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.

Now China has taken the lead, calling for a new global currency which seems to closely resemble the Bancor – JM Keynes’ 1940s proposal for a global reserve currency to solve large global economic credit & debt imbalances.

Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan released an essay on Monday calling for a similar system:

“A super-sovereign reserve currency managed by a global institution could be used to both create and control global liquidity.  This will significantly reduce the risks of a future crisis and enhance crisis management capability.”

It is of course an excellent idea – if only the US had agreed to Keynes’ proposal in 1944 in the first place!

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….

But Reuters is reporting that Asian countries hit hard by the current financial crisis will have little choice but to continue to seek IMF loans. Reuters thinks that

one reason why more ambitious ideas such as a regional crisis fund to bail out banks or invest in equities proposed by the Philippines and Thailand have come to nothing is a reluctance of richer nations such as Japan to lend money without strong IMF-style safeguards.

I guess we’ll see who’s right come February.

And for an amazing insight into just how destructive these economic policies have been for ordinary South African’s there’s an extraordinary article in Harpers Magazing this month entitled Mandela’s Smile. (It’s not specifically on the issue of globalisation, but it gives a heartfelt perspectives on the ravages of free-market economic fundementalism, as practiced in South Africa.)

We need the World Bank, we need the International Monetary Fund, we need all the big foundations, we need all the governments to admit that for 30 years we all blew it, including me, when I was president.  We blew it. We were wrong to believe that food is like some other product in international trade. And we all have to go back to a more environmentally responsible, sustainable form of agriculture.

Frankly, this is an extraordinary admission from someone like Clinton, and completely vindicates the work of so many organisations around the world which have worked tirelessly for years making this same point, but to governments which have refused to listen.

Why has the media almost completely failed to report such a revolutionary statement from the ex-leader of the world?

UPDATE: The link above to the UN report is dead, but the full text of Clinton’s original speech can be found at the Clinton Foundation site here.