ONE TAMASHA, TOO MANY AGENDAS

THIS is not a G20 world. Over the past several months, the expanded group of leading economies has gone from a would-be concert of nations to a cacophony of competing voices, as the urgency of the financial crisis has waned and the diversity of political and economic values within the group has asserted itself."- Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini, A G-Zero World, January 31, 2011

- KAJAL BASU

With the 18th iteration of the G20 over, we should extricate ourselves from the seductive fug of exorbitant bling and pomp of this annual meeting of cheerful heads of state, and come to terms with whether or not this soirée of august luminaries from across the ideological divide serves its purpose of global guidance and decision-making for a better future.

Many, including I, would say not-that it is a jamboree for geo-schmoozing. Host cities are cosmetically done up with multimillion-dollar infusions of transient beautification, urban presentability for two days, which are then ignored by visiting masters of the universe types, hurrying through lunches and dinners and conferences and arranged touristic excursions.

The G20 wasn't always this fraught with controversy. It began promisingly enough. In 2008 the year the global economic megacrisis broke and the G20 became a heads of-state huddle--and 2009, there was a consensus on instituting spending measures of $4 trillion to revive economies, work around trade barriers, and implement extensive financial sector reforms.

This consensus broke in a year. In 2010, the G20 began fraying at the seams as each member country chose to follow its own development piper instead of jamming together for a common purpose, which would have hobbled some countries while boosting others. As economic and environmental crises have become more and more local, even hyperlocal, global priorities have thereafter routinely been backbenched.

The European Parliament's briefing body, the Think Tank, reported on September 8, 2023 that "the outcomes of recent summits have not been as clear-cut and unanimous as in previous crises (such as in 2008)".