Critics have also pointed out that the report prepared by the international organisations did not prioritise among the many factors listed. Also, the documents accepted by the agriculture ministers did not discuss the mandates in the US and EU countries for use of eco-fuel which many have identified as the main cause of the volatility and which was one of the factors identified in the report prepared by the international organisations. This was because of the opposition from these countries and Brazil. Meanwhile, little has been done to increase agricultural productivity which is the only sustainable way to improve food security.
The G20 has yet to deliver much that is concrete. The fear has been expressed that the G20 may follow the road followed by the G8 in announcing myriad well-intentioned programmes without much effort at implementation (Fues and Wolff, 2010a, b). Another fear that has been expressed is that the G20 may merely be used as a tool to ratify G8 proposals (Haibang Zhang, 2010). The working of the G20 at the finance minister’s level seems to bear this out. The communiqués of the G20 were analysed on nine issues where the G7 and the G24 had taken a position in their own communiqués (Martinez-Diaz, 2009). It was found that only in two cases did the G20 communiqué show a movement away from the G7 communiqué towards the G24 communiqué — issue of sovereign debt restructuring supporting the adoption of a voluntary code between debtors and creditors and reform of the Bretton Woods institutions where no significant action seemed to have followed.
The summit meeting in Mexico saw an innovation. The BRICS countries, i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, met on the sidelines of the summit just as they had at Cannes and for the first time issued a brief statement that stated the importance of IMF reform and stated their intention to contribute to IMF resources. It also asked their finance ministers and central bank governors to consider intra-BRICS swap arrangements and reserve pooling and report back to them for the regularly scheduled standalone summit in 2013. The brief note also discussed development including investment in infrastructure and in the social sphere.
The communiqué from the more recent Mexico summit again stresses on creating a more conducive environment for growth, but now includes supporting infrastructure investment. In the section on development, it reaffirms the leader’s commitment to support efforts to reach internationally agreed goals, particularly the MDGs. There is also a section in the communiqué on enhancing food security and addressing commodity price volatility. The report of the Development Working Group stresses the need “to flesh out the linkages between the different streams of their work in order to make the most of the synergies between them, and to aim for a more holistic approach to development cooperation.” The communiqué from the Finance Ministers meeting on November 5, 2012 welcomes the decision by the IMF executive board to use US$2.7 billion of additional resources for the Fund’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust.6
Following recent summits, there is a view that there is a difference between the developed and developing countries regarding the role of the G20 in the area of development and that development has been more central in summits when the presidency has been held by a developing country member. People holding this view also believe that two or three consecutive presidencies by developing countries would be needed to build momentum on development in the G20. On the contrary, the release of a statement by the BRICS countries at the Mexico summit suggests a move by the developing countries to raise the profile of development issues.
The Future of Development Issues in the G20
The short-term future of development in the G20 would thus seem to be, at a micro level, encouraging concrete interaction of international agency activity on specific issues such as food security and infrastructure and the setting of broad directions for a global approach. But the communiqués till now suggest a preference for private sector initiatives and a reluctance to tackle the issue of how to get production moving, namely what are the financial and other resources needed. There has to be, over the longer term, evolution to tackle these issues if the G20 has to play a meaningful role. Given its nature, this would have to be through incremental and cumulative initiatives. But this would require a minimum level of consensus regarding the major issues in development and the policies needed to tackle them, and such a consensus is lacking at the moment.
Appropriateness as a Forum in the Future for Tackling Development Issues
For its future contributions to global development, one must also ask if the G20 is an appropriate forum in which to discuss and take actions. Doubts have been cast about its representativeness, given that the majority of developing countries are not members. Also, development issues vary over time and there is the issue of whether the G20 is flexible enough to deal with these changing problems. Furthermore, development issues span many ministries within countries and many international agencies and whether the G20 can effectively work with these different bodies is also an issue.
The central issue with legitimacy is that the G20 excludes the vast majority of developing countries. It also raises the question of effectiveness. Does effectiveness depend on concentrating on the systemically important countries or does it need more legitimacy which is gained by dealing with all countries? This issue had arisen with respect to the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) established after the Asian Financial Crisis, where the issue was whether the assessments were to concentrate on systemically important countries such as the US and the larger European countries or were to also include developing countries.7
The legitimacy issue arises in a different way in the case of development. Most developing countries are small and may have different problems from the larger ones included in the G20. Can the G20 deal effectively with their problems? The success of the G20 process will depend on members drawing in the non-members through a process of consultation. Many analysts are worried about the G20’s lack of representativeness because of the exclusion of most developing countries and that it is a self-appointed group (UN, 2009; Fues and Wolff, 2010a; Dubey, 2009; Caliari, 2010).8 A number of suggestions have been made to deal with this issue. One is to develop a more representative body composed of representatives of different groups.9 Most would like it to be connected to the UN in some way to give it more legitimacy (UN, 2009; Fues and Wolff, 2010b; Jolly, 2010; Dubey, 2009; Hermawan, 2010). Some would like a more formal process of consultation between the UN and the G20. Other possibilities could be more regional consultations and participation by non-G20 members in Working Group Meetings.
Already a degree of regional consultation has emerged. Before each G20 summit, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has been holding meetings of its Asian members where discussions have covered the agenda proposed for the G20 by the host country. ESCAP officials and other experts have participated in the discussions. Indonesia has organised the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)–Indonesia G20 contact group to consult with its ASEAN partners and coordinate their positions. The Inter-American Development Bank has organised a Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)/G20 initiative to assist in the formation of a broad-based Latin and Central American and Caribbean approach to G20 issues. The G20 itself has recognised the need for wider consultation to increase legitimacy. Before the summit in Korea, the Korean government set up a special unit to consult with many non-members. Greater African participation is encouraged by inviting the head of the African Union and heads of other African countries to summit meetings. The issue of smaller countries from Africa is particularly relevant from the viewpoint of earlier achievements on the MDGs and now the SDGs.
The G20 at the finance ministers’ level cannot easily deal with development issues since these span many ministries in the different countries and many international bodies with different governance structures and their own links with the ministries in countries. Only heads of state have the authority to oversee the workings of these bodies and reach an agreement within a government as to the specific policies to be adopted by the different ministries so that these form a coherent overall strategy.
Similarly,
