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ABSTRACT
The article examines the role that the Group of Twenty (G20) has so far played in fostering progress towards achieving economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable global growth and development. It finds that, at present, the G20 as a group functions primarily as an informal policy-debating club. Therefore, considering the urgency of the global challenges we confront and the tremendous resources G20 members possess, it argues for those G20 members willing to do so to re-strengthen their engagement on the operational side of international cooperation and act again as a force of crisis management, as they did at the height of the 2007–2008 financial crisis. More specifically, the proposal is for willing G20 members to act as lead investors in strategically selected global mission-oriented projects. The article also discusses what might spark G20 members’ interest to play a more pro-active operational role and shows that it would simply be ‘realistic self-interest’.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Inge Kaul is Senior Fellow at the Hertie School, Berlin and former Director of the Offices of the Human Development Report and Development Studies at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York. She has published widely on issues of global governance and international cooperation and is the lead editor of Providing Global Public Goods; Managing Globalization and The New Public Finance; Responding to Global Challenges (OUP: New York, 2003 and 2006, respectively), co-author of the Governance Report 2013 (OUP: Oxford, 2013) and editor/co-author of Global Public Goods (EE: Cheltenham, 2016). Her current research focuses on the future of multilateralism, the role of the G20 and innovative international cooperation finance.
Notes
1 The full text of the 2030 Agenda is available at <https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda>.
2 The Paris Agreement can be found at <https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf>.
3 See, among others: Bhattacharya A et al., Multilateral Development Banking for this Century's Development Challenges. Five Recommendations to Shareholders of the Old and New Multilateral Development Banks. Report of the High-Level Panel on the Future of Development Banking. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development (CGD), 2016; and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Summary for Policymakers. In: Global Warming of 1.5° C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming: Geneva: World Meteorological Organization, 2019.
4 The final Leaders’ Declaration issued at the 2017 Group of Twenty (G20) summit is one of the so far rare examples of an outcome document that is not completely consensus-based. See, G20, Leaders’ Declaration: Shaping an interconnected world. Hamburg, 2017, p. 10.
5 Unless otherwise indicated, links to G20 documents and background papers from 2010 onward can be found on the website of the G20 Information Centre of the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto: <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca>.
6 For comprehensive accounts of the G20's performance, see: Cooper AF & R Thakur, The Group of Twenty (G20). New York: Routledge, 2013; English J et al. (eds.), Reforming from the Top; A Leaders’ 20 Summit. New York: United Nations University Press, 2005; G20, The Group of Twenty: A history. 2008; Hajnal PI, The G20; Evolution, Interrelationships, Documentation. New York: Routledge, 2014; Kharas H and D Lombardi, The Group of Twenty: Origins, Prospects and Challenges for Global Governance. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2012; Kirton J, G20 Governance for a Globalized World. New York: Routledge, 2016; and Wade R, ‘Emerging world order? From multipolarity to multilateralism in the G20, the World Bank and the IMF’, Politics and Society, 39, 3, 2011, pp. 347–78. For assessments focusing on the Group's performance after the 2007–2008 financial crisis, see: Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China (ed.), Who Will Govern the New World – The Present and Future of the G20. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2016, notably the essays contained in Part I; Fues T, ‘How can the G20 promote the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development (SDG 17)?’ 2017, <http://risingpowersproject.com/g20-global-partnership>; Ye Y, ‘The G20 at six and China's role’, in Schlager C et al. (eds), China and the Group of 20: The Interplay between a Rising Power and an Emerging Institution. Hackensack, NJ: World Century, 2016, pp. 21–35; and the extensive list of research and resources compiled by the Research Group of the G20 Information Centre, available at <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca>.
7 It should be noted here that the assessments in this paper concern the ‘elevated’ G20, that is, the period, after the group's elevation in the midst of the 2007–2008 financial crisis from being a forum of finance ministers to one of the heads of state or government of the world's most powerful 19 economies plus the Head of the European Union. See on this status change again, Kharas H and D Lombardi, The Group of Twenty: Origins, Prospects and Challenges for Global Governance. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2012; and Kirton J, G20 Governance for a Globalized World. New York: Routledge, 2016.
8 See, G20, ‘About the G20?’, 16 December 2018.
9 On the 2017 Hamburg Summit, see in particular <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/summits/2017hamburg.html>.
11 For the 2018 T20 communiqué, see <https://t20argentina.org/publicacion/the-t20-communique>; and for the 80 T20 policy briefs, see <https://t20argentina.org/policy-briefs>.
12 See, <https://t20japan.org/publications/policy-briefs> and <https://t20japan.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/t20-japan-2019-communique-eng.pdf>.
13 See, <https://g20.org/en/engagementgroups>.
14 See, on this point, the analyses of G20 Leaders’ commitments undertaken by the Research Group of the G20 Information Centre, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/analysis/commitments-19-osaka.html>.
15 Ibid.
16 G20, ‘Hamburg update: taking forward the G20 action plan on the 2030 agenda. Annex to G20 leaders declaration’, 2017, p. 3.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid, p. 4.
21 Ibid, p. 5.
22 Ibid.
23 For more information about this project, see <http://www.oecd.org/tax/beps>.
25 It was at the 2009 Pittsburgh Summit that the G20 for the first time expressed the ambition of being ‘the premier forum of international economic cooperation’ (G20, G20 Leaders Statement: The Pittsburgh Summit. 24–25 September 2009, p. 19). However, at the Japan summit, a modified version of this phrase was used, which refers to the G20 as: ‘our premier forum for international economic cooperation’ (G20, Osaka Leaders’ Declaration, 2019, p. 1).
26 Fischer RA, ‘The G20 after Hamburg’, 2017, p. 2, <http://blog.t20germany.org>.
27 Some fresh thinking about the ‘recoupling’ issue has happened in the T20-linked journal of the Global Solutions Initiative. See, <https://www.global-solutions.international/global-solutions-journal>. Beginnings of more integrated thinking are also to be found in the work of the G20's Development Working Group. See, for example, <https://www.bmz.de/de/zentrales_downloadarchiv/g20/DWG-annual-progress-report.pdf>. So far, however, that thinking has not yet impacted the organisation of the preparatory summit processes nor the design of the final summit declarations.
28 On the protest movements that accompanied recent G20 summits, see, among others, <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-argentina-protests/buenos-aires-locked-down-for-g20-summit-protest-tightly-controlled-idUSKCN1NZ1ZJ> and <https://www.dw.com/en/whos-who-in-hamburgs-g20-protests/a-39495922>.
29 Kirton JJ, G20 Governance for a Globalized World. New York: Routledge, 2016.
30 The political rifts within the G20 are evident, for example, from the 2019 Leaders’ Declaration (G20, Osaka Leaders’ Declaration, 2019), notably when comparing paragraph 35 with paragraph 36 of this document, as discussed by Tran H, ‘The G20 turns into G19+1’, 2019, <https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-g20-turns-into-g19-1>. The issue of divergent views also figured prominently in much of the press reporting on the Group's 2019 Summit, including, for example, in <https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/30/national/g20-world-leaders-agree-issues-significant-gaps-remain-following-osaka-summit/#.XccYrtVKipo>; <https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/discordant-notes-naked-pursuit-of-domestic-interests-robbing-the-g20-of-its-essence/articleshow/70005774.cms?from=mdr>; <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/27/the-guardian-view-of-the-osaka-g20-summit-bad-as-he-is-trump-is-not-the-only-problem>; and <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/putin-derides-liberalism-obsolete-g20-summit-190628052108100.html>.
31 Wade R, ‘Emerging world order? From multipolarity to multilateralism in the G20, the World Bank and the IMF’, Politics and Society, 39, 3, 2011, p. 348.
32 Liu Z, ‘The Fundamental Problems in World Economy and the Role of the G20’, 2013, <http://en.siis.org.cn/Research/EnInfo/1683/>.
33 Silvestri S, ‘What about the G20?’ in Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China (ed.), Who Will Govern the New World – The Present and Future of the G20. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2016, p. 11.
34 See on the shift from multilateralism towards minilateralism also Brummer C, Minilateralism: How Trade Alliances, Soft Law and Financial Engineering are Redefining Economic Statecraft. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014 and Pisani-Ferry J, ‘Should we give up on global governance?’ Policy Contribution, 17, October 2018.
35 In his comprehensive study on the history of the BEPS Project entitled ‘The G20 and the “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project”’. Discussion Paper 18/2017. Bonn: German Development Institute, 2017, p. 3, Picciotto S concludes that the OECD has made great efforts to extend involvement in the BEPS Project to all countries but that this would involve expecting non-G20 countries ‘to implement recommendations which they had little part in formulating, unless there is an explicit resetting of the agenda to reflect their concerns’. Maybe it is with this concern in mind that the BRICS would prefer to deepen international cooperation on tax matters in universal international forums, such as the UN. See for the BRICS Heads of Tax Authorities’ statement: <http://idg.receita.fazenda.gov.br/noticias/ascom/2017/julho/receita-federal-participa-de-reuniao-dos-paises-brics/communique-meeting-of-brics-heads-of-tax-authorites.pdf>. On G7-BRICS relations within the G20 more generally, see Subacchi P & S Pickford, Briefing: International Economic Governance: Last Chance for the G20? London: Chatham House, 2015, <https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/international-economic-governance-last-chance-g20>.
36 See Martin A, ‘Future shocks: the matrix of risks that could impact your industry’, 2018, <https://www.zurich.com/en/knowledge/articles/2018/04/the-matrix-of-risks-that-could-impact-your-industry>; Eurasia Group, Top Risks 2018. New York: Eurasia Group, 2018; Munich Security Conference Foundation (MSCF), Munich Security Report 2018; To the Brink – And Back? Munich: MSCF, 2018; and World Economic Forum (WEF), Global Risks Report. Geneva: WEF, 2018, 2017, 2016.
37 See, on this point, for example: Bello W, Counter Revolution; The Global Rise of the Far Right. Rugby, UK: Practical Action, 2019, Bremmer I, Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism. New York: Penguin Random House,2018; Marschall P and S Klingebiel, ‘Populism: consequences for global sustainable development’, German Development Institute Briefing Paper 8/2019, <https://www.die-gdi.de/briefing-paper/article/populism-consequences-for-global-sustainable-development>; and Milanovic B, Capitalism, Alone; The Future of the System That Rules the World. Cambridge, MA & London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019.
38 See, Kaul I, Providing Global Public Goods: What Role for the Multilateral Development Banks. London: Overseas Development Institute (ODI), 2017, and Kaul I, ‘Global public goods and governance for addressing sustainability’, in Nissanke M & JA Ocampo (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of development Economics; Critical Reflections on Globalisation and Development. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan/ Springer Nature, 2019, pp. 833–65.
39 Dieter H, ‘The G20 and the dilemma of asymmetric sovereignty: why multilateralism is failing in crisis prevention’, in Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China (ed.), Who Will Govern the New World – The Present and Future of the G20. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2016, p. 99.
40 Nye JS Jr., The Future of Power. New York. Public Affairs, 2011, p. 217.
41 G20, G20 Leaders Statement: The Pittsburgh Summit, 24–25 September 2009, p. 19.
42 G20, Osaka Update on the G20 Action Plan on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 2019, p. 1.
43 See, also Snower D, ‘The G20 at a crossroads: the future of global governance’, G20 Insights, 2018, p. 4, discussing the importance of re-coupling economic and social progress and a perspective on global development and multilateralism ‘focused on the primacy of social prosperity, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity’, <http://www.g20-insights.org/policy_briefs/the-g20-at-a-crossroads-the-future-of-global-governance>.
44 For empirical analyses, see Kaul I, Providing Global Public Goods: What Role for the Multilateral Development Banks. London: Overseas Development Institute (ODI), 2017. WBG-IEG (World Bank Group-Independent Evaluation Office), ‘Annual review of development effectiveness 2008: shared global challenges’, Fast Track Brief 52607, September 2008; and WBG-OED (World Bank Group-Operations Evaluation Department), ‘Addressing the Challenges of Globalization; An Independent Evaluation of the World Bank's Approach to Global Programs’, 2004.
45 On the importance of narratives, see also Akerlof GA & D Snower, Bread and Bullets, Kiel Working Paper 2022, Kiel: Institute for the World Economy, 2016.
46 A situation of varying preferences to act could, for example, arise in the area of climate change mitigation and adaptation, considering the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. See, on the agreement, again endnote 2 and on the US withdrawal <https://www.state.gov/on-the-u-s-withdrawal-from-the-paris-agreement/>.
47 Mazzucato M, Mission-Oriented Research & Innovation in the European Union; A Problem-Solving Approach to Fuel Innovation-Led Growth. Brussels: European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, 2018, p. 4.
48 The lead-investor role would not entail either the G20 as a group or those of its members who agree to assume that role, having direct responsibilities for the discharge of related operational functions. Project implementation could, for example, be organised as a multi-stakeholder/actor or partnership platform or network (with its own legal status) of input providers, including, besides other additional public and private investors, scientific and technical entities (which might be networks themselves) working on relevant topics. The operation of this platform/network could be outsourced to a management service with proven experience in facilitating complex, multi-jurisdictional projects, including the multilateral development banks (MDBs), especially the World Bank Group. The platform/network could be governed by a council including, among others, delegates of the lead investors and representatives of the various input providers and stakeholders. In addition, it could be supported by an advisory body composed of eminent experts in project-relevant fields. Of course, the exact nature of the project arrangements will depend on the purpose(s) of the sub-projects to be included in the umbrella mission project.
49 Considering how voluminous the different literature threads on the issue of climate change mitigation and related topics are, it seems highly arbitrary to pick just a few to mention here. Nevertheless, I mention just a few titles, to which reference can be made, as finance is an important tool through which to steer investments and corrective actions in the desired direction. In particular, it might be useful here to draw attention to some of the studies raising the issue of what type of finance (sources and instruments) to use for which public policy purpose. See, for example, Bak C et al., ‘Towards a comprehensive approach to climate policy, sustainable infrastructure, and finance’, G20 Insights, 2017, <http://www.g20-insights.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Towards-a-comprehensive-approach-to-climate-policy-sustainable-infrastructure-and-finance.pdf>; Bhattacharya A et al., Delivering on Sustainable Infrastructure for Better Development and Better Climate. Washington, DC: Brookings, 2016; Edenhofer O et al., ‘Closing the emission price gap’, Global Environmental Change, 31, 3, 2015, pp. 132–43; Center for Global development (CGD), Multilateral Development Banking for This Century's Development Challenges. Five Recommendations to Shareholders of the Old and New Multilateral Development Banks. Report of the High-Level Panel on the Future of Development Banking. Washington, DC: CGD, 2016; Kaul I, Providing Global Public Goods: What Role for the Multilateral Development Banks. London: Overseas Development Institute (ODI), 2017; Kaul I, ‘Implementing the 2030 agenda: what role for the group of twenty?’, Discussion Paper dated 01/06/2018, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/biblio/kaul-implementing-the-2030-agenda.pdf/; Kaul I & P Conceição (eds), The New Public Finance; Responding to Global Challenges. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006; and Sandmo A, ‘The welfare economics of global public goods’, NHH Department of Economics Discussion Paper 35/2007, <https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1550703>; and Stern N, Why Are We Waiting? The Logic, Urgency, and Promise of Tackling Climate Change. Cambridge, MA & London: The MIT Press, 2015.
50 What was said earlier on the literature in the field of climate change mitigation, also holds in respect of the topic of the risks and opportunities of the new technological age: the contributions to this topic are many, including, among others: Bostrom N, Superintelligence; Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014, Bostrom N et al., Policy Desiderata in the Development of Superintelligent AI. Working Paper. 2017. Retrieved from: <https://nickbostrom.com/papers/aipolicy.pdf/>, Goldin I, ‘The second Renaissance’, Nature, 18 October 2017, <https://www.nature.com/news/the-second-renaissance-1.22827/>, Global Challenges Foundation (GCF), Global Catastrophic Risks 2017. Stockholm: GCF, 2017, International Labour Organisation (ILO), Inception Report for the Commission on the Future of Work. Geneva: ILO, 2017, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Towards the Implementation of the G20 Roadmap for Digitalisation: Skills, Business, Dynamics and Competition. Report prepared at the request of the 2017 G20 German Presidency. Paris: OECD, 2018, Ortega A, F André & Y Turianskyi, Technological Justice: A G20 Agenda. T20 Policy Brief. 2018, <http://www.g20-insights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/NEW-T20-Technological-Justice-11-05-18_f-s3.pdf/>, Samans R & N Davis, ‘Advancing human-centred economic progress in the fourth industrial revolution; a leadership agenda for G20 governments’, 2017, <http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Advancing_Human_Centred_Economic_Progress_WP_2017.pdf/>, Schwab K, The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Munich: Pantheon, 2016, World Bank Group, Digital Dividends; World Development Report 2016. Washington, DC: World Bank 2016, and G20, Innovation Action Plan. September 5, 2016.
51 For the Panel's Terms of Reference, see http://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/g20-epg-terms-of-reference.pdf/.
52 The implementation of this project could also be supported through a trust fund arrangement hosted by an existing multilateral institution.
53 See, in this context, again footnote 23, which sketches out how the global mission projects could perhaps be organised.
54 Martin P, Strengthening the Multilateral Institutions; A G20 Priority. Waterloo, ON: Centre for International Governance Innovation, 2015, p. 4. <https://www.cigionline.org/publications/strengthening-multilateral-institutions-g20-priority/>.
55 Mazzucato M, Mission-Oriented Research & Innovation in the European Union; A Problem-Solving Approach to Fuel Innovation-Led Growth. Brussels: European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. 2018.
56 Such a study could also cover global programmes like the G20-initiated Global Infrastructure Connectivity Alliance hosted by the World Bank or the Global Environment Facility and other global mechanisms. See, respectively http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/transport/brief/global-infrastructure-connectivity-alliance/ and http://www.thegef.org/.
57 Stern N, Why Are We Waiting? The Logic, Urgency, and Promise of Tackling Climate Change. Cambridge, MA & London: The MIT Press, 2015, p. 25.
58 See, for Robert Frost's poem https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken/.
59 Mazzucato M, Mission-Oriented Innovation Policy: Challenges and Opportunities, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Policy Working Paper (2017-1). London: University College London, 2017.
60 Mazzucato M, Mission-Oriented Research & Innovation in the European Union; A Problem-Solving Approach to Fuel Innovation-Led Growth. Brussels: European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. 2018.
61 Ibid., p. 14.
62 Ibid., p. 5.
63 Ibid., p. 11.
64 Ibid., p. 18.
65 Foray D, DC Mowery & RR Nelson, ‘Public R&D and social challenges: what lessons from mission R&D programs?’ Research Policy 41, 2012, pp. 1697–702.
66 Mazzucato M, The Entrepreneurial State; Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths. New York: Anthem, 2015.
67 Mazzucato M & G Semieniuk, ‘Public financing of innovation: new questions’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 33, 1, 2017, pp. 24–48.