Delivering the insufficient? G20 finance ministers issue another bland statement
News||10 September 2009Despite spin doctoring that called it a triumph for cracking down on banking bonuses, the G20 finance ministers’ statement in early September produced an accounting for how the G20 met or did not meet existing promises and little new agreement. Once again the UK government excluded critical civil society from the discussions.
The summit, held in London in order to prepare the ground for the G20 leaders meeting scheduled for 24-5 September in Pittsburgh USA, was billed as a battle over bank bonuses, but the final communiqué was mostly a bland repetition of existing statements with plenty of escape clauses and pushing issues to other forums. On the fiscal stimulus and loose monetary policy that have been the mainstay of rich country responses to the financial crisis, it committed countries to continue “necessary financial support measures” but also “agreed the need for a transparent and credible process for withdrawing our extraordinary … support.”
The communiqué was short, with only seven paragraphs. It final two points served to report on the commitments made to strengthen the IMF and World Bank. The G20 hailed the “significant progress in strengthening the IFIs” but also said “more needs to be done”. For the pedantic, the change in language on IMF governance may look like a positive step forward. In April the G20 said “emerging and developing economies, including the poorest, should have greater voice and representation”, whereas in September it read “the voice and representation of emerging and developing economies, including the poorest, must be significantly increased.” A searching look at the accompanying “progress report on the actions of the London and Washington G20 summits” highlights the areas left vague.
SDRs go ahead at the IMF
The report confirms that the $500 billion promised to the IMF has yet to be delivered as it references only the “commitments of more than $250 billion”. Actually delivery has only come from Japan, Norway, France, Canada, China and the United Kingdom, totalling about $195 billion. The US commitment of $100 billion has been agreed through the New Arrangements to Borrow, which requires additional measures to activate. The IMF has committed about $173 billion overall (including loans made before the crisis), but it had about $250 billion in available capital before the agreement to boost its resources. Thus, the boost in resources has not yet been used to support any developing countries.
And while the London Summit called for a “doubling of the IMF’s concessional lending capacity for low-income countries”, this has been reinterpreted to be a simple doubling of concessional lending year-on-year rather than the overall pot of resources available for such lending. The Fund announced in late July an increase in expected concessional lending to $4 billion a year in 2009 and 2010 from about $1.2 billion on 2008.
The commitments on issuing special drawing rights (SDRs, see Update 65), the IMF-created reserve asset, were the most tangible and successful, with full allocation of SDRs as per the G20 communiqué. This included the final ratification of the fourth amendment to the IMF Articles of Agreement, which provides for an extraordinary allocation of SDRs to countries that joined the IMF between 1981 and 2009. Still most of the new SDRs go to rich countries and no progress was made on a method of re-allocation.
Some World Bank changes left vague
While the Bank did raise lending from about $30 billion to $60 billion in the last fiscal year, there was no quantitative reporting on the take up of programmes oriented at social protection and low-income countries. The communiqué indicates that the Rapid Social Response Fund (see Update 65) was agreed, but fails to say how much was provided, likely due to very low take up of the facility.
A paper on increasing the financial capacity of the Bank through a capital increase is promised for the annual meetings, while the Bank is still “developing an approach” to let some low-income IDA-eligible countries borrow more money on IBRD terms usually reserved for middle-income countries. The progress report said that the IMF and World Bank boards were both reviewing the debt sustainability framework, though the IMF board had actually met on 31 August, prior to the G20 meeting. The IMF’s agreed changes were announced on 9 September.
On the promise of increasing trade finance by $250 billion, the G20 produces an unreferenced figure of $65 billion having been taken up, though the only actual programme cited is the one by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), which received commitments of just $7.75 billion (see Update 66).
The promised G20-chair review of the IFI’s role and responsibilities, which was supposed to be personally handled by British prime minister Gordon Brown, is reported to be in “consultation with the G20, external academics and LICs.” There was little to no discussion on the matter with civil society, despite repeated questioning of the prime minsters’ office by NGOs about how a consultation would be run. In the end the exercise was contracted out to London-based think-tank the Overseas Development Institute, which placed a limited discussion note on its website and failed to alert more than its database of researchers about the online discussion forum.
Financial and tax regulation still pending
Despite the hype on bonuses, the communiqué merely asked for “global standards on pay structure” and called on the Financial Stability Board (FSB) “to report to the Pittsburgh summit with detailed specific proposals for developing this framework.” FSB standards are not legally binding and there is no mention in the communiqué of the idea that there should be a cap on the total bonus pool. As the FSB in basically a forum for discussion among the G20 and other governments, countries that have opposed strong regulation on financial sector remuneration such as the UK, will work hard to water down any proposals.
On the fight against tax evasion, there was recognition of the need for “developing countries [to] benefit from the new tax transparency, possibly including through a multilateral instrument.” However the use of the word “multilateral” was left vague. The OECD which has been the lead analytical body on tax matters often uses ‘multilateral’ to mean merely a series of bilateral agreements.
The G20 had previously agreed that all systemically important financial institutions should be regulated, but had left the definition of systemically important to the IMF, Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the FSB. They promised to do it “by the next meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors.” However they failed to produce the guidelines on the definition by this early September finance ministers’ meeting. They have now promised to do it by November when the G20 finance ministers meet again.
Civil society exclusion
UK-based NGOs, the Jubilee Debt Campaign and Bretton Woods Project, had their accreditation for the G20 finance ministers’ meeting revoked by the UK Treasury just days before the summit. Representatives of both organisations had received notification of accreditation on Friday, 28 August. Both received emails late on 2 September saying “Unfortunately your accreditation has been withdrawn by HM Treasury. Please be aware that you will not be permitted access to the meeting venue or any of the press facilities.” No further information or reason was given for the withdrawal of accreditation for the NGOs.
The UK government also barred NGOs War on Want and the World Development Movement from attending the G20 London Summit in April. Nick Dearden, director of Jubilee Debt Campaign, said "It is outrageous that NGOs such as ours have again been banned again from attending G20 summits. The UK seems to be setting a precedent that it is acceptable to silence voices of dissent and prevent debate from being aired.” Both Bretton Woods Project and Jubilee Debt Campaign had been involved in a 4 September London action calling on the G20 to stop letting money rule the world on the day the summit commenced. UK NGOs Oxfam and ONE, which had not been listed as organisers of the action, were accredited and allowed into the summit venue.
Related resources
- G20 finance minsters and central bank governors communiqué London, 4-5 September 2009 Statement|G20|5 September 2009|PDF|URL
- G20 declaration on further steps to strengthen the financial system Meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors, London, 5 September 2009 Statement|G20|5 September 2009|PDF|URL
- Progress report on the actions of the London and Washington G20 summits Meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors, London, 5 September 2009 Statement|G20|5 September 2009|PDF|URL
- Oxfam reaction to G20 finance ministers meeting
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