The evolving G20 system

This chapter surveys and comments on the following components of the G20 system: ministerial fora, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the Heiligendamm/L'Aquila Process; working groups, task forces and experts' groups; and the leaders' personal representatives (sherpas). It then gives a brief account of G20-organized seminars, workshops and conferences. The chapter aims, beyond a summary of these meetings, to show how the work of sub-summit entities feeds into the leaders' summits or the ministerial fora. Leaders' summits are reviewed in Chapter 2, and Chapter 9 discusses the documentation of the G20 at all levels: summits, ministerial fora, working groups and other sub-summit entities. The G20 Finance Ministers' and Central Bank Governors' forum was the first component of the G20 system, preceding the leaders' summits (which, as the term 'summit' implies, are at the peak of the G20 pyramid) by almost a decade and continuing to run alongside the summits. This ministers' forum is a creation of the G8 leaders, following the recommendation of the G7 Finance Ministers. Since the establishment of the G20 at the summit level, an increasing number of other ministerial fora have been convened and working groups and similar sub-summit entities have been created, marking the gradual evolution of a broader G20 system. Some have regular periodic meetings while others have been convened on an ad hoc basis. In a practical sense, the work of these sub-summit entities may well be more important than the summit meetings in moving initiatives forward, notwithstanding the fact that the leaders' political input is essential. The role of the FSB in financial regulation is a case in point. The Group of Twenty (G20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors have had regular meetings, initially annually, and since 2008, two to four times a year. G20 Development and International Cooperation Ministers held a joint meeting with the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors on 23 September 2011 in Washington, DC, 'to address development challenges as part of the global economic agenda'. The G20 leaders have their own personal representatives, who in turn are supported by their teams. They are responsible for preparing - in consultation with their other G20 counterparts - for the upcoming summit and conducting a post-summit wrap-up. The leaders' summits are at the peak of the G20 system but they are supported and supplemented by a growing body of ministerial fora, working g