Initial responses to the G20 (Click for full post)
For the past few weeks, Christians have been praying -- and advocating -- for the G20 to strive for justice. 
- More than 1,500 Christians attended the "Put People First" church service on 28 March at Central Hall, Westminster, where the Bishop of London, Chri stine Allen (speech on the Progress io website, see below), Joel Edwards, and Fr Joe Komakoma offered much food for thought.
- Micah Challenge and the Church of England, among others, offered prayer resou rces, and in Micah's case, a prayer blog.
- The Pope sent a letter to Gordon Brown;
- The Archbishop of Canterbury offered a request for an economics that took account of both limits to material resources and environmental costs,
- A large group of UK religious leaders offered a general call to remember the moral basis of economics and to pay attention to the needs of the poor;
- Many of the UK churches offered quite a detailed submission "towards a sustainable and equitable reordering of global economic relationships," and
- The development agencies CAFOD, Progressio and Tearfund offered a joint theological rationale for their policy requests around global justice.
Now, as the "London Summit" finishes, what has happened?
In a sense it's too early to say. The key to any agreement always lies in its implementation.
But even allowing for that, two broad shifts seem to have emerged:
- The G20, with its inclusion of emerging economies such as Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa, is in the ascendant over the G8. The emerging economies are finally recognised as being necessary parties to any global economic discussions.
- The initiative has shifted from those who favour the type of unregulated free-market capitalism promoted under the Washington Consensus. The shift may not be quite as dramatic as was suggested by the Prime Minister in his address at St Paul's on Tuesday -- "this old world of the old Washington consensus is over" -- but the shift in the tone of discussions is mirrored in a new willingness to consider regulation which would have been unthinkable a few years ago
In terms of particulars, there's a general sense that some progress was made -- particularly in the way the group finally began to address the issue of tax havens, in the commitment to begin reform of the governance structures of the IMF and World Bank, and in the amount of funding made available for low-income countries. But there were some critical omissions -- most notably around climate issues and the role of the UN -- and there are some quite serious reservations about the ways in which the funding for low-income countries will be administered through the IMF and the extent of the action on tax havens. So please continue to pray as the process moves on to the next stage.
We'll hope to offer links to some theological reflections and more detailed policy analyses later. But in the meantime, below are some links to the communique and to various organisations' and individuals' responses to it, highlighting those that focus on particular areas.
The Communique itself: http://www.londonsummit.gov.uk/resources/en/news/15766232/communique-020409
Three general responses:
An initial response (with more to follow) from the Put People First coalition: http://www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk/2009/04/put-people-first-reaction-to-the-london-summit/
An initial, and then a fuller response from Duncan Green, Oxfam GB's Head of Research: http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/
An initial response from Progressio, which we can't link to because (for some reason) our email rejects it as spam . . . but which you can find on their website, which is just their name.org.uk
A response from Tearfund that focuses on the lack of any commitments on climate issues and the need for a low-carbon economy: http://www.tearfund.org/News/Press+releases/G20+fumbles+chance+to+help+poor+and+climate.htm
A first response from Eurodad that focuses on the funding and governance issues: http://www.eurodad.org/whatsnew/articles.aspx?id=3539
A response from Christian Aid which notes the need for the new IMF funding to be free of economic policy conditionality, and asks for further progress on tax havens: http://www.christianaid.org.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/april2009/g20-summit-response.aspx
A fairly detailed response to the tax haven proposals by Richard Murphy, a specialist in this area: http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/
A short paper from the Bretton Woods Project which explains Special Drawing Rights, a key element of the new IMF package: http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-564135
A response from the Trade Justice Movement that argues that the "commitment" of the G20 to restarting the Doha round is misguided, which can be read in concert with ODI's assessment of why the Doha Round should actually be a low priority and the FT's assessment that the "commitment" should not be taken particularly seriously.