BERLIN
This weekend’s Rome summit of the G20, which brings together the world’s top 20 economies, will focus on fighting climate change, the coronavirus’ continuing fallout, taxation of the digital economy, and tensions related to trade and geopolitics.
World leaders will bring the idea of inclusive and sustainable economic recovery to the table while trying to tackle inequality in the global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
The world has faced unique difficulties in 2020 and 2021, as the pandemic damaged the world economy while problems such as climate change and inequality grew worse.
At the summit, the G20 countries, which make up 80% of the world economy and 75% of the global trade, will be gathering for the 16th time.
In addition to discussions of economic and financial problems, meetings are expected to discuss the immigration crisis, vaccination issues, and geopolitical tensions.
G20 members include Turkey, the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Canada, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Indonesia, India, Russia, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and the EU bloc.
Italy, as the G20 term chair, also invited representatives of Azerbaijan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, the Philippines, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Singapore.
Reforms to global institutions
"A sustainable, just, inclusive and resilient recovery should be the target of all of us,” said Valeria Giannotta, an Italian scholar.
“In order to get it, we need a common effort of all countries and international organizations."
She added that in recent years the multilateral system has unfortunately been quite weak and ineffective.
"Hence, first of all, it is necessary to reform some of them, such as the WTO (World Trade Organization), aiming at strengthening global governance in the area of finance and economics,” she said, also mentioning reforming the World Health Organization (WHO), “in order to be fully equipped to respond to future pandemics."
Saying that the global system has changed since 1945 but that the current institutional organization does not reflect this, she praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s slogan pushing to reform the composition of the UN Security Council and its five permanent members.
"President Erdogan rightly underlines that 'the world is bigger than five.' This is also the attitude of Italy," she said.
She added that this is a difficult target, not just because it encompasses a deep reform process, but also because a single veto on the council can block anything.
On the sidelines of the G20 there will be important bilateral meeting between Erdogan and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, she said, and noted: "It will be their first meeting since the (pandemic) crisis, which unexpectedly erupted last March.
"On the table will be key issues such as bilateral relations, as well as the European Union, economic cooperation, and regional issues."
Dan Cuiriak, director and principal of Canadian-based Ciuriak Consulting, said the pandemic exposed the extent to which governments lack control of events.
"We are in a fourth wave” of COVID-19, he said. “New variants are emerging continuously. We have the best science ever and yet this doesn’t translate into effective governance.”
How can the G20 talk about it helping if governments can't effectively implement what they commit to, he asked.
He also stressed: "The container (shipping) problem has spiraled out of control despite the fact that we have the most sophisticated logistics capacity the world has ever had.”
China is the most advanced country in building renewable energy capacity and probably has the most effective ability to implement government policy, yet it has not been able to do something as relatively simple as manage down coal usage without plunging into a power supply crisis, he added.
*Writing by Gokhan Ergocun in Istanbul
