The London G20 Summit is an opportunity to tackle urgent issues related to the impact of the global crisis on international trade and the multilateral trade system. On the trade front, the Summit should show that G20 countries are prepared to avoid protectionist measures and practices, and that they will continue working together to strengthen the WTO system. But at the same time, it is important for G20 participants at the Summit to recognize that effective cooperation on trade-related issues can only be achieved through the collective capacity and mobilization of as many countries as possible. As is true for the EU members of the G20, it should be assumed that other participating emerging countries are, at least to some degree, expressing points of view that stem from consultations with non-participating developing countries from the same region. This would contribute to the international legitimacy of the G20 and strengthen its capacity to impact global realities.
-
17 Mar 2009 / Félix Peña
-
17 Mar 2009 / Richard Kozul-Wright
When the latest efforts to close the Doha Round ended abruptly in December 2008, entrenched negotiating positions were a factor; but underlying systemic issues, ignored in many accounts of the stop-and-start history of the Round since 2001, were of greater significance: these include countries trading more but earning less; the dangers of premature deindustrialization; a growing technological divide and diminishing policy space. While addressing these systematic challenges will be key to the future stability of the multilateral trading system, the immediate threat to international trade comes from a deeply dysfunctional system of unregulated finance. Fixing that should be the urgent priority of the international community.
-
17 Mar 2009 / Charles Gore
The most critical challenge for global economic governance is to find effective and fair ways of mitigating and adapting to climate change whilst at the same time reducing global income inequalities and realizing the development aspirations and unrealized human potential of millions of people in developing countries. Recent evidence, for example on sea level rise and the shrinking summer ice in the Arctic Ocean, suggests that climate change is occurring even faster than models pronounced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have predicted. Biophysical feedback mechanisms, too often omitted from climate models, are likely to be a key factor in the underestimation and are likely to make climate change irreversible once critical atmospheric temperatures are passed. How fast we act will affect both the magnitude and reversibility of climate change. Some say 2015 will be too late; but even if they are wrong, the climate issue will certainly be at the top of the public agenda by then.
-
11 Mar 2009 / GEG
In the FT today, Harvey Morris quotes GEG Senior Visiting Fellow Kevin Watkins on the grave humanitarian crisis facing the world’s most vulnerable people, resulting from the global economic downturn. As Kevin has written previously, the global financial crisis is already draining development aid. The effect on the world’s poor is emphasised again in Morris’s article.
-
09 Mar 2009 / Eveline Herfkens
Since the Millennium Development Goals were agreed in 2000, many developing countries have made great strides. The world was on track to achieve at least the first Millennium Goal of halving the number of extreme poor, and it was coming close to reaching several other objectives as well. But the present crisis is wiping out that hard fought progress. Poor countries’ access to credit has been reduced, resulting in slower investment and growth; already pitiful overseas development assistance (ODA) levels are falling; and Africa might be robbed of its one chance in a generation to make real progress. In the meantime, the world lacks an effective system of global governance. The three deficits in the system I elaborate below have hampered the structure in the past, but they are especially crippling in the present situation.
-
06 Feb 2009 / Kevin Watkins
As governments prepare for the G20 meeting in April, there is one thing you can be sure of: the agenda will be dominated by the global financial crisis. If you’ll forgive the expression, it’s an absolute banker.
So here’s the question. As the financial meltdown continues its journey from the US housing market, through the banking systems and real economies of rich countries and into the lives of the world’s poorest people, when are we going to see a financial rescue package for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?
-
02 Feb 2009 / Ngaire Woods
When the G20 meet in April the needs of African countries should be high on their agenda. The G20 have promised “comprehensively to reform the Bretton Woods institutions” . At least three major changes should be pushed.
-
04 Jan 2009 / Carolyn Deere
When the WTO starts its work for 2009 this week, three items must be at the top of the agenda: debating the selection and mandate of the agency’s Director-General (Pascal Lamy’s current four-year term will expire this August); setting a date for a full Ministerial Conference this year in Geneva; and forging a forward-looking agenda for that meeting.
-
07 Dec 2008 / Paolo De Renzio
Just think about it. The $700 billion rescue package that the US Congress approved for the financial crisis is equal to seven times current yearly aid levels, or the equivalent of global aid flows between now and 2015, the year that marks the target for the Millennium Development Goals. It will be spent within a [...]
-
22 Nov 2008 / Kizzy Gandy
Why have Italy and Ireland announced cuts to their foreign aid budget? Which other countries might reverse their UN commitment to spend 0.7% of Gross National Income on Official Development Assistance by 2015 because of public pressure?
