Cerca

Established to tackle global crisis in 1999 at the level of Finance Ministers and Governors of the Central Banks and then scaled up to Summit level in 2009 at Pittsburgh, USA, the G-20 has evolved over the years not only to deliver in terms of coordination in dealing with various global challenges on finance related fronts. Since 2012 onwards it has also included key development issues, concerning global economic governance. At this point, the G20 grouping represents around 65 percent of the global population and 79 percent of global trade.

The breakout of the global Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 eroded the world’s ability to achieve any Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. According to the latest UN SDG report 2022, Covid-19 erased more than four years of progress against poverty, while the impact of the war in Ukraine led to an increase in the number of people currently living in extreme poverty. One in three people lack regular access to food.

On the way to the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Bali, the debate will revolve around economic recovery, food security, climate change, and the war in Ukraine. But the G20 should take particular care also for the problems in international trade. The global trading system suffers under a severe pressure as many countries increasingly seek to implement unilateral trade policy measures, and beggar-thy-neighbour industrial policies with the aim of addressing their economic problems.

After 2020 and the outbreak of the pandemic, 2021 seemed a promising year, thanks not only to economic recovery but also to a (partial) “revival” of multilateralism. This year Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sounded like a “wake-up call” triggering geopolitical and economic turmoil on the global scale and casting doubts on the prospects for multilateral cooperation.