Development must be at core of G20 agenda

LONDON - The urgent need to address global poverty and the threat of climate change may be overshadowed by the financial crisis engulfing the world’s richest nations, a British aid agency said.

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development warned the leaders of the Group of 20 nations that they will perpetuate the global economic crisis if they fail to put international development “at the core” of their agenda at their Nov. 3-4 meeting in Cannes, France.

In a six-page briefing paper released Oct. 31, CAFOD, the aid agency of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said the failure to address development would result in the poverty gap widening and economic woes becoming the norm.

“A year ago in Seoul, G20 leaders set themselves the task of reining in an overinflated, volatile and socially useless financial sector and finding the urgent, crucial funds required to reduce poverty and help the world’s poorest countries deal with the impact of climate change,” said Christina Weller, CAFOD’s economic analyst, in the statement.

“Those goals have been shamefully cast aside in the face of the global downturn, as G20 leaders focus on preserving their own futures, not safeguarding the world’s.

“New ideas to find urgent, crucial funds for climate change adaptation and mitigation and poverty reduction risk being reduced to mealy mouthed compromises as the narrow national commercial interests of finance and transport industries hold sway,” Weller added.

Although the development agenda was recognized as a “vital plank” for creating balance, sustainable and stable growth, said Weller, governments were likely to focus their efforts almost exclusively on stabilizing global markets following the financial shock of having to bail out Greece from its debts.

The impact on Europe has been so grave that the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has predicted that economic growth will come to a virtual halt in countries that use the euro in 2012. On Oct. 31, it called for “bold action” at the summit to avert the threat of the crisis escalating into a global disaster.

But Weller said that as global commodity speculation threatens food security, “leaders propose to do little more than to improve transparency in commodity markets, not assume their responsibility to intervene in markets in the interests of the poorest people.”

Instead, CAFOD wants world leaders to hold transnational corporations accountable and to keep in mind the necessity of improving financial transparency overall.