g20

The increased use of remote working will not completely fade away after the defeat of COVID-19. This structural change in production presents numerous challenges, of which the unequal distribution of housing conditions across individuals is of the utmost importance, as it creates new sources of inequality both in current earnings distribution (pay differences across workers who would be equally productive under the same working conditions) and in terms of career opportunities.

Globally, the majority of education systems are operating in a climate marked by recurrent school closure and reopening cycles for the second consecutive academic year. This threatens sustainable recovery. Mass education disruption has individual- and institutional-level effects. There are negative consequences for individual life opportunities which are heightened for marginalized groups; and for macro-economic and societal development at the country level.

This proposed policy brief argues the case and provides examples and policy recommendations for comprehensive, multisectoral and integrated data, monitoring and evaluation systems to enable the implementation of multisectoral policies for early childhood development (ECD) and early childhood education and care (ECEC) to support young children, their families and communities.1 There is evidence that countries with more advanced information systems are better prepared to meet the challenges of uncertainty arising from local and global crises (Amirthalingam et al. 2012; Anderson et al.

Young people can be the drivers of inclusive transformation. Nonetheless, with low levels of financial literacy and even lower employment opportunities, they are faced with severe challenges. Young people and women must be encouraged to seize the opportunities of the digital age and the circular economy to actively participate in the financial sector. A financially aware and inclusive culture, which ensures access to financial products and services at both the local and the international level, must be promoted, leveraging the advantages of digitalisation.

The longer-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on skills, jobs and welfare raises key challenges that are common to the G20 economies and require a coordinated response. With lower paid, more insecure and younger workers more likely to have been working in shutdown sectors, labour market inequalities are likely to increase. Young people, particularly from poorer backgrounds, have also seen significant disruption to their learning, and the job prospects of those entering the labour force are limited.

This policy brief sheds light on the implications of EU trade policies – with a special focus on food safety standards – for women’s access to the labour market in developing countries. The thrust of this policy brief is to highlight the entrenched inequality of opportunities and gender bias in developing countries that the G20 have development cooperation with, and how such inequalities interact with their trade policies.

We recommend the institution of a Global Citizen Income as a stepping stone toward fostering social, civil and political citizenship at the global level. We outline a gradual implementation roadmap and propose increased international aid, a mix of progressive global taxes and a carbon tax, to fund it. A Global Citizen Income would provide an automatic safety net against systemic shocks like COVID-19 and empower individuals starting, from the most ulnerable.

Addressing the learning loss caused by the difficulty of education provision during the COVID-19 pandemic will be a key challenge faced by the world for the coming decades.

We propose to institute a new annual tax of 0.2% on corporations’ stock shares for all publicly listed companies headquartered in G20 countries. As the G20 stock market capitalization is around US$ 90 trillion, the tax would raise approximately US$ 180 billion each year. Because stock ownership is highly concentrated among the rich, this global tax would be progressive. The tax could be paid in-kind by corporations (by issuing new stock) so that the tax does not raise liquidity issues for new and innovative firms, nor does it affect business operations.