Blog Post
- Views on the Economy and the World
Italy hosts the G20 this year. The 2021 Summit of the Heads of Government will take place in Rome in October. Officials of member countries, including the finance ministers and central bank governors, are preparing.
The G20 meeting will come at a time of great uncertainty as concerns the health and economic effects of the pandemic, midway through its 2nd year. Although the mechanisms of international cooperation have been badly bruised by events of recent years, they are more important than ever, in light of the interconnectedness across nations that the pandemic so vividly demonstrates.
Of what, specifically, should international cooperation in such bodies as the G20 consist? To begin with, by “cooperation,” I am not in this case referring to the coordinated setting of national monetary or fiscal policies. For the most part, countries can, on their own, move those levers in the directions that are right for them.
Areas on which the G20 should focus include three: financial stability, trade, and vaccination. This is in addition to other important areas, especially the existential issue of global climate change, which should and will receive a lot of attention.