Back in November, I blogged about what the G20 might mean for health, and argued that drawing any substantive conclusions back then was premature. The issue of the G20 in health was taken up in a big way by the new Global Health Security Centre at Chatham House which organized a one day conference on ‘What’s next for the G20? Investing in health and development’.
For those who were not able to attend I thought it would be useful to highlight the issues that were debated.
In this blog, GEG’s Carolyn Deere-Birkbeck argues that Ministers should use this Ministerial Conference to take leadership and push discussion of institutional reform and governance higher up the multilateral trade system’s official agenda.
With just over one week remaining before the Seventh WTO Ministerial Conference (30 November – 2 December 2009), WTO reform and the functioning of the [...]
The Global Economic Governance Programme is pleased to announce the release of a discussion draft of Strengthening Multilateralism: A Mapping of Proposals on WTO Reform and Global Trade Governance, by Carolyn Deere-Birkbeck and Catherine Monagle, and jointly published with the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD).
Is the G20 a short-term crisis arrangement focused narrowly on economic issues? Or does the increased prominence of the G20 indicate significant change in global governance beyond the crisis and beyond finance?
*UPDATE 15 Feb 2010*: Poul Nyrup Rasmussen’s lecture is now available online. To listen to the audio or watch the video of The post-crisis politics of financial reform: business as usual or new global order?, visit the OpenSpires project. You can also find it on iTunes U and via the University of Oxford’s podcasts.
Will Poul Nyrup Rasmussen inflame the [...]
If we had the numbers in front of us, what would a fair “global-bang-for-the-buck” stimulus package look like? George Gray Molina argues that the bailout debate is about different things in the developed and developing worlds, making the global stimulus question one of politics, not technical detail.
The G20 deal was an extraordinary achievement. But for all the positives, it’s important to recognise what the G20 has not delivered. If one of the benchmarks for measuring success is delivery for sub-Saharan Africa and the world’s poorest countries, the outcome is mixed at best – and disappointing at worst. The result is somewhere around 5/6 out of 10.
The G20 leaders’ communiqué today has provided a vital boost for global trade, but several important trade-related commitments – to developing countries, to sustainable development and to multilateralism – were disappointing or missing. With a further G20 meeting scheduled before the end of the year, leaders must now deepen and expand their trade agenda to address these shortfalls. At the same time, they must acknowledge the democratic deficits of the G20 and explore more inclusive alternatives for global economic decision-making – in particular those that would ensure greater representation of the world’s poorest countries.
Despite all the statements and rhetoric to the contrary, there is little doubt that foreign aid from rich countries will contract as a consequence of the global financial crisis. Averting such further impact of the global crisis calls for urgent and innovative solutions to both the quantity and quality of foreign aid. Proposals to increase aid in times of crisis require important institutional reforms aimed at addressing the shortcomings of the existing aid system. While political appetite for such reforms may not be high at the moment, extraordinary times require extraordinary solutions. The G20 and other development actors need to step up to the plate.
The G20 meeting in London will bring together leaders focusing on the global economic crisis. The financial crisis could contribute to a health crisis poor countries. The G20 can take actions to avert a health crisis. We spell these actions out in a policy brief available here.
