The rationale for the heads of self-styled G-20 countries trooping periodically into the various tourist spots of the world to hold non-meetings for a couple of days and disperse after issuing a couple of pages of non-statements is becoming more and more of a mystery.
These meetings may as well not have taken place, since they made absolutely no difference to the series of chaotic financial meltdowns, botched bail-outs and economic crises the world has witnessed in the past, beginning from the South Asian meltdown to the latest upheavals in countries answering to the acronym of PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) and now threatening to extend to Italy, and God knows which other Euro zone countries.
The recently held G-20 meet at Cannes on November 3-4 is no exception to the kind of ritualistic exercise couched in repetitive rhetoric that such conclaves have become. What makes them all the more tiresome and irksome is the, by now compulsive habit of the glittering galaxy of the assembled heads to give bombastic titles to their declarations marked by nebulous phraseology whose concrete outcome nobody is able to fathom.
For instance, here are the two mice the labour of the mountain of G20 at Cannes has brought forth: “Cannes Summit Final Declaration: Building our Common Future by Renewed Collective Action for the Benefit of All” and “The Cannes Action Plan for Growth and Jobs”. They are replete with recycled pronouncements on a plethora of topics, ranging all the way from building a stable and resilient International Monetary System to financial sector reforms, food price volatility, increasing agriculture production and productivity, energy security, protecting marine environment, fostering lean energy, green growth and sustainable development, climate change, avoiding protectionism and reinforcing multilateral trading system and investing for global growth.
PONDEROUS PROLIXITY
The canvass is exhaustive but with little delineation of concrete measures and their cause-and effect correlation with the diagnosed ills.
Take this resounding preamble, for starters: “Today, we reaffirm our commitment to work together and we have taken decisions to reinvigorate economic growth, create jobs, ensure financial stability, promote social inclusion and make globalization serve the needs of our people.”
The ponderous prolixity of the whole of the 19 pages of the Final Declaration and 8 pages of the Action Plan does not add up to the above grandiose declamation.
What about the most crucial and inescapable responsibility placed on the G20 — prescribing implementable and enforceable measures to strengthen its capacity to cope with, if not ward off, future crises, in the light of experience gained, lessons drawn and post-mortems undertaken?
The answer of Cannes Summit is tautological: It is simply that national governments, central banks, regional financial arrangements and international financial institutions will each play a role “according to and within their respective mandate” to further strengthen global financial safety nets. All this they are meant to do in any case and, therefore, the whole thing goes without saying.
JUICIEST SECTIONS
The Cannes assemblage also expects that the IMF will “ expeditiously discuss and finalise proposals (to) put forward” a new Precautionary and Liquidity Line and a single emergency facility to provide non-concessional financing for emergency needs such as natural disasters, emergency situations in fragile and post-conflict states, and also other disruptive events.
How far and how soon this hope will be realised, and how, when realised, it will pre-empt the occurrence of crises is anybody's guess.
The juiciest sections of the Final Declaration, which must be of compelling interest to the people of India, thanks to Anna Hazare, are the ones on “Intensifying our Fight against Corruption” and “Governance”.
The former merely reiterates the known nostrums: The importance of the UN Convention against Corruption, forfeiture of illegal assets, whistle-blowers' protection, denial of entry to corrupt officials and public sector transparency, including fair and transparent public procurement, and promises concrete results by the end of 2012.
There is a reference to “the enhanced engagement of the private sector” in fighting corruption but India has seen very little of it.
On governance, the G-20 has nothing more to say than that the very fact of their coming together to lay down and coordinate policies for global well-being is bound to ensure better global governance.
Vive la G-20!