So, to pick up where I left off, I did promise a follow-up on the G20 meeting in April.  You don’t really remember it? Don’t worry: not that much ended up happening anyway.

Quick summary for those with not much time: The IMF won, ordinary people lost.

For a more in-depth analysis, the Bretton Woods Project has a good summary of what was decided (more money for the IMF and for its Special Drawing Rights) and and what was glossed over (real reform of the IMF, real money for the world’s poorest, and concrete commitments to slowing greenhouse emissions) at the meeting.

The Third World Network also offered some great analysis of the outcome – you can get a flavour of it with article titles like “A DEVELOPMENT-BLIND G20 OUTCOME THAT EMPOWERS AN UNREFORMED IMF” and “Reality behind the hype of the G20 Summit”

Online think tank Foreign Policy in Focus also featured a great analysis from  John Cavanagh and Robin Broad titled: “London Econ Summit: Born of Good Intentions, But Ends in Disastrous Results“.  Needless to say, they weren’t impressed at the outcomes either (note to John & Robin: don’t give away your punch-line in your title!)

And just released today (!) is a new report from organisations involved in the Put People First alliance in the UK, which finds that progress at the April G20 was insufficient to create “transformative” economic change.  The report argues that G20 leaders strengthened  institutions like the IMF which hace been responsible for overseeing the policies that caused the global financial crisis in the first place. But luckily there are a variety of positive recommendations for changes that governments should make at the next G20 meeting (in November), in areas like

• Delivering democratic governance
• Delivering justice and ending global poverty and inequality
• Creating a safer climate and a green economy

You can download the full report from the Put People First website here.

Please leave a comment if you’ve seen some other, incisive analysis of the meeting….

Update: Just remembered: if you want more analysis, check out G20 Voice, an initiative of Oxfam GB bringing together 50 bloggers to analyse the G20 meeting.

If you haven’t been following the discussion, below is a collection of some of the best or most important reports and articles I’ve seen in the lead-up to the G20 meeting, including the various issues around the financial/economic crisis which will be discussed there, and the various governments and non-government bodies that have opinions about it all.  In the next few days I’ll also post some of the best analysis following the summit about what gets decided.

Enjoy:

Background:

- Nobel Prize Winner and former World Bank cheif economist Joseph Stiglitz has been leading a commission which has been looking at hw to reform the global economic system.  The grandly named Commission of Experts of the President of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System released its report about a fortnight ago.  The Commission has made some exciting, far-reaching and possibly (hopefully!) world-changing recommendations for new global institutions.  You can read the full report here (PDF), or a summary article from Stiglitz in The Guardian here: Reform is needed. Reform is in the air. We can’t afford to fail. There’s more extended coverage of the report from the Third World Network here and here.

- The Africa Progress Panel is Chaired By Kofi Annan, and brings together a variety of political leaders and experts on development including Michel Camdessus (former Managing Director, IMF), Goodall Gondwe (Minister of Finance, Malawi), Gilbert Houngbo (Prime Minister, Togo), Trevor Manuel (Minister of Finance, South Africa), Simon Maxwell (Director, Overseas Development Institute), Festus Mogae (former President of Botswana), Linah Mohohlo (Governor, Bank of Botswana), Todd Moss (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development), Benno Ndulu (Governor, Central Bank of Tanzania) and Ngaire Woods (Director of the Global Economic Governance Programme, University of Oxford).  The panel has just issued its report ahead of the G20 meeting, warning that “reform of global governance will fail if poorest countries are sidelined.”  The report, New Multilateralism is available here.

- From 25 to 27 of March, the UN held an Interactive Thematic Dialogue of the UN General Assembly on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development at its headquarters in New York.  The Dialogue brought together many of the key players in the international development world – you can find a good summary of the meeting here, or read some of the more in-depth reports, including from UN Conference on Trade And Development, the World Bank, and the International Labour Organisation, or watch some of the hours of video on the Dialogue home page, including this excellent one of Joseph Stiglitz’s presentation (Real Player software needed).

What should be done (articles from the Guardian):

• Jeffrey Sachs, the Earth Institute, Columbia University; Nariman Behravesh, IHS Global Insight; Gerard Lyons, Standard Chartered; Heiner Flassbeck, UNCTAD; Alistair Milne, Cass Business School; Kevin Watkins, UN: various responses.

• Mark Weisbrot: The G20 should end rich-country rule

• Howard Davies: More & Better Regulation

• John Kay: Restore Narrow Banking

• Aditya Chakrabortty: Give up our blind faith in economic growth

• Jeremy Seabrook: an opportunity to redress the inequalities that exist between rich and poor

• Will Hutton: Everything must be re-examined.

On the Summit:

• From the Bretton Woods Project, read an overview of official standpoints and proposals of participating countries ahead of the London summit (PDF)

• Or check out the leaked G20 draft communiqué.

• Or an interesting historical perspective from Dani Rodrik.

On the Protests (from London’s Guardian – again!):

• We were right the whole time!

• Some background

• Coverage from the weekend protests

• Perspectives from various activists

• That spoof of the Financial Times

More places to look for more analysis of the crisis and the G20 summit:

• Rethinking FInance: Alternative Voices for a New Financial Architecture

Phew!

The debate has 5 themes

• Development (Moderator: Dani Rodrik)
• Macro (Moderator: Philip Lane)
• Regulation (Moderator: Luigi Zingales)
• Institutional reform (Moderator: Francesco Giavazzi)
• Open markets (Moderator: Richard Baldwin)

While much of the commentary the so far is fairly conservative, Rodrik provides the lead commentary for the Development section, and it’s definitely worth a read.  Rodrik uses the opportunity to put forward an ambitious agenda for global economic policy reform, including:

• Reform of the lending policies of the IMF & WB
• A crack-down on tax havens and tax evasions by corporations and the rich in the West
• A Tobin Tax on currency speculation which would raise billions of dollars which could be spent on development assistance, green technology promotion and fighting tropical diseases.

(Let’s hope somebody reads it and takes notice!)

Among other articles on the site that are worth a read is the response to Rodrik from Nancy Birsall from the Centre for Global Development which argues that before any serious economic policy changes (such as those Rodrik suggests) happen at the global level, there first needs to be reform at the IMF and World Bank – giving developing countries a real say for the first time.  Birdsall says that this will only happen if developing countries collectively put their feet down and demand it.

But the big question in response to this is: will the US government – which maintains a veto over the decisions of these institutions and has done so for 60 years since their inception – relax its hold and allow this to happen?  Ultimately, the answer lies in President Obama’s hands….