From G20 to Labour20

Erinç Yeldan

The G20 Summit has met, convened, and dispersed for the next year after a massive show in the tourist heart of Turkey, Antalya.  The meetings had convened under the shadow of massive social exclusion and terror overrunning the global political economy. the G20 communiqué that had been released on November 15 was little more than a simple wish-list for a stable and participatory global economy—the main motto of Turkey’s presidency over 2015.

But to billions of working families across the globe, there was more than the standard wish-list of the G20 communiqué: the Labour20 (L20). The L20 was founded by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the OECD’s Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) and was convened with the call coming from Turkish hosts, the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Türk-Iş), Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK), and Confederation of Turkish Right Trade Unions (Hak-Iş).

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G20 Finance Ministers focus on private financing of infrastructure

Jesse Griffiths, Guest Blogger

Jesse Griffiths is Director of the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad).

Last weekend, G20 Finance Ministers had their penultimate meeting before the G20 Leaders summit, scheduled for December in Turkey. Despite the current instability in stock markets and currencies in many countries, the focus of the communiqué is on the continued push, led by multilateral development banks and the OECD, to radically change the way infrastructure is financed by trying to draw in private finance, though this method has a weak recent track record. Discussion of ongoing efforts to combat tax evasion and reform the financial sector were slated for the next meeting in October, while the G20 continued to complain about the failure of IMF governance reform, but offered no hope that an IMF governance crisis can actually be avoided.

This was the Finance Ministers’ third meeting of the year, with one more slated to coincide with the World Bank/ IMF annual meetings in Lima in October. Detailed analysis of the outcomes of the meeting has been hampered by the fact that almost all of the large number of background papers were not put in the public domain until some days after the summit ended.

The stock market problems in China, and related currency problems of many other emerging markets were at the centre of the discussions, but monetary policy coordination has been a major area where the G20 has failed to have any impact in the past. The communiqué underscores this fact by noting that “monetary tightening is more likely in some advanced economies” – effectively endorsing anticipated raises in interest rates in the United States, which many expect will lead to a significant outflow of capital from developing countries.

Private infrastructure top of the agenda

Instead, as Eurodad predicted earlier in the year, the big focus this year is on “boosting investment,” which the ministers proclaim as “a top priority.” This is nothing new – infrastructure was a major theme of the Australian G20 presidency in 2014, though outcomes were limited – but the sheer scale of the preparatory work suggests the international institutions that act as the secretariat for the G20 have moved into overdrive, with multiple background papers from the OECD, the World Bank and others.

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The G20 St. Petersburg Summit: Bubbles, Casinos, and Inactivity

Sameer Dossani, Guest Blogger

While much of the media coverage around the G20 leaders summit has been about the failure of international diplomacy in Syria, the formal agenda was around one issue: growth. Growth through jobs, growth through transparency, and growth through effective regulation—these were the three themes the Russian government prioritized for this year’s summit.

One could perhaps argue that the obsession with growth is appropriate. The US economy—the source of the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression—is again growing, but when compared with previous economic recoveries the pace of growth has been extremely sluggish. Economists estimate that at current rates of growth and job creation, the US will not achieve anything close to full employment before 2022. Most G8 economies—especially in Europe—are in worse shape and even China and India are seeing growth expectations slow down.

But focusing on growth is a bit like treating strep throat with asprin. You may alleviate some of the symptoms, but you’re not treating the source of the problem.

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G20 Counter Summit in St. Petersburg

Dale Wiehoff, Guest Blogger

On September 3 and 4, a large-scale international Counter Summit, intended as an alternative to the September Summit of the G-20, will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is taking place at the Международный Деловой Центр, nab.reki Smolenki 2, and is organized by the Post Globalization Initiative. The Summit’s ambition is to develop new principles of economic and social policy which are not based on the Washington Consensus. As part of the Summit, world renowned experts, economists, politicians and social scientists from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas will come together for panel discussions, seminars, and public lectures, including Dr. Steve Suppan of IATP. Dr. Suppan will address speculation in commodity markets.

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Documents From The G20

Nancy Alexander, Guest Blogger

The Communique of G20 Finance Ministers & Central Bank Governors Meeting (April 18-19, 2013) was recently released.

The Communique “underscores the importance of long-term financing for investment, including in infrastructure, in enhancing economic growth and job creation.”  In addition, it emphasizes the G20’s latest views on a variety of issues, including the European financial architecture, medium-term fiscal consolidation in the US and other advanced economies, currency “wars,” IMF quota and governance reform, public debt management, regional financial arrangements, financial (and shadow banking) regulation, tax avoidance/evasion.

The Russian Goals

According to presentations in Washington by Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak and Sherpa Ksenia Yudaeva, “growth and jobs” are the headline issues for their Presidency.  However, the means to achieve these goals is through progress on “financing for investment” (especially in infrastructure public-private partnerships (PPPs).

The issue of “financing for investment” (FfI) has surged to the top of the G20 agenda.  The Sherpa stressed the ambitiousness of the work program of the study group, co-chaired by Germany and Indonesia.  The work program is contained in the annexes of this “umbrella paper” prepared by the World Bank in coordination with OECD, IMF, UNCTAD, UN-DESA, and FSB: http://www.g20.org/news/20130228/781245645.html.

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Spotlight G-20: Grain Reserves and the Food Price Crisis

Sophia Murphy, guest blogger

With the U.S. government announcement last week that this year’s corn crop is expected to be much smaller due to an extended drought, agricultural commodity markets are yet again headed for high and unstable prices this summer. Is the world better prepared for the shortfall then it was in 2007? Certainly, the United States is not. To cite agricultural journalist Alan Guebert:

Indeed, according to CCC (Commodity Credit Corporation), there is not one teaspoon of sugar, one pound of peanuts, one slice of butter, one wheel of cheese, one bushel of wheat or even one chickpea in USDA’s pantry. CCC has nothing—nada, zip, goose egg—to release into the marketplace to slow or moderate what’s certain to be fast-climbing food prices in the coming months.

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Spotlight G-20: Grain Reserves and the Food Price Crisis

Sophia Murphy, guest blogger

With the U.S. government announcement last week that this year’s corn crop is expected to be much smaller due to an extended drought, agricultural commodity markets are yet again headed for high and unstable prices this summer. Is the world better prepared for the shortfall then it was in 2007? Certainly, the United States is not. To cite agricultural journalist Alan Guebert:

Indeed, according to CCC (Commodity Credit Corporation), there is not one teaspoon of sugar, one pound of peanuts, one slice of butter, one wheel of cheese, one bushel of wheat or even one chickpea in USDA’s pantry. CCC has nothing—nada, zip, goose egg—to release into the marketplace to slow or moderate what’s certain to be fast-climbing food prices in the coming months.

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Spotlight G-20 & Rio+20: Challenges of sustainable development: beyond the G20 and Rio +20 Summits

Alejandro Chanona, guest blogger

The 1992 Rio Declaration identifies the “right to development” as the synthesis of existing human rights, such as the right to a proper life, to higher levels of health, education, housing, job and food. However, there is a big gap between states’ discourse in support of sustainable development and the well-being of the individual and the actions and commitments needed to achieve them.

The fundamental problem is that, since 1992, there was an attempt to implement an ideal model of development (sustainable development) without changing the dominant economic paradigm. Quite to the contrary: that paradigm became more deeply entrenched. The redefinition of global development since the 1987 Brundtland Report and the 1992 Earth Summit, which is the context for the Millennium Goals, coincided with the most speculative handling of the economy and its securitization, creating a contradiction that persists until today.

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Spotlight G-20 & Rio+20: Challenges of sustainable development: beyond the G20 and Rio +20 Summits

Alejandro Chanona, guest blogger

The 1992 Rio Declaration identifies the “right to development” as the synthesis of existing human rights, such as the right to a proper life, to higher levels of health, education, housing, job and food. However, there is a big gap between states’ discourse in support of sustainable development and the well-being of the individual and the actions and commitments needed to achieve them.

The fundamental problem is that, since 1992, there was an attempt to implement an ideal model of development (sustainable development) without changing the dominant economic paradigm. Quite to the contrary: that paradigm became more deeply entrenched. The redefinition of global development since the 1987 Brundtland Report and the 1992 Earth Summit, which is the context for the Millennium Goals, coincided with the most speculative handling of the economy and its securitization, creating a contradiction that persists until today.

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Spotlight G-20 & Rio+20: Not Enough: Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security at the Three Summits

Jennifer Clapp

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight Rio+20 and Spotlight G-20 series.

It has been encouraging to see the promotion of an environmentally sustainable approach to agriculture and food security endorsed by three recent high-profile summits: the Rio +20 Conference and the G20 Leaders’ Summit this month, and the G8 Summit last month. But they did not offer up anywhere near the kind of public financial support, or the regulatory framework, required to implement it.

In L’Aquila in 2009, the G8 governments, later supported by the G20, pledged some $22 billion for agriculture and food security initiatives in developing countries over the 2009-12 period. But the ongoing economic crisis has prompted rich country governments to significantly scale back what they are now willing to commit.

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