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G20 Analysis

The G20 Pittsburgh Summit Commitments

Compiled by Ella Kokotsis, G20 Research Group, and the HSE IORI G8 Reseach Centre,
Commitments contained in the G20 Leaders Statement
issued in Pittsburgh on September 25, 2009
Total number of commitments = 128

• Preamble
• A Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth
• Strengthening the International Financial Regulatory System
• Modernizing Our Global Institutions to Reflect Today's Global Economy
• Reforming the Mandate, Mission and Governance of the IMF
• Reforming the Mission, Mandate and Governance of Our Development Banks
• Energy Security and Climate Change
• Strengthening Support for the Most Vulnerable
• Putting Quality Jobs at the Heart of the Recovery
• An Open Global Economy
• The Path from Pittsburgh
• G20 Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth

Preamble

1. We pledge today to sustain our strong policy response until a durable recovery is secured.
   
   
2. We will act to ensure that when growth returns, jobs do too.
   
   
3. We will avoid any premature withdrawal of stimulus.
   
   
4. At the same time, we will prepare our exit strategies and, when the time is right, withdraw our extraordinary policy support in a cooperative and coordinated way, maintaining our commitment to fiscal responsibility. Today we agreed:
   
   
5. To launch a framework that lays out the policies and the way we act together to generate strong, sustainable and balanced global growth.
   
   
6. We pledge to avoid destabilizing booms and busts in asset and credit prices and adopt macroeconomic policies, consistent with price stability, that promote adequate and balanced global demand.
   
   
7. We will also make decisive progress on structural reforms that foster private demand and strengthen long-run growth potential.
   
   
8. To make sure our regulatory system for banks and other financial firms reins in the excesses that led to the crisis.
   
   
9. We committed to act together to raise capital standards, to implement strong international compensation standards aimed at ending practices that lead to excessive risk-taking, to improve the over-the-counter derivatives market and to create more powerful tools to hold large global firms to account for the risks they take.
   
   
10. To reform the global architecture to meet the needs of the 21st century. After this crisis, critical players need to be at the table and fully vested in our institutions to allow us to cooperate to lay the foundation for strong, sustainable and balanced growth.
    
    
11. We designated the G20 to be the premier forum for our international economic cooperation.
    
    
12. We established the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to include major emerging economies and welcome its efforts to coordinate and monitor progress in strengthening financial regulation.
    
    
13. We are committed to a shift in International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota share to dynamic emerging markets and developing countries of at least 5% from over-represented countries to under-represented countries using the current quota formula as the basis to work from.
    
    
14. We called on the World Bank to play a leading role in responding to problems whose nature requires globally coordinated action, such as climate change and food security, and agreed that the World Bank and the regional development banks should have sufficient resources to address these challenges and fulfill their mandates.
    
    
15. To take new steps to increase access to food, fuel and finance among the world’s poorest while clamping down on illicit outflows.
    
    
16. To start, we call on the World Bank to develop a new trust fund to support the new Food Security Initiative for low-income countries announced last summer.
    
    
17. We will increase, on a voluntary basis, funding for programs to bring clean affordable energy to the poorest, such as the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program.
    
    
18. To phase out and rationalize over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies while providing targeted support for the poorest.
    
    
19. We call on our Energy and Finance Ministers to report to us their implementation strategies and timeline for acting to meet this critical commitment at our next meeting.
    
    
20. We will promote energy market transparency and market stability as part of our broader effort to avoid excessive volatility.
    
    
21. To maintain our openness and move toward greener, more sustainable growth.
    
    
22. We are committed to bringing the Doha Round to a successful conclusion in 2010.
    
    
23. We will spare no effort to reach agreement in Copenhagen through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations.
    
    
24. Finally, we agreed to meet in Canada in June 2010 and in Korea in November 2010.
    

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A Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth

25. We also need to develop a transparent and credible process for withdrawing our extraordinary fiscal, monetary and financial sector support, to be implemented when recovery becomes fully secured.
    
    
26. We task our Finance Ministers, working with input from the IMF and FSB, at their November meeting to continue developing cooperative and coordinated exit strategies recognizing that the scale, timing, and sequencing of this process will vary across countries or regions and across the type of policy measures.
    
    
27. Our objective is to return the world to high, sustainable, and balanced growth, while maintaining our commitment to fiscal responsibility and sustainability, with reforms to increase our growth potential and capacity to generate jobs and policies designed to avoid both the re-creation of asset bubbles and the re-emergence of unsustainable global financial flows. We commit to put in place the necessary policy measures to achieve these outcomes.
    
    
28. Today we are launching a Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth. To put in place this framework, we commit to develop a process whereby we set out our objectives, put forward policies to achieve these objectives, and together assess our progress.
    
    
29. We will ask the IMF to help us with its analysis of how our respective national or regional policy frameworks fit together.
    
    
30. We will ask the World Bank to advise us on progress in promoting development and poverty reduction as part of the rebalancing of global growth.
    
    
31. We will work together to ensure that our fiscal, monetary, trade, and structural policies are collectively consistent with more sustainable and balanced trajectories of growth.
    
    
32. We will undertake macro prudential and regulatory policies to help prevent credit and asset price cycles from becoming forces of destabilization.
    
    
33. We call on our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to launch the new Framework by November by initiating a cooperative process of mutual assessment of our policy frameworks and the implications of those frameworks for the pattern and sustainability of global growth. Our compact is that:
    
    
34. G20 members will agree on shared policy objectives. These objectives should be updated as conditions evolve.
    
    
35. G20 members will set out our medium-term policy frameworks and will work together to assess the collective implications of our national policy frameworks for the level and pattern of global growth and to identify potential risks to financial stability.
    
    
36. We ask the IMF to assist our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in this process of mutual assessment by developing a forward-looking analysis of whether policies pursued by individual G20 countries are collectively consistent with more sustainable and balanced trajectories for the global economy, and to report regularly to both the G20 and the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), building on the IMF’s existing bilateral and multilateral surveillance analysis, on global economic developments, patterns of growth and suggested policy adjustments.
    
    
37. Our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors will elaborate this process at their November meeting and we will review the results of the first mutual assessment at our next summit.
    

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Strengthening the International Financial Regulatory System

38. We call on the FSB to report on progress to the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in advance of the next Leaders summit.
    
    
39. We are committed to take action at the national and international level to raise standards together so that our national authorities implement global standards consistently in a way that ensures a level playing field and avoids fragmentation of markets, protectionism, and regulatory arbitrage.
    
    
40. We commit to conduct robust, transparent stress tests as needed.
    
    
41. In addition, we have agreed to improve the regulation, functioning, and transparency of financial and commodity markets to address excessive commodity price volatility.
    

We call on our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to reach agreement on an international framework of reform in the following critical areas:

42. Building high quality capital and mitigating pro-cyclicality
    
    
43. We commit to developing by end-2010 internationally agreed rules to improve both the quantity and quality of bank capital and to discourage excessive leverage.
    
    
44. All major G20 financial centers commit to have adopted the Basel II Capital Framework by 2011.
    
    
45. Reforming compensation practices to support financial stability.
    
    
46. We fully endorse the implementation standards of the FSB aimed at aligning compensation with long-term value creation, not excessive risk-taking, including by:
    
    
47. (i) avoiding multi-year guaranteed bonuses;
    
    
48. (ii) requiring a significant portion of variable compensation to be deferred, tied to performance and subject to appropriate clawback and to be vested in the form of stock or stock-like instruments, as long as these create incentives aligned with long-term value creation and the time horizon of risk;
    
    
49. (iii) ensuring that compensation for senior executives and other employees having a material impact on the firm’s risk exposure align with performance and risk;
    
    
50. (iv) making firms’ compensation policies and structures transparent through disclosure requirements;
    
    
51. (v) limiting variable compensation as a percentage of total net revenues when it is inconsistent with the maintenance of a sound capital base; and
    
    
52. (vi) ensuring that compensation committees overseeing compensation policies are able to act independently.
    
    
53. We task the FSB to monitor the implementation of FSB standards and propose additional measures as required by March 2010.
    
    
54. Improving over-the-counter derivatives markets:
    
    
55. Addressing cross-border resolutions and systemically important financial institutions by end-2010.
    
    
56. Our authorities should establish crisis management groups for the major cross-border firms and a legal framework for crisis intervention as well as improve information sharing in times of stress.
    
    
57. We should develop resolution tools and frameworks for the effective resolution of financial groups to help mitigate the disruption of financial institution failures and reduce moral hazard in the future.
    
    
58. We call on our international accounting bodies to redouble their efforts to achieve a single set of high quality, global accounting standards within the context of their independent standard setting process, and complete their convergence project by June 2011.
    
    
59. We are committed to maintain the momentum in dealing with tax havens, money laundering, proceeds of corruption, terrorist financing, and prudential standards.
    
    
60. We stand ready to use countermeasures against tax havens from March 2010.
    
    
61. We call on the FSB to report progress to address NCJs with regards to international cooperation and information exchange in November 2009 and to initiate a peer review process by February 2010.
    
    
62. We task the IMF to prepare a report for our next meeting with regard to the range of options countries have adopted or are considering as to how the financial sector could make a fair and substantial contribution toward paying for any burdens associated with government interventions to repair the banking system.
    

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Modernizing Our Global Institutions to Reflect Today’s Global Economy

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Reforming the Mandate, Mission and Governance of the IMF

63. As recovery takes hold, we will work together to strengthen the Fund’s ability to provide even-handed, candid and independent surveillance of the risks facing the global economy and the international financial system.
    
    
64. We ask the IMF to support our effort under the Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth through its surveillance of our countries’ policy frameworks and their collective implications for financial stability and the level and pattern of global growth.
    
    
65. We are committed to a shift in quota share to dynamic emerging market and developing countries of at least five percent from over-represented to under-represented countries using the current IMF quota formula as the basis to work from.
    
    
66. We are also committed to protecting the voting share of the poorest in the IMF.
    
    
67. On this basis and as part of the IMF’s quota review, to be completed by January 2011, we urge an acceleration of work toward bringing the review to a successful conclusion.
    

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Reforming the Mission, Mandate and Governance of Our Development Banks

68. We reaffirm our commitment to ensure that the Multilateral Development Banks and their concessional lending facilities, especially the International Development Agency (IDA) and the African Development Fund, are appropriately funded.
    
    
69. We will help ensure the World Bank and the regional development banks have sufficient resources to fulfill these four challenges and their development mandate, including through a review of their general capital increase needs to be completed by the first half of 2010.
    
    
70. We commit to pursue governance and operational effectiveness reform in conjunction with voting reform to ensure that the World Bank is relevant, effective, and legitimate.
    
    
71. We stress the importance of moving towards equitable voting power in the World Bank over time through the adoption of a dynamic formula which primarily reflects countries’ evolving economic weight and the World Bank’s development mission, and that generates in the next shareholding review a significant increase of at least 3% of voting power for developing and transition countries, in addition to the 1.46% increase under the first phase of this important adjustment, to the benefit of under-represented countries. While recognizing that over-represented countries will make a contribution, it will be important to protect the voting power of the smallest poor countries. We recommit to reaching agreement by the 2010 Spring Meetings.
    

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Energy Security and Climate Change

We individually and collectively commit to:

72. Increase energy market transparency and market stability by publishing complete, accurate, and timely data on oil production, consumption, refining and stock levels, as appropriate, on a regular basis, ideally monthly, beginning by January 2010.
    
    
73. We will improve our domestic capabilities to collect energy data and improve energy demand and supply forecasting and ask the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to ramp up their efforts to assist interested countries in developing those capabilities.
    
    
74. We will strengthen the producer-consumer dialogue to improve our understanding of market fundamentals, including supply and demand trends, and price volatility, and note the work of the IEF experts group.
    
    
75. Improve regulatory oversight of energy markets by implementing the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) recommendations on commodity futures markets and calling on relevant regulators to collect data on large concentrations of trader positions on oil in our national commodities futures markets.
    
    
76. We ask our relevant regulators to report back at our next meeting on progress towards implementation.
    
    
77. We will direct relevant regulators to also collect related data on over-the-counter oil markets and to take steps to combat market manipulation leading to excessive price volatility.
    
    
78. We call for further refinement and improvement of commodity market information, including through the publication of more detailed and disaggregated data, coordinated as far as possible internationally.
    
    
79. We ask IOSCO to help national governments design and implement these policies, conduct further analysis including with regard with to excessive volatility, make specific recommendations, and to report regularly on our progress.
    

Building on these efforts and recognizing the challenges of populations suffering from energy poverty, we commit to:

80. Rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption.
    
    
81. We will have our Energy and Finance Ministers, based on their national circumstances, develop implementation strategies and timeframes, and report back to Leaders at the next Summit.
    
    
82. We request relevant institutions, such as the IEA, OPEC, OECD, and World Bank, provide an analysis of the scope of energy subsidies and suggestions for the implementation of this initiative and report back at the next summit.
    
    
83. We commit to stimulate investment in clean energy, renewables, and energy efficiency and provide financial and technical support for such projects in developing countries.
    
    
84. We commit to take steps to facilitate the diffusion or transfer of clean energy technology including by conducting joint research and building capacity.
    
    
85. We will intensify our efforts, in cooperation with other parties, to reach agreement in Copenhagen through the UNFCCC negotiation. An agreement must include mitigation, adaptation, technology, and financing.
    
    
86. We welcome the work of the Finance Ministers and direct them to report back at their next meeting with a range of possible options for climate change financing to be provided as a resource to be considered in the UNFCCC negotiations at Copenhagen.
    

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Strengthening Support for the Most Vulnerable

87. We ask our relevant ministers to explore the benefits of a new crisis support facility in IDA to protect LICs from future crises and the enhanced use of financial instruments in protecting the investment plans of middle income countries from interruption in times of crisis, including greater use of guarantees.
    
    
88. We reaffirm our historic commitment to meet the Millennium Development Goals and our respective Official Development Assistance (ODA) pledges, including commitments on Aid for Trade, debt relief, and those made at Gleneagles, especially to sub-Saharan Africa, to 2010 and beyond.
    
    
89. Even before the crisis, too many still suffered from hunger and poverty and even more people lack access to energy and finance. Recognizing that the crisis has exacerbated this situation, we pledge cooperation to improve access to food, fuel, and finance for the poor.
    
    
90. We call on the World Bank to work with interested donors and organizations to develop a multilateral trust fund to scale-up agricultural assistance to low-income countries.
    
    
91. We ask the World Bank, the African Development Bank, UN, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), World Food Programme (WFP) and other stakeholders to coordinate their efforts, including through country-led mechanisms, in order to complement and reinforce other existing multilateral and bilateral efforts to tackle food insecurity.
    
    
92. To increase access to energy, we will promote the deployment of clean, affordable energy resources to the developing world.
    
    
93. We commit, on a voluntary basis, to funding programs that achieve this objective, such as the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program and the Energy for the Poor Initiative, and to increasing and more closely harmonizing our bilateral efforts.
    
    
94. Working with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and other international organizations, we will launch a G20 Financial Inclusion Experts Group.
    
    
95. We commit to launch a G20 SME Finance Challenge, a call to the private sector to put forward its best proposals for how public finance can maximize the deployment of private finance on a sustainable and scalable basis.
    
    
96. We will work with the World Bank’s Stolen Assets Recovery (StAR) program to secure the return of stolen assets to developing countries, and support other efforts to stem illicit outflows.
    
    
97. We note the principles of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action and will work to increase the transparency of international aid flows by 2010.
    
    
98. We call for the adoption and enforcement of laws against transnational bribery, such as the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, and the ratification by the G20 of the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and the adoption during the third Conference of the Parties in Doha of an effective, transparent, and inclusive mechanism for the review of its implementation.
    

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Putting Quality Jobs at the Heart of the Recovery

99. We commit to implementing recovery plans that support decent work, help preserve employment, and prioritize job growth.
    
    
100. In addition, we will continue to provide income, social protection, and training support for the unemployed and those most at risk of unemployment.
     
     
101. To assure that global growth is broadly beneficial, we should implement policies consistent with ILO fundamental principles and rights at work.
     
     
102. We should ensure access to training programs that support lifelong skills development and focus on future market needs.
     
     
103. We pledge to support robust training efforts in our growth strategies and investments.
     
     
104. We recognize successful employment and training programs are often designed together with employers and workers, and we call on the ILO, in partnership with other organizations, to convene its constituents and NGOs to develop a training strategy for our consideration.
     
     
105. We also welcome the recently-adopted ILO Resolution on Recovering from the Crisis: A Global Jobs Pact, and we commit our nations to adopt key elements of its general framework to advance the social dimension of globalization.
     
     
106. We direct our Ministers to assess the evolving employment situation, review reports from the ILO and other organizations on the impact of policies we have adopted, report on whether further measures are desirable, and consider medium-term employment and skills development policies, social protection programs, and best practices to ensure workers are prepared to take advantage of advances in science and technology.
     

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An Open Global Economy

107. We will keep markets open and free and reaffirm the commitments made in Washington and London: to refrain from raising barriers or imposing new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions or implementing World Trade Organization (WTO) inconsistent measures to stimulate exports and commit to rectify such measures as they arise.
     
     
108. We will minimize any negative impact on trade and investment of our domestic policy actions, including fiscal policy and action to support the financial sector.
     
     
109. We will not retreat into financial protectionism, particularly measures that constrain worldwide capital flows, especially to developing countries.
     
     
110. We will notify promptly the WTO of any relevant trade measures.
     
     
111. We are determined to seek an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the Doha Development Round in 2010, consistent with its mandate, based on the progress already made, including with regard to modalities.
     
     
112. We ask our ministers to take stock of the situation no later than early 2010, taking into account the results of the work program agreed to in Geneva following the Delhi Ministerial, and seek progress on Agriculture, Non-Agricultural Market Access, as well as Services, Rules, Trade Facilitation and all other remaining issues.
     
     
113. We will remain engaged and review the progress of the negotiations at our next meeting.
     

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The Path from Pittsburgh

107. Today, we designated the G20 as the premier forum for our international economic cooperation. We have asked our representatives to report back at the next meeting with recommendations on how to maximize the effectiveness of our cooperation.

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G20 Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth

[In our Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth, we will:]

115. implement responsible fiscal policies, attentive to short-term flexibility considerations and longer-run sustainability requirements.
     
     
116. strengthen financial supervision to prevent the re-emergence in the financial system of excess credit growth and excess leverage and undertake macro prudential and regulatory policies to help prevent credit and asset price cycles from becoming forces of destabilization.
     
     
117. promote more balanced current accounts and support open trade and investment to advance global prosperity and growth sustainability, while actively rejecting protectionist measures.
     
     
118. undertake monetary policies consistent with price stability in the context of market oriented exchange rates that reflect underlying economic fundamentals.
     
     
119. undertake structural reforms to increase our potential growth rates and, where needed, improve social safety nets.
     
     
120. promote balanced and sustainable economic development in order to narrow development imbalances and reduce poverty.
     
     
121. G20 members with sustained, significant external deficits pledge to undertake policies to support private savings and undertake fiscal consolidation while maintaining open markets and strengthening export sectors.
     
     
122. G20 members with sustained, significant external surpluses pledge to strengthen domestic sources of growth. According to national circumstances this could include increasing investment, reducing financial markets distortions, boosting productivity in service sectors, improving social safety nets, and lifting constraints on demand growth.
     
     
123. G20 members will agree on shared policy objectives. These objectives should be updated as conditions evolve.
     
     
124. G20 members will set out their medium-term policy frameworks and will work together to assess the collective implications of our national policy frameworks for the level and pattern of global growth, and to identify potential risks to financial stability.
     
     
125. G20 leaders will consider, based on the results of the mutual assessment, and agree any actions to meet our common objectives.
     
     
126. [To accomplish this, our Finance Ministers should, with the assistance of the IMF:] Develop a forward looking assessment of G20 economic developments to help analyze whether patterns of demand and supply, credit, debt and reserves growth are supportive of strong, sustainable and balanced growth.
     
     
127. Assess the implications and consistency of fiscal and monetary policies, credit growth and asset markets, foreign exchange developments, commodity and energy prices, and current account imbalances.
     
     
128. Report regularly to both the G20 and the IMFC on global economic developments, key risks, and concerns with respect to patterns of growth and suggested G20 policy adjustments, individually and collectively.
     

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