G20: The 2009 London Summit

On April 2, 2009, world leaders from the G20 countries gathered in London to continue a conversation they started in November 2008 in Washington, D.C. The G20 is a collection of some of the most powerful industrial countries, as well as some of the leading emerging economies such as China, Brazil and South Africa. They met against a backdrop of the worst global economic crisis in half a century. Clearly critical issues needed to be addressed in terms of how the financial crisis is affecting citizens at home -- through falling housing values, rising unemployment, and diminishing incomes.

Yet the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty around the world will likely suffer worst of all if not taken into consideration. The IMF has warned that falling trade, remittances and foreign investment are threatening livelihoods in Africa. While social safety net programmes and stimulus packages are implemented in developed countries, poor countries don't have the same options. ONE called on the G20 leaders to include the poorest countries in any global solution. Doing so is not only vital to offset the negative impacts of the crisis to the poor, but in an interconnected world that we live in today, it will also offer dividends in the long term to the rest of the world.

In this regard, the April G20 Summit yielded potentially significant gains for the world's poorest. Integrated into the leader's agreement is recognition of the need to address extreme poverty as part of the global recovery, and all G20 countries re-affirmed their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals and commitments made at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit.

Highlights include:

Resources: The G20 announced US $50 billion for low-income countries - although it does not clarify that all of this is additional to previous pledges - and US $100 billion in lending for development banks.

Reform: Developing countries will have greater representation in the international financial institutions, and election to World Bank/IMF leadership will be based on merit.

Regulation: The G20 announced they would take action to regulate illicit tax havens.

Many of these commitments lacked details sufficient to know exactly how much they will benefit Africa. We hope these details will be worked out in future international meetings. We will be working to ensure that as much money as possible in the deal for Africa comes from grants not loans in order to ensure that the funding provided for developing countries does not lead to another debt crisis.