G20 Media Conference Call - English
Content
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 1 NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Operator: Good day, everyone, and welcome to the NGO Briefing on G20. At this time all sites are online in a ‘listen only’ mode but later there will be an opportunity to ask questions by pressing ‘star’ ‘1’ on your telephone. As a reminder, today’s call may be recorded. It is now my pleasure to
introduce our first speaker for the day, Mr. Sam Worthington. Please go ahead, sir. Sam Worthington: Thank you very much and I’d like to welcome all the media and NGO leaders on this call. I’m Sam Worthington, the President of InterAction. As the GEO meets, the G20 meets to consider the impact of a slowing global economy, the Eurozone crisis, it is critical that they include in their deliberations a focus on the world’s poor. We know that deep-touched in relief, agriculture, food, health or other programs will have an impact both directly on the poor but ultimately on the long-term stability and global economic growth. Our message is quite simple. Don’t have this constraint or a balancing of budgets done on the backs of the world’s poor. Ultimately, what we need is a form of economic growth that is inclusive and sustainable, and this means economic growth that is both engaged globally but in a manner that enables the some two billion people worldwide who are excluded from formal financial systems from having both access to the resources they need and ultimately, not to suffer the consequences of the downturn that we’re seeing, particularly in the Eurozone. It’s my pleasure to pass the call on to a number of NGO
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 2 speakers and we’re first starting off with Steve Price-Thomas who is the G20/BRIC Strategy Manager at Oxfam. Steve, over to you. Steve Price-Thomas: Thanks, Sam, and then thanks, everybody who’s joined the call. We appreciate you taking the time. It’s clear, Sam has said, that the effects of the Euro crisis, what’s happening in Greece and Spain, it’s clear that the G20 will focus on growth. But since 2009 they repeatedly promised to deliver strong, sustainable and balanced growth, and they have equally repeatedly failed to live up to that commitment. From Oxfam’s
perspective, that matters not only to Europe but to the whole world, and in particular to developing countries because poor countries have reached the limits of their financial ability to defend themselves against the global crisis which was caused by the rich world. There’s a whole range of ways you can see that. You can see it in a huge drop in growth capital flows to the developing countries. They dropped by $139 billion last year to a level of just $170 billion. You can see it in the first drop in aid from major donors to developing countries, the first drop for 14 years last year with cuts of $3.4 billion last year, and you can see it in the huge amount of money which developing countries are still losing in illicit outflows with [unintelligible] estimates putting that at around $900 billion a year lost in 2009.
So the effects of the crisis are being felt in those ways but clearly growth also matters because – I’m sorry. It’s clearly that world growth matters. It’s absolutely essential that they focus on the equality of that growth to make sure that it stands, which as we say they promised to do. It matters because as countries grow, if they’re more equal, they grow faster. There’s plenty of evidence to demonstrate that. Also, in countries which
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 3 are more equal, each unit of growth is more effective at lifting more people out of poverty, so you get a bigger bang for your buck. Also as we’ve seen clearly in the past two years, more equal countries are more politically stable which I imagine is something which would be of great interest to the G20. So Oxfam believes that it is fundamentally important that the G20 should honor their promise to focus not only on growth but also on equitable growth, and as a start, they can do that by measuring inequality in every country. It’s a very simple thing that they could do to create a positive competition between countries to move towards more equality. And it is unless they take drastic steps to improve inequality and move to equality in their countries, even with economic growth, the number of people living in poverty in absolute terms in some G20 countries could increase even with strong economic growth by 2020 over the levels they have now. Just as I finish, there is also a particular thing which Oxfam believes the G20 leaders should do in Los Cabos and that’s to support a European Financial Transactions Tax which [unintelligible] clearly are going to put forward. That will be a Financial Transactions Tax of a coalition of the willing within the European Union but it’s essential that the G20 pushes them to allocate it for development and for climate change and not just suspending within Europe. So the G20 could be make or break, but it’s not just about the Eurozone. It’s clearly about people all over the developing world and fundamental to success on that will be to make sure that growth is strong, sustainable and balanced, not just growth for its own sake. I’ll stop there, thank you.
Sam Worthington: Thank you, Steve, and we appreciate those comments. So if we can move over to Neil Watkins, Director of Policy and Campaigns at ActionAid, Neil, over to you.
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 4
Neil Watkins:
Thanks so much. Well, it’s clear that the Eurozone crisis will dominate the Los Cabos Summit but the Eurozone crisis isn’t the only global emergency that’s demanding urgent attention. Climate change and global hunger are affecting even more people in poor nations across the globe, and in Los Cabos the G20 should deliver a plan to boost all nations in the global economy, not just those that are too big to fail. First the G20 need to act on Mexico’s State of Priority to address food security and commodity price volatility. The past year has been marked by historic drought and hunger crisis in East Africa and this year high food prices have put 13 million people at risk of hunger in the Sahel. The International Food Policy Research Institute or IFPRI has identified three key drivers of excessive food price volatility including mandates for biofuels production, extreme weather events as a result of climate change, and increased trading on commodity futures. Of these three, addressing biofuels policy could have the biggest and quickest impact. A new report from ActionAid has found that rising corn ethanol production in the United States fueled by a deadly cocktail of subsidies, mandates and rising oil prices has increased Mexico’s food import bill. As a result, Mexican food prices are soaring - between 2005 and 2011 tortilla prices increased by nearly 70% in Mexico. Since 2005, US ethanol expansion has caused Mexico up to $500 million per year in higher corn prices.
Now last year, the G20 itself commissioned a report by 10 major international organizations that recommended that G20 nations eliminate biofuel incentives in order to help reduce food price volatility, but leaders so far have ignored their own study. The Mexican government should use its influence as chair of the G20 to ensure that the linkage between
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 5 increasing biofuels production and hunger is on the table in Los Cabos. At the end of the day, whether or not the G20 makes progress on economic growth, the proof is in tortilla prices. It’s time for the G20 to stop the food price rollercoaster.
The second key issue for the G20 Summit in Mexican government priority is promoting green growth and addressing climate change. The Mexican government has been a leader in promoting action on climate change and green growth, but after the last minute breakthrough, the Los Cabos Summit will likely be another in a long line of global summits that fail to deliver on urgently needed climate cash to help poor countries adapt to the ravaging effects of climate change. Mexico’s recent passage of binding emissions reduction targets is a step forward in addressing climate change. As G20 chair, Mexico should demonstrate its continued commitment to leadership on this issue. It can do so by pressing fellow G20 leaders to provide much needed public money for the green climate funds.
Earlier this year, G20 finance ministers promised a study group to identify ways to raise resources to finance adaptation and mitigation and to fill the green climate fund with the cash it needs to help the poorest countries. But if the green climate fund had a dollar for every study that had been commissioned on how to finance climate change action, climate change could be in retreat by now. The time for studying is over. We’re facing the real test right now. We already know the answers on viable climate finance mechanisms. The G20 should first make polluters pay by supporting levies and efficiency standards in the shipping and aviation sectors to generate climate finance, and second, endorse a Financial
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 6 Transactions Tax and support directing some of the proceeds to support developing countries confronting climate change. Thank you. Sam Worthington: Thank you, Neil. Now we’re going to turn it to Joe Powell who is the Policy and Advocacy Manager of the ONE Campaign.
Joe Powell:
Hello, thanks very much for joining.
In the past the G20 has made
important commitments on transparency and accountability particularly in the extractive industry sector, and we believe leaders will be missing a trick if they fail to realize the importance of transparent natural resource management and open government in building a stable economic picture in Los Cabos. The G20 has taken welcome steps through the anticorruption working group and now it’s imperative that the G20 and its individual members keep up the momentum on extractive industry transparency by promoting far greater transparency around the Austin murky deals that oil and gas companies make with governments of resource-rich countries. This will help ensure that some of the poorest people in the world will benefit from the revenues raised by their country’s natural resources. It’s especially important to keep momentum going at this time as US legislation passed in 2010 as part of Dodd-Frank is now in place and European legislation will be finalized later this year. If the G20 at Los Cabos is silent on the issue of natural resource governance, that would represent a step back at a critical moment for this campaign. Second on budget transparency, we’ve been impressed by the progress the anti-corruption working group has made on the issue of fiscal transparency and we look forward to seeing Mexico encouraging G20 members to open their budgets and improve progress towards open, transparent, accountable and effective governance. This then should be
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 7 able to hold their governments to account. Finally, the anti-corruption working group mandate expires this year. It’s fine-tuned that the leaders at Los Cabos agree to renew the mandate of the anti-corruption working group so that important progress on transparent and accountable governance both in the extractive sector and beyond continues into the G20s in Russia and Australia. Thank you. Sam Worthington: Well, thank you, Joe. Now we’re going to turn it over to Adam Taylor who is the Vice President of Advocacy at World Vision. Adam, to you?
Adam Taylor:
Thank you. Well, thanks, InterAction, and thank you for joining the call. As was already alluded to, the ongoing food crisis globally provide a pretty stark backdrop to this G20 Summit. The situation is particularly acute in that the whole region of West Africa where an estimated 18 million people are literally fighting daily for their survival. In a world with abundant food, one in seven people go to bed hungry every night, most of them women and children. More than 20,000 children at the age of five die every day with many of those deaths caused by poor nutrition. This needless and preventable tragedy is one that leaders at next week’s G20 Summit have an opportunity and a responsibility to address, that will require greater vision and leadership. My friends and allies have already mentioned a number of steps that need to take place in order to address volatile food prices and to improve food security. But I want to focus my remarks on the issue of nutrition because so far, the G20 has lacked a sense of urgency and focus that is commensurate with the scale and severity of the nutrition crisis facing communities and children. Inadequate nutrition is the underlying cause of over 2.5 million child deaths annually. It limits the growth and potential of more than 170
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 8 million children worldwide. The G20 is rightly concerned about increasing economic stability and growth, but economies cannot effectively grow if their children can’t grow because they’re stunted and they’re suffering from malnutrition. Good nutrition provides one of the first and best
chances for child survival and development throughout life, and its positive impacts are also felt by families, communities and countries. Specifically, we’re calling on the G20 to do three things: one, measure the success of agriculture and food security programs against how much they improve the nutrition of children and mothers. We saw some progress at the G8 and in relation to a pledge that was made to lift 50 million people out of poverty as a result of agricultural investments including an increased role for the private sector. But the G8 fell short of committing to a specific goal related to nutrition, one like preventing the number of children that are stunted. We believe this is a pivotal opportunity for the G20 to finish that unfinished business and commit to a nutrition-specific target. Second, we call on the G20 to endorse the scaling of nutrition movement and support countries’ efforts to make sure women and children in their first thousand days of life get adequate nutrition for a healthy and productive life. The recently released Copenhagen Consensus, which is based on the research of 65 leading researchers and economists, have shown that investments in nutrition have some of the biggest impacts when it comes to reducing poverty and stimulating growth.
Third, we want to make sure that foreign investments are made in agriculture that reach small-scale farmers particularly women. Smallscale farmers produce 80% of the food consumed in Africa and in many parts of Asia. They represent the true heroes and heroines in the fight
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 9 against hunger and malnutrition, but they need much more support. They need to be better plugged in to market change and gain greater access to credit, seeds, fertilizers, etcetera. The G20 is about more than simply 20 powerful politicians coming together to address real economic issues. It is also about what we can do to lend our voice. That is why World Vision launched the hunger-free campaign just before the G8 and we’re continuing it through the G20 where thousands of people from over 80 countries have lent their voice and their vision for what a hunger-free world could look like. We’re going to have an exhibit in the cultural pavilion in Los Cabos and we invite you to learn more about the campaign at hungerfree.org.
I just want to close with what I see the real danger in this upcoming G20 Summit. It’s that it will be a repeat of what we experienced in Cannes. Both Los Cabos and Cannes are very luxurious destinations for many vacationers and the wealthy, but they can be very far removed from the daily struggles and the daily fights for survival of so many because of escalating food prices and because of drought. But similar to what
happened in Cannes, Los Cabos could also, the agenda could be overshadowed and overwhelmed by the continuing Eurozone crisis. So even in the midst of these turbulent and difficult economic times, it is imperative that G20 leaders do more to ensure that growth is equitable and that more is done to address the crisis of malnutrition and hunger. Thank you.
Sam Worthington: Thank you, Adam. Then I think there are clear messages here of we want a G20 that focuses on growth, but there are forgotten crises out there that impact the world’s poor. They need inclusive growth and attention to
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 10 climate change and the impact of biofuels, open anti-corruption efforts particularly focused on extractives, and a focus on food security but ultimately on the nutrition of children. These are the crises that may not necessarily be discussed at the G20 but they are central to lives of billions of people around the world. Operator, at this point in time I would like to open the line for questions, please.
Operator:
Absolutely. At this time, if you would like to ask a question you may do so by pressing ‘star’ ‘1’ on your telephone. If for any reason you wish to remove yourself from the queue, you may do so by pressing the pound key. Once again, it is ‘star’ then ‘1’ to ask a question. We will take our first question from the site of Krista Hughes with Reuters. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Sam Worthington: Krista, go ahead. Hello?
Operator:
Krista Hughes, your line is open. Oh, I’m sorry, I was on mute. I do apologize. Good morning. Yes, Krista Hughes here from Mexico City. Given the lack of progress by the G20 in the various areas that you have outlined in their various filings, do you think that it’s still the appropriate forum for global economic governance?
Krista Hughes:
Sam Worthington: Okay, why don’t I throw it open to anyone on the group?
Steve Price-Thomas: Yes, thanks for the question. This is Steve from Oxfam. The G20 is a self-selected group but it does represent a very large proportion of the world’s economy, a very large proportion of the world’s people and so on.
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 11 And they have declared themselves to be the world’s premier forum for sustainable economic development. So given that they’ve declared that, and that they have set the expectations of what they’re going to do so high, I think it’s now time for them clearly to deliver as we’ve said before on the issues that we’ve outlined on the call. So we hope that they will knuckle down and actually deliver what’s needed for the developing world. But if they fail to do that, then maybe we need to be looking at another forum. But first and foremost, they have to deliver in Los Cabos.
Sam Worthington: Any other comments on this question?
Adam Taylor:
Yes, this is Adam Taylor from World Vision. I think the G20 is still evolving. It’s still in some ways in its infancy as a global forum. So I think there’s real hope and potential that the G20 can strengthen its emphasis on inclusive growth and on recognizing that so many of the development issues that we’ve talked about including addressing malnutrition and hunger are crucial for stimulating both short-term and long-term economic growth. So these two agendas shouldn’t be separate. They are interdependent, and since 2009 as was already mentioned, development issues have been on the agenda but they’ve been at the periphery of the agenda, not the center. So our call and our hope is that President Calderon and other G20 leaders will take to heart how critical it is to put development issues at the center and not the edge.
Sam Worthington: Any other comments on this question?
Joe Powell:
This is Joe Powell from ONE. I think both in Seoul and Cannes we saw important commitments and very warm words around development. What
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 12 we need now is accountability of those promises. Promises have been made and they have to be delivered. So if Los Cabos can be as much about delivering on all the past promises that were made as making lots of new ones, then I think that would be significant progress.
Sam Worthington: Anyone else? This is Sam. Just one observation here, the value of the G20 is it brings key middle income countries that have half of the world’s poor living within their borders into the dialogue. But it’s critical that the G20 take a global view that includes the impact of their efforts on the lives of the 1.6 billion people who live in fragile states and whose voice is not part of the G20 process. On to the next question. As a reminder, it is ‘star’ then ‘1’ to ask a question. It appears we have no questions in queue at this time. Sam Worthington: I’d like to thank each of you for your time, observations and for our reporters who are joining this call, and look forward to ongoing dialogue around the G20. Thank you very much.
Operator:
END
introduce our first speaker for the day, Mr. Sam Worthington. Please go ahead, sir. Sam Worthington: Thank you very much and I’d like to welcome all the media and NGO leaders on this call. I’m Sam Worthington, the President of InterAction. As the GEO meets, the G20 meets to consider the impact of a slowing global economy, the Eurozone crisis, it is critical that they include in their deliberations a focus on the world’s poor. We know that deep-touched in relief, agriculture, food, health or other programs will have an impact both directly on the poor but ultimately on the long-term stability and global economic growth. Our message is quite simple. Don’t have this constraint or a balancing of budgets done on the backs of the world’s poor. Ultimately, what we need is a form of economic growth that is inclusive and sustainable, and this means economic growth that is both engaged globally but in a manner that enables the some two billion people worldwide who are excluded from formal financial systems from having both access to the resources they need and ultimately, not to suffer the consequences of the downturn that we’re seeing, particularly in the Eurozone. It’s my pleasure to pass the call on to a number of NGO
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 2 speakers and we’re first starting off with Steve Price-Thomas who is the G20/BRIC Strategy Manager at Oxfam. Steve, over to you. Steve Price-Thomas: Thanks, Sam, and then thanks, everybody who’s joined the call. We appreciate you taking the time. It’s clear, Sam has said, that the effects of the Euro crisis, what’s happening in Greece and Spain, it’s clear that the G20 will focus on growth. But since 2009 they repeatedly promised to deliver strong, sustainable and balanced growth, and they have equally repeatedly failed to live up to that commitment. From Oxfam’s
perspective, that matters not only to Europe but to the whole world, and in particular to developing countries because poor countries have reached the limits of their financial ability to defend themselves against the global crisis which was caused by the rich world. There’s a whole range of ways you can see that. You can see it in a huge drop in growth capital flows to the developing countries. They dropped by $139 billion last year to a level of just $170 billion. You can see it in the first drop in aid from major donors to developing countries, the first drop for 14 years last year with cuts of $3.4 billion last year, and you can see it in the huge amount of money which developing countries are still losing in illicit outflows with [unintelligible] estimates putting that at around $900 billion a year lost in 2009.
So the effects of the crisis are being felt in those ways but clearly growth also matters because – I’m sorry. It’s clearly that world growth matters. It’s absolutely essential that they focus on the equality of that growth to make sure that it stands, which as we say they promised to do. It matters because as countries grow, if they’re more equal, they grow faster. There’s plenty of evidence to demonstrate that. Also, in countries which
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 3 are more equal, each unit of growth is more effective at lifting more people out of poverty, so you get a bigger bang for your buck. Also as we’ve seen clearly in the past two years, more equal countries are more politically stable which I imagine is something which would be of great interest to the G20. So Oxfam believes that it is fundamentally important that the G20 should honor their promise to focus not only on growth but also on equitable growth, and as a start, they can do that by measuring inequality in every country. It’s a very simple thing that they could do to create a positive competition between countries to move towards more equality. And it is unless they take drastic steps to improve inequality and move to equality in their countries, even with economic growth, the number of people living in poverty in absolute terms in some G20 countries could increase even with strong economic growth by 2020 over the levels they have now. Just as I finish, there is also a particular thing which Oxfam believes the G20 leaders should do in Los Cabos and that’s to support a European Financial Transactions Tax which [unintelligible] clearly are going to put forward. That will be a Financial Transactions Tax of a coalition of the willing within the European Union but it’s essential that the G20 pushes them to allocate it for development and for climate change and not just suspending within Europe. So the G20 could be make or break, but it’s not just about the Eurozone. It’s clearly about people all over the developing world and fundamental to success on that will be to make sure that growth is strong, sustainable and balanced, not just growth for its own sake. I’ll stop there, thank you.
Sam Worthington: Thank you, Steve, and we appreciate those comments. So if we can move over to Neil Watkins, Director of Policy and Campaigns at ActionAid, Neil, over to you.
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 4
Neil Watkins:
Thanks so much. Well, it’s clear that the Eurozone crisis will dominate the Los Cabos Summit but the Eurozone crisis isn’t the only global emergency that’s demanding urgent attention. Climate change and global hunger are affecting even more people in poor nations across the globe, and in Los Cabos the G20 should deliver a plan to boost all nations in the global economy, not just those that are too big to fail. First the G20 need to act on Mexico’s State of Priority to address food security and commodity price volatility. The past year has been marked by historic drought and hunger crisis in East Africa and this year high food prices have put 13 million people at risk of hunger in the Sahel. The International Food Policy Research Institute or IFPRI has identified three key drivers of excessive food price volatility including mandates for biofuels production, extreme weather events as a result of climate change, and increased trading on commodity futures. Of these three, addressing biofuels policy could have the biggest and quickest impact. A new report from ActionAid has found that rising corn ethanol production in the United States fueled by a deadly cocktail of subsidies, mandates and rising oil prices has increased Mexico’s food import bill. As a result, Mexican food prices are soaring - between 2005 and 2011 tortilla prices increased by nearly 70% in Mexico. Since 2005, US ethanol expansion has caused Mexico up to $500 million per year in higher corn prices.
Now last year, the G20 itself commissioned a report by 10 major international organizations that recommended that G20 nations eliminate biofuel incentives in order to help reduce food price volatility, but leaders so far have ignored their own study. The Mexican government should use its influence as chair of the G20 to ensure that the linkage between
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 5 increasing biofuels production and hunger is on the table in Los Cabos. At the end of the day, whether or not the G20 makes progress on economic growth, the proof is in tortilla prices. It’s time for the G20 to stop the food price rollercoaster.
The second key issue for the G20 Summit in Mexican government priority is promoting green growth and addressing climate change. The Mexican government has been a leader in promoting action on climate change and green growth, but after the last minute breakthrough, the Los Cabos Summit will likely be another in a long line of global summits that fail to deliver on urgently needed climate cash to help poor countries adapt to the ravaging effects of climate change. Mexico’s recent passage of binding emissions reduction targets is a step forward in addressing climate change. As G20 chair, Mexico should demonstrate its continued commitment to leadership on this issue. It can do so by pressing fellow G20 leaders to provide much needed public money for the green climate funds.
Earlier this year, G20 finance ministers promised a study group to identify ways to raise resources to finance adaptation and mitigation and to fill the green climate fund with the cash it needs to help the poorest countries. But if the green climate fund had a dollar for every study that had been commissioned on how to finance climate change action, climate change could be in retreat by now. The time for studying is over. We’re facing the real test right now. We already know the answers on viable climate finance mechanisms. The G20 should first make polluters pay by supporting levies and efficiency standards in the shipping and aviation sectors to generate climate finance, and second, endorse a Financial
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 6 Transactions Tax and support directing some of the proceeds to support developing countries confronting climate change. Thank you. Sam Worthington: Thank you, Neil. Now we’re going to turn it to Joe Powell who is the Policy and Advocacy Manager of the ONE Campaign.
Joe Powell:
Hello, thanks very much for joining.
In the past the G20 has made
important commitments on transparency and accountability particularly in the extractive industry sector, and we believe leaders will be missing a trick if they fail to realize the importance of transparent natural resource management and open government in building a stable economic picture in Los Cabos. The G20 has taken welcome steps through the anticorruption working group and now it’s imperative that the G20 and its individual members keep up the momentum on extractive industry transparency by promoting far greater transparency around the Austin murky deals that oil and gas companies make with governments of resource-rich countries. This will help ensure that some of the poorest people in the world will benefit from the revenues raised by their country’s natural resources. It’s especially important to keep momentum going at this time as US legislation passed in 2010 as part of Dodd-Frank is now in place and European legislation will be finalized later this year. If the G20 at Los Cabos is silent on the issue of natural resource governance, that would represent a step back at a critical moment for this campaign. Second on budget transparency, we’ve been impressed by the progress the anti-corruption working group has made on the issue of fiscal transparency and we look forward to seeing Mexico encouraging G20 members to open their budgets and improve progress towards open, transparent, accountable and effective governance. This then should be
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 7 able to hold their governments to account. Finally, the anti-corruption working group mandate expires this year. It’s fine-tuned that the leaders at Los Cabos agree to renew the mandate of the anti-corruption working group so that important progress on transparent and accountable governance both in the extractive sector and beyond continues into the G20s in Russia and Australia. Thank you. Sam Worthington: Well, thank you, Joe. Now we’re going to turn it over to Adam Taylor who is the Vice President of Advocacy at World Vision. Adam, to you?
Adam Taylor:
Thank you. Well, thanks, InterAction, and thank you for joining the call. As was already alluded to, the ongoing food crisis globally provide a pretty stark backdrop to this G20 Summit. The situation is particularly acute in that the whole region of West Africa where an estimated 18 million people are literally fighting daily for their survival. In a world with abundant food, one in seven people go to bed hungry every night, most of them women and children. More than 20,000 children at the age of five die every day with many of those deaths caused by poor nutrition. This needless and preventable tragedy is one that leaders at next week’s G20 Summit have an opportunity and a responsibility to address, that will require greater vision and leadership. My friends and allies have already mentioned a number of steps that need to take place in order to address volatile food prices and to improve food security. But I want to focus my remarks on the issue of nutrition because so far, the G20 has lacked a sense of urgency and focus that is commensurate with the scale and severity of the nutrition crisis facing communities and children. Inadequate nutrition is the underlying cause of over 2.5 million child deaths annually. It limits the growth and potential of more than 170
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 8 million children worldwide. The G20 is rightly concerned about increasing economic stability and growth, but economies cannot effectively grow if their children can’t grow because they’re stunted and they’re suffering from malnutrition. Good nutrition provides one of the first and best
chances for child survival and development throughout life, and its positive impacts are also felt by families, communities and countries. Specifically, we’re calling on the G20 to do three things: one, measure the success of agriculture and food security programs against how much they improve the nutrition of children and mothers. We saw some progress at the G8 and in relation to a pledge that was made to lift 50 million people out of poverty as a result of agricultural investments including an increased role for the private sector. But the G8 fell short of committing to a specific goal related to nutrition, one like preventing the number of children that are stunted. We believe this is a pivotal opportunity for the G20 to finish that unfinished business and commit to a nutrition-specific target. Second, we call on the G20 to endorse the scaling of nutrition movement and support countries’ efforts to make sure women and children in their first thousand days of life get adequate nutrition for a healthy and productive life. The recently released Copenhagen Consensus, which is based on the research of 65 leading researchers and economists, have shown that investments in nutrition have some of the biggest impacts when it comes to reducing poverty and stimulating growth.
Third, we want to make sure that foreign investments are made in agriculture that reach small-scale farmers particularly women. Smallscale farmers produce 80% of the food consumed in Africa and in many parts of Asia. They represent the true heroes and heroines in the fight
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 9 against hunger and malnutrition, but they need much more support. They need to be better plugged in to market change and gain greater access to credit, seeds, fertilizers, etcetera. The G20 is about more than simply 20 powerful politicians coming together to address real economic issues. It is also about what we can do to lend our voice. That is why World Vision launched the hunger-free campaign just before the G8 and we’re continuing it through the G20 where thousands of people from over 80 countries have lent their voice and their vision for what a hunger-free world could look like. We’re going to have an exhibit in the cultural pavilion in Los Cabos and we invite you to learn more about the campaign at hungerfree.org.
I just want to close with what I see the real danger in this upcoming G20 Summit. It’s that it will be a repeat of what we experienced in Cannes. Both Los Cabos and Cannes are very luxurious destinations for many vacationers and the wealthy, but they can be very far removed from the daily struggles and the daily fights for survival of so many because of escalating food prices and because of drought. But similar to what
happened in Cannes, Los Cabos could also, the agenda could be overshadowed and overwhelmed by the continuing Eurozone crisis. So even in the midst of these turbulent and difficult economic times, it is imperative that G20 leaders do more to ensure that growth is equitable and that more is done to address the crisis of malnutrition and hunger. Thank you.
Sam Worthington: Thank you, Adam. Then I think there are clear messages here of we want a G20 that focuses on growth, but there are forgotten crises out there that impact the world’s poor. They need inclusive growth and attention to
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 10 climate change and the impact of biofuels, open anti-corruption efforts particularly focused on extractives, and a focus on food security but ultimately on the nutrition of children. These are the crises that may not necessarily be discussed at the G20 but they are central to lives of billions of people around the world. Operator, at this point in time I would like to open the line for questions, please.
Operator:
Absolutely. At this time, if you would like to ask a question you may do so by pressing ‘star’ ‘1’ on your telephone. If for any reason you wish to remove yourself from the queue, you may do so by pressing the pound key. Once again, it is ‘star’ then ‘1’ to ask a question. We will take our first question from the site of Krista Hughes with Reuters. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Sam Worthington: Krista, go ahead. Hello?
Operator:
Krista Hughes, your line is open. Oh, I’m sorry, I was on mute. I do apologize. Good morning. Yes, Krista Hughes here from Mexico City. Given the lack of progress by the G20 in the various areas that you have outlined in their various filings, do you think that it’s still the appropriate forum for global economic governance?
Krista Hughes:
Sam Worthington: Okay, why don’t I throw it open to anyone on the group?
Steve Price-Thomas: Yes, thanks for the question. This is Steve from Oxfam. The G20 is a self-selected group but it does represent a very large proportion of the world’s economy, a very large proportion of the world’s people and so on.
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 11 And they have declared themselves to be the world’s premier forum for sustainable economic development. So given that they’ve declared that, and that they have set the expectations of what they’re going to do so high, I think it’s now time for them clearly to deliver as we’ve said before on the issues that we’ve outlined on the call. So we hope that they will knuckle down and actually deliver what’s needed for the developing world. But if they fail to do that, then maybe we need to be looking at another forum. But first and foremost, they have to deliver in Los Cabos.
Sam Worthington: Any other comments on this question?
Adam Taylor:
Yes, this is Adam Taylor from World Vision. I think the G20 is still evolving. It’s still in some ways in its infancy as a global forum. So I think there’s real hope and potential that the G20 can strengthen its emphasis on inclusive growth and on recognizing that so many of the development issues that we’ve talked about including addressing malnutrition and hunger are crucial for stimulating both short-term and long-term economic growth. So these two agendas shouldn’t be separate. They are interdependent, and since 2009 as was already mentioned, development issues have been on the agenda but they’ve been at the periphery of the agenda, not the center. So our call and our hope is that President Calderon and other G20 leaders will take to heart how critical it is to put development issues at the center and not the edge.
Sam Worthington: Any other comments on this question?
Joe Powell:
This is Joe Powell from ONE. I think both in Seoul and Cannes we saw important commitments and very warm words around development. What
NGO Sue Pleming InterAction 06/12/12 10:00 am ET Page 12 we need now is accountability of those promises. Promises have been made and they have to be delivered. So if Los Cabos can be as much about delivering on all the past promises that were made as making lots of new ones, then I think that would be significant progress.
Sam Worthington: Anyone else? This is Sam. Just one observation here, the value of the G20 is it brings key middle income countries that have half of the world’s poor living within their borders into the dialogue. But it’s critical that the G20 take a global view that includes the impact of their efforts on the lives of the 1.6 billion people who live in fragile states and whose voice is not part of the G20 process. On to the next question. As a reminder, it is ‘star’ then ‘1’ to ask a question. It appears we have no questions in queue at this time. Sam Worthington: I’d like to thank each of you for your time, observations and for our reporters who are joining this call, and look forward to ongoing dialogue around the G20. Thank you very much.
Operator:
END
