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The lead-up to the G8 and G20 meetings in Toronto week before last witnessed a slew of commentary, most detailing the demise of the G8 and the rise of its larger sibling, the G20. While this is not a new theme, it is a consistent one (Jeff Sachs asked the question on everyone’s mind in last year’s FT: “can a group this large actually manage the provision of global public goods without succumbing to free-riding and paralysing divisions?”). Indeed, what will be the priorities and mandates for distribution of the world’s resources, including commitments to global public health, if a newer, significantly expanded consortium becomes the big kid on the block?
The G8 summit feebly attempted to summon its longstanding commitment to health aid, while tacitly avoiding the ghost of commitments past (read: Gleneagles). Central to the G8 summit was a $5 billion over 5 years initiative for maternal and child health (MCH) led by Canadian Prime Minister (and summit host), Stephen Harper. The announcement, since dubbed the Muskoka Iniative for Maternal and Child Health and totaling $7.3 billion over 5 years, pledged funds to push forward progress on MDGs 4 and 5 which aim to reduce the mortality rates of mothers, newborns and children under-5. While the amount may appear dramatic for summit purposes, it’s only a little more than half the $12 billion advocated by the Women Deliver conference a week earlier to transform maternal and child health, and a third of the amount advocated by the United Nations. Cue the editorials: the Global and Mail pondered the diverting of funds from other initiatives and whether or not MCH was a “flavour of the month”; the Toronto Star noted that the G8 and G20 conferences collective cost $1.2 billion to stage, and that’s a weekend away for a handful of politicians and their handlers.
But I was more interested in Laurie Garrett’s analysis at CFR.org. She tied together several of the pieces that I think are present on everyone’s mind as the shift in power from G8 to G20 becomes reality. Aside from the overall question of whether or not the G20 will effectively guide global policy-making (without treaty signing authority), what will be the commitment of this new group to global development? It is clear that the G20 is a more inclusive group, including emerging economies for which development aid is a pressing concern. The G20 represents approximately 60% of the world’s population, compared with the G8’s signficantly smaller 13%. But, as Garrett notes, a chummy group of rich countries perhaps has the greater incentives to include aid to impoverished countries on its agenda, a phenomenon which she dubs “The Great Global Guilt Trip”. What happens to the flow of commitments when the group doesn’t feel guilty anymore?
One thing is clear: the G20’s agenda is full, and development aid, including that for global health, is nowhere on the shortlist of priorities. G20 leaders in Toronto steered clear of new commitments, made no progress on financial transations taxes (which could, in theory, fund further development initiatives), and remained stagnant on most promises for debt relief. If this is any indicator of future stewardship of the global aid agenda, the world’s impoverished are in for a rough transition.
