At the IMF conference in Tanzania, Bob Geldof took a moment to share his thoughts on what he would like to see the upcoming G20 summit in London do for Africa.
I know that you have all been eagerly awaiting ONE’s analysis of the G20 economic summit that took place this past Saturday. To re-cap, in October, President Bush called for a first-ever meeting of the G20 to discuss solutions to the global financial crisis, and mechanisms to prevent future crises. The G20 is a group of finance ministers from the world’s leading economies (the G8, the European Union and Australia), as well as a group of ten emerging economies including Argentina, Brazil, China, India, and South Africa. After the summit, officials issued a communiqué detailing their resolutions. Here are a few highlights:
Developing Country Representation: The G20 calls for better representation of developing countries – both emerging economies and poor countries – in the Bretton Woods Institutions like the IMF and World Bank, in order to accurately reflect the world economy and increase the legitimacy and effectiveness of these institutions. The G20 calls for these reformed institutions to play a role in identifying future crises and responding to them.
Trade: The G20 rejects the impulse to turn to protectionist measures to stabilize their economies and promises to refrain from raising new barriers to trade or investment in the next 12 months. The G20 also calls for a successful completion to the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round trade talks.
Official Development Assistance (ODA): Considering the impact of the financial crisis on developing countries, and particularly on the most vulnerable in those countries, the G20 countries reaffirm the importance of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and their development assistance commitments. They urge all countries to undertake commitments consistent with their capacities, and re-iterate the principles agreed upon at the UN Conference on Financing for Development that took place in Monterrey in 2002 that emphasize country ownership of and mobilizing all sources of financing for development.
Here are a handful of articles we rounded up about this weekend’s G20 summit:
The Economist looks at this weekend’s G20 meeting, saying that while the rules of the global financial system cannot be rewritten in a five-hour powwow, some useful things can come out of the meeting, such as commitments on trade and on reforming the IMF.
Ban Ki-moon has appealed to leaders meeting at a financial summit in Washington this weekend not to let the global crisis become a “human tragedy” for people in poor countries. In a letter to leaders of the G20 Ban said, “The poorest and most vulnerable everywhere, but particularly in the developing countries, will be the most affected” by the world growth slowdown now being predicted. We need most of all to join forces to take immediate action to prevent the financial crisis from becoming a human tragedy.”
In Great Britain, Gordon Brown has called for a new international financial architecture, citing the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 as an example. The Bretton Woods agreement, which resulted in the creation of the IMF and World Bank, is particularly relevant today as we address the “need for global policy co-ordination in tackling” this financial crisis.
The New York Times editorial board today examines some of the challenges that confront the G20 during America’s presidential transition. The Times champions the need for all the participating 20 of the world’s leading economies to reach fundamental agreements as a platform to “begin a serious discussion about the roots of the financial crisis and set the stage for future meetings to discuss substantive reforms.”
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