amount of climate change financing remain poor. What has been pledged is not an annual amount. It includes money to be distributed over a number of years - the US pledged $3 billion to be distributed over four years. And they are only pledges. Congressional Republicans are unlikely to appropriate the money pledged by the US.
Mike Callaghan
Lowy Institute
30/03/2015
As G20 chair, Turkey has placed ‘inclusiveness’ at the core of the G20’s objectives in 2015. Turkey’s theme is to ensure ‘inclusive and robust growth’ and this is centred on what it describes as the ‘Three Is’ – Inclusiveness, Implementation and Investment.
Turkey’s focus on inclusiveness is very appropriate and this should be the basis to describe what the G20 stands for and is seeking to achieve.
Güven Sak, PhD
TEPAV
17/03/2015
The highlight of the last week came from beyond the ocean. The headline of the Financial Times last Friday was “US attacks UK’s ‘constant accommodation’ with China.” According to the story, the Americans were disgruntled by the UK’s approach to China.
Nowadays China is pushing to open the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to rival the Washington-based World Bank. The UK got involved in the process, along with a number of Asian countries. And that’s why the Americans are angry. Newspapers highlight that more caution is needed in engaging a rising global power. Meanwhile,..
Barry Carin and Ye Yu
CIGI and SIIS
12/03/2015
This note imagines what could conceivably be on the list next year in the Turkish Summit Communique, trying to envisage options China would like to have explored before it takes over the presidency. A more speculative conjecture is to forecast areas of future work China may wish to invite at the end of its presidency and what working groups the 2016 G20 Summit may establish. For invitations for future work, who could be invited to do what? What specifically could they be asked to do?
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Hannah Wurf
Lowy Institute
09/03/2015
International Women's Day was celebrated yesterday, and there is cause for optimism with regards to progress in women's rights and important commitments undertaken to reduce gender inequality.
Many international organisations came out in strong support of the day, including UN Women and the IMF. In Australia, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced a partnership with the World Bank to reduce gender inequality in South East Asia through private sector partnerships to encourage women entrepreneurs, build women's business skills and improve workplace policies.
Ussal Şahbaz & Feride İnan
TEPAV
04/03/2015
First Thoughts from the Think20 Turkey Launch
Think20 (T20) Turkey kick off was held on February 11 in Istanbul with a large and diverse delegation from think-tanks from G20 and non-G20 countries. This post focuses on the potential role of the Think20 (You can also find the first impressions from the co-organizer of the launch event, CIGI, here).
T20 Turkey was officially launched in an opening speech by Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan. DPM Babacan, who spoke at the launch event right after G20 Turkey’s first finance ministers' meeting, not only provided details of the Turkish G20 Presidency’s priorities but also commented on how he envisioned T20's role in the G20 process:
Tristram Sainsbury
Lowy Institute
25/02/2015
Mike Callaghan and Stephen Grenville recently reminded us of the debate around Australia's potential future global GDP ranking, and what that implies for our place at the G20 table in 2050. As Melissa Conley Tyler noted in October last year, this kind of debate is valuable if it leads to improved public policy that help sustain Australia as a 'top 20 country'.
But what about long-term relevance of the G20 itself? In the most recent Lowy Institute G20 Monitor, I suggested that the G20 walks a tightrope of relevancy...
Domenico Lombardi and Samantha St. Amand
CIGI
20/02/2015
The Think-20 (T20) is poised to cement its place as a relevant platform for the exchange of ideas about the G20 in 2015 and beyond. The Turkish presidency is well placed to help solidify this position.
While actively engaged on G20 issues in some fashion for the last decade, think tanks and thought leaders from the G20 countries ultimately came together to establish a network in 2012 with the Mexican presidency inviting think tank experts to contribute ideas and discuss them with G20 sherpas themselves. Building on these recent advances, the recently launched Turkish presidency of the G20 has taken the T20 to a new level.
Barry Carin And Wonhyuk Lim
CIGI & Korea Development Institute
17/02/2015
“If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority”.
Can the G20 backstop the UN process formulating the post 2015 Development Goals? The Center for International Governance Innovation and the Korea Development Institute and anticipated the global debate and published a report in 2012 after an extensive research effort with many expert collaborators. (CIGI-KDI, 2012) This process proposed eleven candidate post 2015 goals.
In May 2013, the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel of Eminent Persons published its report, with twelve “illustrative goals. (UN 2013)...
Yu Yongding & Domenico Lombardi
CASS & CIGI
04/02/2015
BEIJING – The world caught a break in 2009. The G-20, an assembly of the world’s largest developed and major emerging economies – which had thus far failed to make a serious mark on the world stage – was meeting in Pittsburgh to formulate a response to the global financial crisis. US President Barack Obama, having gotten the message that the G-7 could no longer oversee the global economy on its own, led a summit that made the G-20 the primary body for coordinating global economic policy. It was a highpoint for American leadership.
Barry Carin & Ambassador Andrés Rozental
CIGI
“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” Albert Einstein
“When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.” Mary Kay Ash
Trolling through our archives of memorable quotations, three stood out as particularly apt in light of the refusal of the US Congress to ratify the 2010 G20 decision to reform the governance of the International Monetary Fund:
Güven Sak, PhD
TEPAV
01/12/2014
Since the onset of the financial crisis, the G 20 Forum, whose membership consists of systemically important advanced and emerging economies, has emerged as the principal forum for inter-governmental economic cooperation. At the Washington Summit, building on the momentum created by deteriorating economic conditions, the G 20 leaders declared their commitment to respond to the crisis collectively to restore global financial stability. The leaders also agreed to follow up on a broader policy response to the crisis by exercising closer cooperation on non-financial issues including development, employment, trade, social issues and corruption among others. Thus, in addition to the Finance Track that focuses on economic issues and financial matters, the G 20 incorporated the Sherpas’ track to deal with political, non-financial issues.
Güven Sak, PhD
TEPAV
18/10/2014The World has changed. In the past, the most powerful 7 countries were enough to govern the rest of the world. However , now we need more , and policy cooperation is becoming increasingly complex. What was once the G7 is now the G20, which represents more than two thirds of the world economy and includes both developed and developing countries.
G20 was established in 1999. In the early 2000s, for those who followed global governance the G 20 was significant mainly because of its potential although the G 20’s global impact on policymaking was negligible . Then, something happened that was unprecedented in recent history: an economic crisis that spread all across the global economy. It was the urgency to respond to the crisis that turned G20 into an effective policy cooperation device in 2008, also the year the first G20 Leader’s summit was held in Washington, D.C. The mechanism worked. In a way, we witnessed the IMF reinvent itself and become relevant again while the G20 became an integral part of the effort that saved the world from the brink of financial ruin.
So far, so good. Yet, one question remains: Now that the world economy is relatively secured, will the G20 remain relevant?
Güven Sak, PhD
TEPAV
31/08/2013
There is now less than a week left until the G-20 Summit in St. Petersburg. This is the eighth time that 20 heads of state have come together. I was in Moscow the other day, attending a pre-summit conference organized by the Higher School of Economics and the University of Toronto’s Munsk Center for G-20 Research. Everyone seems to agree that the agenda next week cannot but touch upon the developments in Syria. The summit is happening at a time when the Syrian crisis is further escalating, and its host has rather strong and contrarian views about Syria. Does that mean that the G-20 summit is doomed for political reasons? I beg to differ. There is an opportunity here.
The G-20 is a forum for the leaders of the biggest economies around the globe to come together and discuss global developments. First of all, in turbulent times, it is good for these leaders to come together. However, it requires a well thought out agenda. Heads of states tend not to talk about technical details, but rather political priorities. There, I believe we have a problem. The problem is not an absence of topics on the agenda, but rather their increasing number, which have been rather liberally added in the last seven meetings. What is lacking is a concise taxonomy and a prioritization of the agenda items.
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