June » 2012 » TripleCrisis

Spotlight G-20: The G-20 Agricultural Agenda: Agricultural productivity growth in a vacuum

Sophia Murphy, guest blogger

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

This critique of the G-20’s new interagency report on smallholder productivity appears in Spanish in the newsletter Puentes

When the Heads of State of the G20 countries meet in Los Cabos, Mexico on June 18-19, they will have plenty to discuss – not least, the fragile global economy and the instability of international finance. Food security is on their agenda as well. Yet after the intense focus on agriculture and food security under the leadership of France, both ahead of and during its time as host of the G20 in 2011, this year’s efforts are low-key.

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Spotlight G-20: G-20 and Food Security: Keep the Focus on Economic Policy Reform

Jennifer Clapp

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

When the G20 put food security on its agenda for the 2011 Cannes summit, many analysts were initially optimistic. As the world’s leading economies, the G20 has the potential to make important economic policy changes that could help improve access to food for the world’s poorest people.

In 2012, optimism about the G20’s ability to deliver on this front has begun to fade. There has not been much action since the Cannes summit and, in the run-up to the Los Cabos summit, the discussion has shifted toward a narrower focus on productivity growth and away from broader economic policy reforms that can contribute to food security. Both are important and should remain on the agenda.

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Spotlight G-20: Mexico’s Surreal Leadership on Food Security

Timothy A. Wise

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

Leave it to Mexico to put surrealism on the agenda at the G-20 summit that opens today in Los Cabos, Mexico. Actually, the Mexican government seems not have put much of anything on the agenda, at least when it comes to food security, one of its stated priorities as G-20 president this year. What’s surreal is listening to Mexico’s Agriculture Minister, Francisco Mayorga, speaking last Wednesday to an international conference on “New Paradigms for Agriculture,” describe without a hint of irony or self-reflection his government’s “model program” for sustainable smallholder agriculture.

This from the country that is the world’s poster child for the failures of neoliberal agriculture policy. Surreal. Where’s Frida Kahlo when we need her?

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What Should Syriza Do: A Latin American Perspective

Matías Vernengo

The election in Greece this weekend, and the possible victory of Syriza, the left of center party that is against the austerity measures that are attached to the bail-out program negotiated with the troika of the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but wants to remain within the euro, has prompted fears of a final collapse of the euro. Let me say that irrespective of whether Greece will be forced out of the euro, policies to reverse the austerity imposed so far will be needed. Latin America has extensive experience with external crises, and with defaults and devaluation, the Argentinean crisis of 2001-2 being the most recent and dramatic example. Here are some lessons and a short proposal based on these experiences.

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Spotlight G-20: If not now, then when?

Jayati Ghosh

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

The G20 meeting to be held in Los Cabos, Mexico on 17-18 June is arguably the most important meeting of this group since it was formed, and certainly one that the world will be watching. It is possibly even more important than the famous meeting of April 2009 when the member countries committed themselves to co-ordinated recovery measures in the wake of the global fallout from the Lehmann closure.

The reason for this significance is that for some time now, the G20 appears to have lost its way. Its original intention – to provide a relatively speedy and workable arrangement for global governance (especially economic governance) at a time when co-ordination of macroeconomic measures is seen as essential – has clearly fallen by the wayside in the past two years. Indeed, if it cannot deliver this time around, it risks sinking into irrelevance, at a time when the global economy badly needs some institutions to respond to what is more and more evident as a crisis of massive proportions.

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Spotlight G-20 & Rio+20: What We're Reading and Writing

As part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 and Spotlight Rio+20 series, we are running a special edition of our regular Reading and Writing update.

What We’re Reading
Johan Kuylenstierna, Environmentalism or human well-being? Rejecting a false dichotomy
Shengen Fan, A Green Economy and the Poor
Nature, Return to Rio: Second chance for the planet
FAO, Towards the Future We Want
IISD, Sustainable Development Timeline
IISD, Linkages: Coverage of Rio+20
SEI, Clinton outlines agenda to tackle climate, health and food security
Manish Bapna, Peter Hazlewood and John Talberth, Rio+20: Moving Ahead with the Sustainable Development Goals
Elizabeth Bast, Traci Romine, Stephen Kretzmann, Srinivas Krishnaswamy, Lo Sze Ping, Low Hanging Fruit: Fossil Fuel Subsidies, Climate Finance, and Sustainable Development
Stephen Leahy, Activists Call for Creation of High Commissioner for Future Generations at Rio+20
Rousbeh Legatis, Q&A: Battle for Human Rights in Rio Is “Far From Over”
Thalif Deen, Defining Green Economy May Stymie Rio Summit
Laura Carlsen, Mexico’s G20 Summit: In the Eye of the Storm
Peter Wahl, The G20: Overestimated and Underperforming
Liane Schalatek and Lili Fuhr, From promise to payment pledge: in Los Cabos, the G20 must act on long-term climate finance

What We’re Writing
Martin Khor, Key issues facing Rio+20 summit
Jennifer Clapp, G20 and Food Security: Keep the Focus on Economic Policy Reform

Spotlight G-20 & Rio+20: What We’re Reading and Writing

As part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 and Spotlight Rio+20 series, we are running a special edition of our regular Reading and Writing update.

What We’re Writing
Martin Khor, Key issues facing Rio+20 summit
Jennifer Clapp, G20 and Food Security: Keep the Focus on Economic Policy Reform

Spotlight G-20 & Rio+20: The G-20 Casts a Long Shadow over Rio

Peter Riggs, guest blogger

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

What is the relation between the Rio+20 Earth Summit and the upcoming G-20 summit in Mexico? These two events occur back-to-back, and both are at the ‘heads of state’ level. This month should be an opportunity for serious international course-correction, right?

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Spotlight G-20 & Rio+20: The G-20 Casts a Long Shadow over Rio

Peter Riggs, guest blogger

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

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Confronting the Middle Income Trap: Policy Lessons from a Trans-regional Comparison

Eva Paus, guest blogger

The middle income trap is a new concept that strikes fear into the hearts of development practitioners. Analysts generally agree that the absence of broad-based upgrading towards more knowledge-intensive activities is at the heart of the middle income trap. But they differ in their explanation of the trap. Some see it as a typical problem for middle income countries in the process of accumulating technological capabilities and emphasize internal causes (e.g. Eichengreen, Park and Shin 2011, Asian Development Bank 2011). Others, including this author and her collaborators in a project on the middle income trap, argue that middle income countries have always faced the challenge of how to move from commodity production to more knowledge-intensive activities. But it is the current globalization context that is turning this challenge into a possible trap.

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