{"id":26251,"date":"2023-12-04T12:18:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T17:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/?p=26251"},"modified":"2023-12-04T12:18:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T17:18:00","slug":"what-to-expect-brazils-g20-presidency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/2023\/12\/04\/what-to-expect-brazils-g20-presidency\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Expect: Brazil’s G20 Presidency"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Photo by Gabriel Santos via Unsplash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Tim Hirschel-Burns<\/a><\/p>\n

On December 1, 2023, Brazil took over the presidency of the Group of 20 (G20) from India (the recent addition<\/a> of the African Union as a permanent member means the forum has 21 members, but for now it\u2019s still being called the G20). Brazil\u2019s presidency<\/a>\u2014its first time heading the organization\u2014will include over 100 meetings spread throughout the year, culminating in the Leaders\u2019 Summit in Rio de Janeiro on November 18-19, 2024.<\/p>\n

The year 2024 will mark the third in a four-year run of major emerging economies holding the presidency: Indonesia in 2022, India in 2023, Brazil in 2024 and South Africa in 2025, before the United States will end that streak in 2026. Given that the G20 has become one of the world\u2019s preeminent fora for global economic governance\u2014if not a fully inclusive one\u2014this run marks an opportunity to center the needs of the Global South at a time where they face acute challenges including: high interest rates, debt distress<\/a>, climate impacts and geopolitical challenges. India\u2019s presidency made some progress<\/a> in this direction, including pushing forward climate ambition and advancing the evolution of the multilateral development banks (MDBs).<\/p>\n

Brazilian President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva has positioned himself as a unifying global leader\u2014and right now, the world could use one. With a backdrop of major global challenges and significant division, what should the G20 focus on in 2024? Three issues stand out: debt, climate finance and global economic governance reform.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s priorities in a complex geopolitical environment<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Brazil\u2019s motto for its G20 presidency is \u201cbuilding a fair world and a sustainable planet,\u201d reflecting the fact that while Brazil is interested in addressing climate change, the country also hopes to tackle a broad suite of challenges that Global South countries have faced in recent years. This focus comes through in the three priorities that President Lula laid out in a speech<\/a> at the closing of the G20 New Delhi Summit: \u201c1) social inclusion and the fight against hunger, 2) energy transition and sustainable development in its three aspects (social, economic and environmental) and 3) reform of global governance institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advancing these priorities will require managing intense divisions among the G20\u2019s membership. Disagreements over Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine repeatedly prevented the G20 from releasing joint statements, making India\u2019s ability to achieve a leaders\u2019 level declaration<\/a> during its presidency count as an accomplishment. President Lula already experienced this tense context when he received significant backlash for saying<\/a> that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin would not be arrested if he were to attend the summit in Rio de Janeiro, despite the International Criminal Court\u2019s warrant against Putin. President Lula walked back<\/a> that statement several days later.<\/p>\n

Although these geopolitical divisions would create difficulties for any leader, President Lula may be well placed to bridge divides. He has sought to preserve Brazil\u2019s nonalignment<\/a> and has kept an open door for engaging with a wide range of countries. This has helped position Brazil as a leader<\/a> in the Global South, and President Lula has played an important role in new initiatives like an alliance<\/a> of rainforest nations and the expanded Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa bloc (BRICS<\/a>)<\/span>. In addition to South-South cooperation, President Lula has collaborated with Global North countries, as in the creation of a new partnership<\/a> with the US to advance labor rights.<\/p>\n

The timing of next year\u2019s G20 summit during a packed November could either add to its challenges or\u2014with luck and leadership\u2014catalyze ambitious multilateral action. The US elections will take place in early November. The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) will convene soon after, with a New Collective Quantified Goal<\/a> to replace the 2009 $100 billion climate finance promise set to be agreed. Brazil\u2019s G20 summit will overlap with COP29. The negotiations at COP29 will help set the stage for another major event in Brazil in 2025: COP30 hosted in the Amazonian city of Bel\u00e9m. South Africa\u2019s G20 presidency will overlap with COP30 and will likely advance action on Global South priority issues, and the US\u2019s 2026 G20 presidency could provide an occasion for an increase in Global North action on issues like a World Bank capital increase. If\u2014and that\u2019s a big if\u2014things fall into place, Brazil\u2019s G20 presidency could be the start of a three-year period that puts global climate and development action in a much better place.<\/p>\n

Key areas for the G20 to tackle<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Debt will have to be high on the G20\u2019s agenda. The G20 showed leadership in creating the Common Framework to help countries restore debt sustainability. However, the Common Framework has proved too slow<\/a> and to provide insufficient relief<\/a>, and the Common Framework\u2019s legitimacy is hanging by a thread after a deal to restructure Zambia\u2019s debt broke down<\/a> because official creditors objected to a lack of comparability of treatment with private creditors. A better debt restructuring framework would provide a debt service standstill for countries applying for debt treatment, ensure private creditors participate fairly and transparently, and integrate climate and development goals. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) review of its Debt Sustainability Framework for Low-Income Countries, which takes place during Brazil\u2019s G20 presidency, offers an additional opportunity to help turn the tide against high levels<\/a> of debt distress.<\/p>\n

Second, the G20 will have to increase the level of financing available to address climate change. The G20\u2019s commitment in this year\u2019s New Delhi Declaration<\/a> to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 has helped elevate this goal as a major negotiating point at COP28. However, this goal cannot be achieved without adequate financing. President Lula will recognize this point, having said<\/a> that a key guideline of Brazil\u2019s G20 presidency is that \u201cthere\u2019s no point in agreeing on the best public policies if we don\u2019t allocate necessary resources for their implementation.\u201d Brazil is likely to review climate vertical funds like the Global Climate Fund during its presidency, and this is another area where it is vital to ensure promises don\u2019t go unfunded: this year\u2019s Green Climate Fund replenishment fell short<\/a> of its target. The protection of tropical forests<\/a> is expected to be another of Brazil\u2019s climate finance priorities.<\/p>\n

Third, Brazil\u2019s G20 presidency provides an opportunity to make global economic governance more representative. The IMF\u2019s 16th<\/sup> General Review of Quotas will almost certainly fail<\/a> to increase emerging market and developing countries\u2019 share of overall quotas. President Lula has criticized<\/a> this system, including how it results in providing more Special Drawing Rights to richer economies than poorer ones. The IMF has committed<\/a> to making progress on quota realignment by June 2025, and Brazil\u2019s G20 presidency can help ensure that resistant member countries do not block the IMF from following through on its promise. Brazil can also advance the Indian G20 presidency\u2019s work in strengthening MDBs, including by carrying out the roadmap laid out in the Independent Expert Group\u2019s two<\/a> volume<\/a>-report. Not only can MDBs contribute much-needed additional finance\u2014including concessional finance\u2014to advance climate and development goals, but the capital increase process opens the door to reform unbalanced governance at the MDBs.<\/p>\n

Making meaningful progress on these three fronts would go a long way to steadying the ship against a polycrisis that has hit Global South countries hardest. While it won\u2019t be easy, Brazil\u2019s G20 presidency could be a key inflection point.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Never miss an update: <\/em>Subscribe to the Global Economic Governance Newsletter.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Hirschel-Burns On December 1, 2023, Brazil took over the presidency of the Group of 20 (G20) from India (the recent addition of the African Union as a permanent member means the forum has 21 members, but for now it\u2019s still being called the G20). Brazil\u2019s presidency\u2014its first time heading the organization\u2014will include over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19363,"featured_media":26252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[398,66,55,156,77,144,1074],"tags":[3318,538,4031,1117,1073,3822,4034,592,471,3387,4033,4032,2554,3908,2995,513,772,4035,2609,1350,871,3907],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19363"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26251"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26266,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26251\/revisions\/26266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}