Civil 20 outlines working plan for 2013
The Civil 20, represented by its annual co-chairs, recently addressed the G20 sherpas at the second sherpa meeting of the year on March 3-4. In their presentation, they outlined what they perceive the C20’s role in the G20 to be and what they plan to accomplish during the Russian presidency.
The C20 was established to foster a better dialogue between civil society groups and G20 leaders. It aims to make a substantive contribution to the formulation of policy decisions at the G20 by issuing recommendations to the leaders on policy issues deemed to be important to civil society interests.
In 2013, the C20 has established seven issue-specific working groups and one thematic task force based on Russia’s G20 agenda: food security, anti-corruption, post MDGs, financial inclusion and financial education, environmental sustainability and energy, jobs and employment, global financial architecture, and the Civil Task Force on Equity.
The C20’s work involves a multi-stage process that progresses throughout the year, and which includes crowd-sourcing and workshop consultations, drafting position papers, and finalizing and presenting the recommendations. Thus far, the C20 has held an opening conference on its “Vision for the Russian Presidency,” began its work on a report assessing G20 countries’ implementation of key decisions, launched its new “Dialogues” web-based consultation platform, and presented initial drafts of working group recommendations to the relevant G20 working groups. In April, these recommendations will be consolidated and presented to the sherpas and working groups; in September, they will be presented to the leaders at the summit.
In addition, the Civil 20 Summit in June will include the launch of a thematic report on equitable growth. The thematic report, to be titled “Sustained and Balanced Growth Requires Equitable Policies,” will analyze issues of inequality in G20 countries and offer some prospective solutions. The Task Force plans to articulate in the report the importance of redressing inequality to restoring stability and growth in G20 countries. The report will include a discussion of growing inequalities in the G20 and the rest of the world, policy options for addressing these issues, and an analysis of the G20’s potential role in facilitating these solutions. The Task Force plans to hold extensive consultations with relevant stakeholders to ensure that different perspectives on the subject are included in the final report.
Contributed by David Lenett, the international advocacy intern at InterAction.
