The Group of 20, which brings together countries thataccount for more than 80 percent of world economic activity, was born in theglobal financial crisis of 2008. By reaching across the divide betweendeveloped and developing countries it created a forum more consistent with thepattern of international relations in the 21st century, and by limitingattendance to a smaller number than the other global multilateral bodies, itsought to escape from the unwieldy inertia of their decision-making processes.At its early meetings the G-20 did good work. It helped to calm the panic thathad swept financial markets following the collapse of Lehman Brothers; itidentified some of the remedies needed to avoid repeating the mistakes that hadled to the crisis; and it showed that the interdependence of the world could bematched by common purpose and effort.
Its most recent meetings, however, have seen the G-20drifting without much sense of direction, often hijacked by the ephemeralcrises of the moment and tending toward a glorified photo opportunity.
Now with U.S. President Barack Obama elected to a secondterm of office, and with a new generation of Chinese leaders coming to power,the timing is right for a serious effort to regain for the G-20 itsself-bestowed title as the world’s primary coordinating mechanism for economicissues. Any such effort must necessarily address both policies and process.Clearly much remains to be done to manage the knock-on consequences of the 2008crisis and to set the world back onto the path of sustainable and balancedeconomic growth. But the G-20 agenda needs to go wider than that. Efforts tocombat man-made climate change have flagged in the age of austerity throughwhich we are passing, but the growth of carbon emissions has not. Regainingsome of the lost momentum in the United Nations-led negotiations and perhapsmoving toward a single global price for carbon could be a way forward.
Trade policy also urgently needs a shot in the arm. The DohaRound of multilateral trade negotiations remains becalmed, beset by squabblesover agricultural trade. The world may so far have avoided the worstprotectionist errors of the 1930s, but it would be unwise to count on thatstate of grace lasting much longer as mercantilist pressures mount in severalof the main countries. Separate free trade areas make some sense, but are nowleading to a cacophony of varying trade arrangements when the major playersneed to set a new course, painful and challenging as that may be. The G-20could lead the way out of this impasse by identifying a new basis for freer andfairer world trade, perhaps through sectoral agreements or ones that avoidconstraining for the moment the policy choices of the weakest developingcountries.
As to process, five years of experience have shown up anumber of weaknesses in the G-20 model as it has emerged from a period ofimprovisation. It’s time for the leaders at their next meeting to commission areview by an eminent practitioner, such as the former president of the WorldBank, Robert Zoellick, or by a panel to draw some lessons and to chart the wayforward.
There needs to be more continuity, which points toward atroika of chairmanships covering a three-year period. There needs to be a moresolid underpinning of the preparations for summit meetings. And the principalmembers of the G-20 need to reach out to each other through private diplomacyrather than the megaphone variety they have favored in recent years to preparethe way for the compromises at full G-20 meetings without which no grouping ofthis sort can hope to make progress.
Of course the G-20 has to steer a careful course in makingitself more effective. It should constrain its tendency to further expansionbeyond the present number, already at 27, but also pay careful attention toensuring that it remains broadly representative and employs quiet diplomacy tosolicit views and ideas more widely. It cannot and must not usurp theresponsibility for taking legally binding decisions that rests with the mainglobal multilateral institutions like the United Nations, the InternationalMonetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.
But it can, both by its scale and its example, help givemomentum to decisions in these wider forums and to shape a consensus. A worldstill shaken by the events of 2008 and at risk of falling back into nationalintrospection desperately needs the sort of collective leadership that the G-20can provide, but that it has not recently been providing.
Thomas R. Pickering is a former US undersecretary of statefor political affairs. Lord David Hannay is a former British ambassador to theEuropean Union and the United Nations
