The leader’s G20 summit, an international meet of 19 countries plus EU and several other international organizations is going to be held in Osaka, Japan on June 28 and 29, 2019. Now we will have a question of what is G20 summit? who are its members? Its purpose? etc. Let’s see what it is.
What is G20 summit?
The G20 (Group of Twenty) is an international forum for Finance Ministers, Heads of Government and Central bank governors of 19 countries and the European Union. It’s not a Legislative body. The G20 was started at Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors level with an inaugural meeting in 15-16 December, 1999 in Berlin. After the 2008 Financial crisis, the Heads of Government (leaders in the sense Prime Minister and President) summit was held. The G20 was foreshadowed in June 1999 at Cologne summit of G7. It is formally known as “summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy”.
Who are its Members?
The G20 has 19 countries and the European Union as its members. There are even non-members invited for the meet. Even several other international forums and institutions support and participate in the G20 meet. The member countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Republic of South Africa, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America and the European Union (EU). The G20 economies accounts for 80% of World trade, 90% of the GWP (Gross World Product) and two-thirds of the world population.
The permanent and regular guest country and international organizations are
- Spain
- ASEAN President (Thailand)
- AU President (Egypt)
- Chile (APEC President)
- Senegal (NEPAD President)
- United Nations (UN)
- International Monetary Fund (IMF)
- World Bank
- World Trade Organization (WTO)
- International Labour Organization (ILO)
- Financial Stability Board (FSB)
- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
The guests are invited by the host nation where one or two countries are invited from the same region as well as international forums. The Spain is a permanent non-member invitee because even after the economic crisis of 2008, it is still the 14th largest economy in the world and 5th in European union, 16th largest by purchasing power parity and 2nd largest foreign investor after United States. The Spanish government’s policy is not to request official membership.
Who will host the G20 meet?
G20 does not have any permanent secretariat as its nature is informal political forum. The member countries are divided into five different groupings except EU. One of the countries from each group will host when it gets it turn and the host country will be decided among themselves. The duration of presidency starts from 1st December to 30th November. For its continuity, the “troika” supports the presidency made up of present, the immediate past and the next host nations. The five different groups are as follows,
| Group 1-Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, United States | Group 2-India, Russia, South Africa, Turkey | Group 3-Argentina, Brazil, Mexico | Group 4-France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom | Group 5-China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea |
What are its Agenda?
Inaugural meeting of G20 was hosted by the German Finance Minister Hans Eichel and Canadian Finance Minister chaired the first meeting. So, the US, Canadian and the German policy makers initially focused on Sovereign debt and global financial stability. Though the G20’s primary mandate is to prevent international financial crisis and to promote international financial stability. The G20 summits are also mandate to promote global economic growth, international trade and financial market regulation.
Issues of global significance such as migration, digitisation, employment, healthcare, security, the economic empowerment of women and development aid were added in the later period. G20 meetings have included cryptocurrency, food security and trade wars in recent years.
List of summits and hosted nations from 2008
The number of ministerial level summits have been held since 1999, where the leader’s summit has been started only from 2008. In 2009 and 2010, the heads of G20 summit met semi-annually and from 2011, the heads G20 summits have been held annually. The list of summits are given below,
The 1st summit on November 16-17, 2008, Washington focused on 2007-2008 Financial crisis.
In the 2nd summit on April 1-2, 2009, London, UK, the leaders of G20 pledged $ 1 trillion to IMF and World Bank to help emerging marketing countries.
In the 3rd summit on September 24-25, 2009, Pittsburgh, US, the leaders established a new Financial Stability Board.
In the 4th summit on June 26-27, 2010, Toronto, Canada, the leaders agreed to eliminate budget deficit after 3 years that is in half of 2013.
In the 5th summit on November 11-12, 2010, Seoul, South Korea, Ministers pledged to stop Currency wars.
The 6th summit on November 2-4, 2011, Cannes, France addressed Greek debt crisis.
The 7th summit on June 18-19, 2012, Los Cabos, Mexico focused on Eurozone debt crisis.
The 8th summit on September 5-6, 2013, St. Petersburg, Russia focused on a response to Syria’s chemical weapon attack unofficially and focused on spurring Global Economic growth officially.
The 9th summit on November 15-16, 2014, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia discussed to increase global GDP growth to 2.1% by the year 2018.
The 10th summit on November 15-16, 2015, Antalya, Turkey focused to respond to the Paris terrorist attacks.
The 11th summit on September 4-5, 2016, Hangzhou, China discussed to ratify Paris climate change agreement and to end up Syrian war but Russia and US did not agree.
The 12th summit on July 7-8, 2017, Hamburg, Germany focused on Climate change and trade war.
The 13th summit on November 30-December 1, 2018 discussed about Trade war.
Upcoming summit
The 14th summit on June 28-29, 2019 is going to held in Osaka, Japan to discuss the ongoing trade war.
Future summits
The 15th summit will be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The 16th summit will be held in Italy.
The 17th summit will be held in New Delhi, India.
Criticisms
G20 has been criticized for various reasons since its inception such as encouraging trade agreements, failed to address social inequality, slow in combat climate change, global threats to democracy and lack of transparency and accountability and in fact most of the important meetings of G20 are held behind closed doors.
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