It is widely claimed that in this age of rising geopolitical conflict, protectionism and authoritarian nationalism, multilateral global problem-solving is dead. But in the aftermath of Brazil’s G20 Summit, it is well possible that this dire prediction is misguided.
A new approach to multilaterialism is emerging from the last three presidencies of the G20 – one that has the potential to change the global world order. This approach, which may be called “Multilateralism 2.0,” is not dependent on any global consensus. Nor is it wedded to top-down policymaking by global elites. It cannot be held hostage by isolated national leaders who are not interested in global cooperation.
To gain a glimpse of this emerging movement, consider the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, launched at the Brazilian G20 Summit. The Alliance is on track to gain support from over 100 countries. It entails (a) cash transfer programs, scaled up to reach 500 million people, (b) a School Meals Sprint program to give 150 million school children daily nutritious school meals in low-income countries, by 2030, (c) a Socioeconomic Inclusion Sprint program to help 100 million people exit poverty by providing coaching, microcredit, skills training and other support, (d) a Maternal and Early Childhood Interventions Sprint program to address early childhood malnutrition for over 200 million women and children, (e) support for smallholder and family farming programs for small-scale farmers, who produce up to 70% of the food consumed in low- and middle-income countries, and (f) a Water Access Sprint program that supports access to safe water for drinking and agriculture in arid regions.
This Alliance may turn out to be a major step forward in global problem-solving, in line with the transformation of global problems over the past two decades. This transformation has been gradual, easily missed in the bombardment of daily news.
According to many commentators, the G20 reached the apex of effectiveness in 2009, when it brokered a massive fiscal and monetary stimulus that prevented the financial crisis of 2008 from turning into a rerun of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Though this impression is incorrect, it tells an interesting story about public perceptions versus policy realities.
In the eyes of the public, the G20 is a top-down global policy forum, a step towards some form of world government. As such, it has been resisted in regular protests by activists of all stripes, who object to decisions made by a global elite that is remote from the billions of people affected by them. If this perception were accurate, then there would indeed be only few occasions in which the G20 could play a valuable role, such as to stave off global financial crises. Such crises indeed require top-down coordination of expansionary macroeconomic policies. This is what happened in 2009.
But 2009 marked a turning point for the G20. Before then, the G20 focused primarily on economic and financial policy coordination. Afterwards, the G20 faced a plethora of global problems that required wider policy innovation: climate change, COVID-19 pandemic, technological disruption, biodiversity loss, cybersecurity, a rising gap between rich and poor, and much more.
These problems call for a different approach. Top-down policies are ineffective without bottom-up cooperation, as the world witnessed when the Paris Climate Accords did not receive adequate national climate action or when pandemic prevention measures were foiled by anti-vax campaigners.
Furthermore, bottom-up initiatives are ineffective without top-down coordination. This becomes obvious, for example, when we recognize that the countless local measures taken by businesses, philanthropic organizations and civic groups, to reduce carbon emissions, have done little to stop the inexorable advance of climate change.
Instead, what is required is a new form of global collaboration, “Multilateralism 2.0.” It involves the combination of the following elements:
- Shared purpose, connecting small social groups into networks involving larger-scale organizations at the regional, national and international levels, working together to address common challenges;
- Agentic governance, enabling each decision-making unit within the networks to make and enforce rules within its jurisdiction, thereby fostering local autonomy and collaboration across governance levels, from micro to macro;
- Gain redirection, aiming to provide a legal, regulatory and financial incentive framework to ensure that the acquisition of wealth and pursuit of profit does not go at the expense of social cohesion and the environment;
- Environmental connectedness, in the form of private- and public-sector recognition that all economic activities need to be sustainable, so that the world economy becomes circular and free of waste.
These elements may be summarized by the acronym “SAGE,” denoting a sage approach to global problem-solving. This is the approach toward which the last three G20 Presidencies – Indonesia in 2022, India in 2023, Brazil in 2024 – have been headed.
The Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty is “an initiative dedicated to mobilizing resources and coordinating actions among countries, institutions, and organizations to achieve ambitious goals of reducing hunger and poverty.” It is meant to be “a key new matchmaking and partnership structure aimed at providing more consistent support to policy implementation across all the Global Alliance members,” as stated in a recent announcement. This is Multilateralism 2.0.
It requires a shared purpose among the Alliance members. It does not offer one-size-fits-all solutions but rather leverages the member’s efforts within a well-defined framework of achievement. This is agentic governance in practice. Since the G20 is a forum primarily responsible for norm-setting and moral suasion, the Alliance will hopefully lead to changes in tax-subsidy schemes, laws and regulations that redirect gain, so as to bring the quest for profit and livelihoods into consonance with reducing hunger and poverty. The Alliance emphasizes ecologically sustainable farming practices that, together with Brazil’s G20 focus on energy transitions to address the climate crisis, respect the policy objective of environmental connectedness.
Needless to say, this effort cannot succeed if it is interpreted as a top-down policy dictated by G20 officials. Instead, it must be turned into a global exercise in “polycentric governance,” whereby decision-making is distributed across local, regional and national levels, in the spirit of collectively managing shared global resources to eliminate hunger and poverty.
If successful, the Alliance will belong to the vanguard of a brave new approach to global governance. The G20 is meant to address “shared global problems,” that is, problems requiring cooperation across national borders. By identifying the eradication of hunger and poverty as a shared global problem, the G20 acknowledges that the plight of the poor and disadvantaged is a responsibility for all to bear.
Dennis J. Snower is a Professorial Research Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School.
