Revamping the G20

The G20 faces a critical year ahead with the Eurozone crisis far from over, global growth slowing down and unemployment rising, the Doha round almost shelved and global governance reform proceeding at a snail´s pace, at best. The recipe for the long-term viability of the G20 requires complementing its crisis-management role with a stronger focus on prevention. The G20 should help bridge normative divides and deliver integrated governance solutions to anticipate future challenges.

The Mexican presidency of the G20 inherited the largest outputexpectations gap in the short life of the group’s meeting at leaders’ level. The epic phase of the Washington and London crisis summits culminated in 2009 in Pittsburgh with the establishment of the G20 as the premier forum for global economic cooperation. The Toronto and Seoul summits in 2010 steered a process of consolidation of the G20 format and working methods. They paved the way for the Mutual Assessment Process and expanded the G20’s agenda and outreach.

However, these meetings delivered little by way of addressing the root causes of financial turmoil and narrowing the differences between surplus and deficit countries, or partisans of austerity and advocates of monetary easing.