Ottawa, Canada – May 5, 2015 – Developed under the joint responsibility of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and The Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) as convenors of the T20 Ottawa Conference held May 3-5, 2015, the following summary is offered on the outcomes of the meeting and recommendations for the G20 ahead of the G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey in November of this year.
The conference, co-hosted by CIGI and TEPAV, focused on Turkey’s G20 agenda and, more specifically, international monetary and financial cooperation. Among the many observations and perspectives presented during the meeting, the following is a summary of key recommendations the T20 convenors submit for consideration by the 2015 G20 Presidency in Turkey:
- Enhance inclusivity of G20 membership: Assess the potential for expansion of G20 representation by emerging regions, including Africa.
- Broaden the G20’s role and agenda to address current and emerging global issues: Expand the G20’s leadership role, raison d'être and priorities to address more universal issues with potential for wide scale economic implications, while simultaneously maintaining a realistic level of ambition to support acutely relevant challenges in the world today. Examples of priorities under an expanded agenda include:
- Climate change – addressing environmental and sustainability risks through financial regulatory reforms.
- Internet governance – to address global economic impacts of cybercrime on economies.
- Humanitarian issues and the role of multilateral organizations.
- Strengthen multilateral institutions:
- Implement the 2010 IMF reform package to give more voice to developing and underrepresented economies that has to be ratified by the U.S. Congress. Consider an international treaty for the Financial Stability Board to make it more effective and legitimate.
- Focus on mobilizing and supporting multilateral international institutions, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), World Health Organization (WHO) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that can play a leadership role to address global priorities and crises with potentially far reaching impacts, such as the Ebola outbreak, climate change, and Mediterranean refugee crises.
- Formalize the role and expectations of the T20: The T20 will proceed with depth and determination in its role as a G20 agenda-setting “steering committee” and “global ideas bank” that works to:
- Bring forward meaningful and informed recommendations that help shape the agendas of the G20 annual presidencies, and ultimately the Annual Leaders’ summits.
- Help bridge the gap between the technical governance community and the general public in the highlighting and prioritizing of economic challenges and opportunities with global impact for G20 consideration.
- Hold the G20 accountable for its annual commitments through vigilant observation and rigorous research.
Other priorities highlighted by the T20 group:
- An internationally-agreed framework to manage severe sovereign debt crises
- Global imbalances and the role of central banks and financial regulatory agencies in international macroeconomic and financial cooperation
- Completing and enhancing international financial reforms, including too-big-to-fail, shadow banking and derivatives markets
- Global implementation of, and the sourcing of high quality projects for, the G20 Brisbane 2014 commitment to deliver two more percentage points in global growth by 2018
- Addressing the G20’s partial duplication of roles with international bodies such as the IMF’s International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC)
- Enhancing special drawing rights in a reformed international monetary system
The T20 Ottawa Conference was conducted under Chatham House rule, emphasizing inclusiveness, with no comments officially attributed to individual participants.
Next Steps
CIGI will produce a final report by the end of May 2015 on the final outcomes; it will be made available at www.cigionline.org
In November, TEPAV will host a T20 summit in Antalya, at the margins of the G20 Leaders Summit, to bring together thought leaders from around the world on issues related to global governance, and to launch a Global Policy Dialogue Platform.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Tammy Bender, Communications Manager, CIGI
Tel: +1-519-573-2703, Email: [email protected]
The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) is an independent, non-partisan think tank on international governance. Led by experienced practitioners and distinguished academics, CIGI supports research, forms networks, advances policy debate and generates ideas for multilateral governance improvements. Conducting an active agenda of research, events and publications, CIGI’s interdisciplinary work includes collaboration with policy, business and academic communities around the world. CIGI was founded in 2001 by Jim Balsillie, then co-CEO of Research In Motion (BlackBerry), and collaborates with and gratefully acknowledges support from a number of strategic partners, in particular the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario. For more information, please visit www.cigionline.org.
The Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) is a non-partisan, non-profit think tank based in Ankara, Turkey. It was founded in 2004 by a group representing business, government, and academia who believe in the power of knowledge and ideas in shaping Turkey's future. Aiming to contribute to public policy design, TEPAV seeks to enrich the knowledge content in Turkey's discussions. What sets TEPAV apart is its active involvement in economic and political development. TEPAV carries out projects, which actively contribute to economic development and bring together key policy and opinion makers to tackle the problems of the day. TEPAV chairs the Think 20 network in 2015. For more information, please visit www.tepav.org.tr.
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