With its own memories of the development experience still fresh, South Korea is well placed to broaden the G20's usual scope
When Seoul hosts the G20 in November, development issues will be squarely on the agenda for the first time since the top steering group for the global economy was created in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, according to Ho-young Ahn, South Korea's ambassador at large for the G20.
Ambassador Ahn spoke at a Center for Global Development (CGD) policy breakfast held last week in New York ahead of the UN Summit on the millennium development goals. The breakfast, hosted by the CGD president Nancy Birdsall, included senior officials from the World Bank; the African Development Bank; US government agencies; other leading bilateral aid donors; and the next two G20 host nations, France (2011) and Mexico (2012). Also present were several prominent development economists.
Korea's push to make development issues a central part of the G20 discussions, which has been agreed by other G20 participants, was well received by those at the breakfast.
The move marks an important step in the evolution of the G20. The G7 (and then G8) included a substantial development component in its deliberations, at least in terms of aid. As a more inclusive group, the G20 is well placed as a high-level forum for leaders to seek consensus on a range of urgent development policy challenges. But the group's origins in the financial crisis, and the fact that finance ministries continue to shape the agendas, mean that that until now meetings have focused almost exclusively on finance ministry type issues and co-ordinating responses to the crisis. These are important, to be sure, but just one sub-set of the many issues that matter to poor people in the developing world.
Korea is the fourth country to host a G20 summit and the first outside the north Atlantic, Anglo-Saxon club. (Previous meetings were held in Washington, London, Pittsburgh, and Toronto.) Korea is also unique in having recently and quickly made the transition to developed country status. Memories of the development experience are still fresh, including among the senior Korean officials involved in preparations for the summit.
Efforts to place development policy firmly on the G20 agenda received a boost in Toronto, when the participants agreed to create a G20 development policy working group, which has since been co-chaired by Korea and South Africa. Korea has used that group to float ideas, including an eight-pillar development agenda and multi-year action plan.
Participants in the CGD breakfast said that France and Mexico both favour including development on the G20 agenda, which increases the likelihood that Korea's initiative will stick. They also had plenty of ideas for inclusion in the G20 development agenda and the multi-year action plan. Among them: co-ordinated action to help developing countries recover stolen assets; assistance in retrieving money looted by corrupt rulers and sent to overseas bank accounts; and a commitment to unilaterally grant low-income countries true duty-free, quota-free market access, outside of the Doha trade negotiations process, as a boost to development.
Senior Korean officials appear to be thinking carefully about strengthening the G20's ability to follow through on whatever commitments are made. This week, Sakong Il, the chairman of the presidential committee for the G20 summit, endorsed the idea that the G20 should become a permanent institution with a fixed secretariat.According to the Korea Times, he welcomed the idea, first raised by President Nicholas Sarkozy of France in August, and said that formal discussions would begin in November, following a successful Seoul summit.
The CGD will be watching the run-up to the Seoul summit with great interest. Korea's efforts to elevate the importance of development in the G20 deliberations are in keeping with ideas that Nancy has been advocating for a while, not least in thestatement she released ahead of the Toronto summit.
For me personally it's fascinating, but not surprising, to watch Korea step forward and take on this global leadership role. I spent two exciting years as a reporter in the country in 1987/88, a period that coincided with labour and student unrest, Korea's transition from military dictatorship to democratic rule, and the successful hosting of the Seoul Olympics. Some Korean officials are now saying that the G20 summit will be an even bigger deal in terms of raising the country's global profile. That may be a bit of hyperbole. But if Korea succeeds in getting the new G20 to tackle development issues in a serious way, the summit could surely outrank the Olympics in terms of lasting global impact.
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