g20

As they fight the Covid-19 pandemic, countries across the world are pushed to spend big to weather the crisis. Due to their limited fiscal capacity, many low- and middle-income countries are facing debt distress which might lead to a future debt restructuring process. With the current conventional instrument of sovereign debt, debt restructuring is a painful process and sometimes hurts the economy more than is necessary.

The Token Economy presents revolutionary digital solutions to the traceability and certification of sequential transactions. Beyond financial markets, tokenisation has the potential to multiply all types of transaction exponentially and to develop customised investment options to suit almost any interest. Due to its universality and increasing applications, there is a need for wider supervision and a regulatory approach as we gain a better understanding of the token economy.

Throughout 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic caused massive human and economic casualties. The pandemic has been a major blow for developing countries, especially low-income countries, from many perspectives. These countries experienced a sudden dry-up of external financing in March 2020, against the backdrop of a rapid pile-up of sovereign debt during the last few years, coupled with a surging need for finance to combat the public health crisis (Figure 1).

Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs) are defined by complex legal rules that differ across countries. Identifying UBOs is increasingly costly and time consuming. Gathering more data and refining already complex domestic legal arsenals is not the solution. We therefore propose a risk-based approach to identifying possible UBOs, which is enabled by recent theoretical advances in economics and corporate finance. The proposed methodology is robust, rigorous and cheap to implement.

While only one African member is formally part of the G20, Africa remains severely underrepresented in the most important multilateral group regarding global economic and financial cooperation. This policy brief argues that a greater degree of global integration and regional representation is key to ensuring the long-term legitimacy of the G20 itself. For this to be achieved, the G20 needs to become more inclusive, particularly by systematising its relationship with African multilateral institutions.

Haphazard efforts to renationalise economic activity after the recent economic and financial crisis and during the ongoing pandemic have fragmented the global economy. To correct this, we propose that the G20 call for the elaboration of Global Legal Standards (GLS) as a framework of convergence. To begin, such standards could apply in areas like global value chains, finance and taxation, and corporate governance. Once consolidated in these three areas, GLS could foster positive externalities capable of providing new impetus to multilateralism, and reshape the global order of tomorrow.

We recommend issuing an annual report on “Global Risk”, which would become a flagship product of G20 with support from T20. By ranking the top global risks in the report, G20 could help improve the efficiency of the distribution and use of resources, namely global public goods. The report could enhance G20’s enforcement power by setting up a precautionary mechanism in the form of a specific task force or panel discussion of a related international organisation, such as the WHO, WTO or UNIDO.

Effective interstate communication is key to multilateral governance, but certain phenomena in the current global information ecosystem challenge it. The malicious diffusion of fake news and disinformation through social media and messaging apps deserves special attention, since it can hamper cooperation, reduce mutual trust and foster new and old conflicts.

This policy brief recommends the introduction of a “G20+” to lead the way on a post-pandemic socio-economic recovery that is effective, sustainable, and equitable. The “G20+” would harness the group’s formidable economic and political clout, while addressing its current deficits as regards legitimacy, representativeness and connections to the wider multilateral system. The policy brief sets out specific priority actions for the “G20+” to pursue, both in the short and medium-term, and outlines which institutional innovations are needed to achieve these ends.

The challenges induced by COVID-19 highlight the need for a multilateral approach towards recovery. These challenges have combined with anti-establishment sentiment towards systems of governance. Concurrently, cryptocurrencies have provided an attractive location of activity for actors who feel disenfranchised by state-led systems of governance. This paper examines the impact of this, by comparing two reactions to cryptocurrencies: the USA and how it regulates cryptocurrencies through FinCEN, and China’s central bank plan to integrate cryptocurrency functions through DCEP.

L’Italia, presidente di turno del G20, cerca la sponda di Pechino per un vertice delle maggiori economie del mondo sull’Afghanistan. Draghi e Xi a colloquio, ma la strada è in salita.

I ministri della Sanità del G20 approvano il Patto di Roma. Obiettivo: assicurare vaccini a tutto il mondo “perché nessuno venga lasciato indietro”.