GCAP-SENCA - Civil Society Statement for the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh

Civil Society Statement for the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh

Thursday, 10 September 2009

What the Pittsburgh Summit Needs to Do
At the same time
Let’s Change the World for Good

Enough is enough. It is time to change the world for good. It is time to invest in people. Because for people and their families to live in a clean climate, eat, be healthy, work and live free from economic insecurity isn’t too much to ask. The choice is to change things for good or to keep repeating the same mistakes again and again. We must not go back to business as usual.

Over the past year, the U.S. and European governments have committed over 45 times the sums they spent on development assistance in 2007 to failing banks and other financial institutions. Simultaneously, the 5 months since the London G20 have seen world poverty continue to soar with almost 1 billion people going hungry every day. If urgent and concrete action is not taken, it is estimated that a further 100 million people, mostly those living in countries in the global south will have fallen into extreme poverty by the end of 2009.

We call on the G20 governments meeting in Pittsburgh, 24-25 September and other countries to tackle inequality between and within nations, and join us in supporting these concrete steps on the path towards changing the world for good.

Real Economic Recovery
G20 Leaders must support for expansionary recovery programmes in developing countries by:

• Honouring all 2005 Gleneagles Commitments and the London G20 commitments by presenting a timebound plan for their delivery at the 2010 G8 summit in Huntsville, Canada, especially on aid and development without conditionalities. • Delivering resources to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and on the UN commitment to allocate 0.7 percent of Gross National Income (GNI) to Official Development Assistance (ODA). • Expediting debt cancellation for MDRI-eligible countries, stopping debt payments from countries in crisis, committing to expand debt cancellation to all IDA-only countries including countries whose debt prevent them provided for their people’s basic needs as well as allowing for the transfer and reallocation of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocations endorsed in London to countries in need without interest cost or IMF policy conditionality.

Employment: Decent Jobs for all
G20 Leaders must endorse further internationally coordinated fiscal action that devotes a larger parts of recovery packages to active policies to support employment.
• The G20 must honour the London G20 Summit commitments to “restore confidence, growth and jobs” by creating a G20 working group on the employment impact of the crisis.
• Endorse the Global Jobs Pact adopted at the 2009 ILO conference by governments, employers and trade unions.
• Reduce the risk of wage deflation and support investments in essential services—health, education, water, sanitation—and human capital through education and training to facilitate rapid re-entry into the job market.

Accountability: Fair governance in the global economy
G20 Leaders must support fundamental governance reform of the World Bank and IMF by:
• Demanding that reform is guided by public accountability with open, timely and in-depth civil society consultation at global and national levels that includes parity in voice and vote in decision making, the inclusion of women and others most affected by the crises, and greater leadership from developing countries, while insisting that policy space is given and conditionalities removed to allow countries to stimulate their economies.
• Enacting effective domestic and international financial service regulation including a review and repairof the WTO limits on financial service regulation.
• Taking measures to prevent the activities of vulture funds, including changing national laws in G20 countries to outlaw profiteering by vulture funds of countries that have received debt cancellation.
• Ending protectionist measures that harm developing countries and restore the pro-development criteria originally attached to the Doha Round talks at the WTO and other fora such as EPAs and bilateral treaties to achieve agreements that fully address developing countries’ needs.
• Supporting a Global Charter for Sustainable Economic Activity that incorporates a strong social, environment, labour, and development standards and a more democratic and inclusive G192.

Climate: Build a Green Economy
G20 Leaders must pave the way for a Copenhagen agreement that includes:
• A massive investment, in addition to ODA, of at least US$150 billion annually by 2020 to support the development of green economies, ‘just transition’ strategies that emphasise employment in green jobs for displaced workers, and binding commitments based on the principle of shared but differentiated responsibilities according to each country’s economic and social development.
• Closing the resource gap to provide the $2 billion urgently needed for planning and capacity building through the Least Developed Countries Fund for the implementation of “National Adaptation Programmes of Action.”
• Cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent by the year 2050 relative to 1990 levels, and by 25-40 percent by 2020 in Annex I countries. CO2 reductions must be measurable, verifiable, and reportable.
• Support for COP governance of the UNFCCC funding mechanisms, the creation of an enhanced mechanism that will be charged with leading climate finance for developing countries, and identifying new, predictable and adequate sources of public finance through means such as auctioning emission allowances, international aviation and shipping mechanisms and international assessments. • Commit to investing in women as one of the most effective ways to advance sustainable development and fight climate change devastation.

Justice: Ending hunger and fighting disease
G20 leaders must make good on their commitments by
• The G8 member countries of the G20 must honour their commitment to invest 20 billion dollars in tackling the food crisis as promised at the meeting of the G8 in Italy in 2009.
• All G20 members must make and honour their financial commitments to fighting infectious disease including the goal of Universal Access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010 by ensuring the availability of additional resources urgently needed to turn back the epidemic by 2015. G20 nations must join other countries to increase contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria to enable it to mount the credible response necessary to combat the three epidemics.
• All G20 members should join the G8 countries in affirming their commitment to the health related MDGs through (i) political and community leadership and engagement; (ii) a quality package of evidencebased interventions through effective health systems; (iii) (iii) substantially reducing child and maternal mortality by removing barriers to access for all women and children and providing free care at the point of use, (iv) skilled health workers; (v) accountability for results

Tax cooperation
G20 Leaders must take action to improve the integrity of tax systems by:
• Insisting that the International Accounting Standards Board adopt uniform country reporting obligations and supporting the designation of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Tax Matters as an inter governmental body.
• Undertaking progressive tax reform including a comprehensive multilateral agreement for the automatic exchange of tax information and access for developing countries to the OECD’s processes, while putting an end to tax havens

At the G20 summit meeting on 2 April in London, leaders of G20 countries said they would do “whatever is necessary” to “build an inclusive green and sustainable recovery” to the current economic crisis.

Their statement, signed by all G20 country leaders, pledged: “We are determined not only to restore growth but to lay the foundation for a fair and sustainable world economy. We recognise that the current crisis has a disproportionate impact on the vulnerable in the poorest countries and recognise our collective responsibility to mitigate the social impact of the crisis to minimise long-lasting damage to global potential.”

We, the undersigned, call on you to make good on your commitments and change the world for good:ü Jubilee USA

ü International Coalition on AIDS and Development (ICAD

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