What: ONE member conference call to recap the G20 summit When: Thursday, October 1st at 8:00pm Call in number: 1-800-214-0694 Password: 787225
On the call, we’ll be talking about our campaign to convince the G20 to go to Africa for a future summit, our presence on the ground in Pittsburgh, including the ONE mural (check out the slide show below), and what the summit means for the world’s poorest people.
We’ll also have the latest on our “Upgrade Aid” campaign and will be taking your questions.
Your hosts for the call are:
Tom Hart – ONE’s Director of Government Relations
Virginia Simmons – ONE Online Communications Manager and our eyes and ears during the summit in Pittsburgh
Jessica O’Connell – ONE Project Manager for the G20 Summit
This summit of G20 leaders in Pittsburgh last week, a year after the Lehman shock, was always going to be about economic recovery and on whether we need to regulate banker’s bonuses. So, did they talk development, at all? The short answer is yes. First, they reaffirmed previous commitments that they have made to the poor. Second, the leaders called on the World Bank to develop a new trust fund to support the new Food Security Initiative agreed at L’Aquila G8 Summit in July. Third, they agreed to review the capital needs of the multilateral development banks, especially the World Bank’s soft loan arm, the International Development Association (IDA), and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
But, there were some clear omissions too. On climate change, even though some G20 leaders committed to scaling up its assistance at the UN High Level Summit on Climate Change just a few days ago, the G20 as a group failed to call for resources to help the poorest countries adapt to the harmful impacts of climate change, and tackle its causes.
This Summit was another opportunity to recognise Africa as part of the solution to the global economic recovery. We thought that the best way to underscore the important role that the continent plays in today’s world is for the G20 to agree to hold an upcoming G20 Summit in Africa. With the G20 becoming the new G8 and the next several hosts already queued up (Canada in June 2010, South Korea in November 2010, and France in 2011), unfortunately, there will be no “G20 Africa Summit” any time soon. One thing is sure though – regardless, ONE will urge these leaders to keep the challenges of Africa and the world’s poor as an important issue on their table.
Overall, the Pittsburgh G20 Summit appears to have made some progress towards reshaping global power structures to make them more representative, but it still has some way to go before it becomes a truly representative global decision making body.
I spent the summit with our US Government Relations Director Tom Hart, who said:
“Moving from the G8 to the G20 is a seismic shift: it brings many more of the world’s people to the table, but the new expanded world body must now start addressing the needs of the poorest countries, especially in Africa. For nearly a decade now, Africa has been squarely on the G8’s agenda, even if delivery on their commitments has been mixed. During this transition time, African development must not fall through the cracks. One way to show the world will not forget Africa would be to hold an upcoming G20 summit on the African continent.”
As I posted earlier here, we passed our petition, in which 75,000 ONE members worldwide call for a G20 Summit to be held in Africa, to the US delegation at the summit.
Below are some key points in the summit’s communique that are relevant to Africa:
Agriculture – The G20 called on the World Bank to develop a new trust fund, as a way to implement the G8′s food security initiative announced at the L’Aquila Summit in Italy in July. This multilateral fund will support the set of principles championed by the White House to make aid for agriculture more effective, coordinated and geared towards the strategies developed by poor countries themselves.
Climate change – The G20 failed to call for resources to help the poorest countries adapt to the harmful impacts of climate change, and tackle its causes. It was disappointing that there was no mention of the urgency of addressing these needs.
African Development Bank – The G20 have reaffirmed the commitment to make sure the multilateral development banks have enough finance, especially the World soft loan arm, the International Development Association (IDA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB). The African bank has increased its lending to respond to the financial crisis by as much as US$4bn and now needs support to replenish its coffers. ONE welcomes Canada’s announcement of an extra US$2.8bn in loan guarantees for the Bank.
World Bank and IMF- Both International Financial Institutions took steps towards increasing representation of developing countries.
Tom Hart and I just delivered ONE’s G20 petition to the US delegation here at the Pittsburgh summit. The petition, now signed by more than 75,000 ONE members from around the globe, asks the G20 leaders to host an upcoming G20 summit on the African continent.
We expect the official summit communique to come out just before President Obama’s remarks, slated for 4:45pm EST today. We’ll keep you posted.
The G20 has a lot to do tomorrow in Pittsburgh. But, I hope they take a moment to look north. Next June, some, maybe all of the members of the G20 will be about 300 miles north in Huntsville, Ontario for the next G8 Summit.
Development advocates have watched cautiously as the political center of global discussions has moved between the G8, the G20 and the United Nations. Which of these is the best forum to move the development agenda forward? No one has a definite answer on that; certainly all are important. But, no development advocate should doubt the importance of Canada’s G8. Canada’s G8 Summit in 2002 in Kananaskis really launched the G8’s focus on Africa that eventually led to the Gleneagles set of commitments that have since framed the discussion on development assistance to Africa. It is at Canada’s Summit when these commitments come due. How Prime Minister Harper and the Canadian government approaches that will be the subject of much of ONE’s work for the next 9 months.
Lots more to come on this topic, but for now check out this article from Tuesday’s Global and Mail discussing Canada’s G8.
Climate change is more firmly on the global agenda now more than ever, not just because the final round of the UN Climate Change Conference is taking place this December in Copenhagen, but because we are increasingly seeing the effects of climate change. ONE is also calling for the G20 to address climate change this weekend at the Pittsburgh G20 summit, but we’re keeping with our theme looking at it from the perspective that ‘Africa can be a part of the solution.’
Despite contributing only 3.6% of total global carbon emissions, sub-Saharan Africa will feel these effects—through droughts, floods, erratic rains that disrupt growing seasons—both first and worst. Any deal brokered in Copenhagen later this year must include the impact that climate change will have on the world’s poorest—and take into account the potential that developing countries hold to address climate change. The G20 meeting in Pittsburgh is the perfect place to get ahead start by working to do the following:
Ensure that any global climate deal mobilizes funding to support the response to climate change in developing countries. In the short-term, agree on a down-payment to help developing countries deal immediately with the impact of climate change and build trust in international negotiations;
Agree on principles to ensure that climate financing is spent predictably, effectively and through transparent governance structures;
Ensure that a global climate deal considers Africa’s potential contribution toward reducing global carbon emissions, particularly in regard to carbon markets.
Not only will Africa bear the brunt of the climate change impact, but sub-Saharan African countries have the potential to help reduce global carbon emissions. The development of robust carbon markets, the adoption of low-carbon and leap-frog technologies, and the institution of carbon-offsetting programs like re-forestation projects can all flourish in the developing world—without sacrificing development, and maybe even encourage it.
ONE’s message at Pittsburgh is that no global recovery can be constructed in a stable manner if it excludes Africa, and the same goes for any discussion on climate change. We’ll be bringing you the latest from Pittsburgh as the week progresses, so keep an eye out here on the blog.
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