Brazil’s G20 summit, to be held in Rio de Janeiro on November 18-19, 2024, will be the culmination of several major global meetings that will precede Brazil’s chairmanship of the BRICS group and the COP30 climate conference in 2025.
The G20 group, an expanded format of the G7 group representing the world’s once most economically advanced «democracies,» includes 19 nations plus the European Union and, starting in 2024, the African Union. Recognizing at the beginning of the new millennium that the world had changed and that it was no longer possible to ignore the enormous role of the countries of the global East and South in the economic development of the planet, the U.S. and German finance ministries agreed to expand the elite club by adding 12 more states, bringing the total to 19 «systemically important» countries, plus the European Union.
Current G20 members include: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan (these are the G7); Australia; China, India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa (these are the BRICS countries, although they were not named as such when the G20 was created), Mexico, Argentina, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Indonesia. Eight developed countries (four of them European), eleven developing countries. Plus the European Union. The clear majority of developing countries (not counting the inclusion of the European Union) was an attempt to gain legitimacy by moving away from the standard model of global governance since World War II, in which the preferences of the developed countries set the agenda (as in an aid regime where the preferences of the «donors» override those of the «recipients»).
The first meeting of the G20F (finance ministers and central bank governors) was held in Berlin at the end of 1999. From then until 2008, G20F meetings at the level of finance ministers and central bank governors (in practice, mostly at the deputy level) took place informally, once or twice a year. Then came the North Atlantic financial crisis of 2008-09. By this time, there was growing pressure from some G7 countries (notably Canada) to elevate the G20 to the level of heads of government. The Bush administration agreed, albeit reluctantly, to elevate the G20 to the level of heads of government and held the first G20L meeting in Washington in late 2008. Shortly thereafter, the G20 began referring to itself as the «steering committee for the global economy» or «the premier forum for international economic cooperation.
Hosting the G20 is a great opportunity for Brazil to demonstrate its leadership on the world stage as one of the world’s leading emerging economies. Especially as President Lula emphasizes his leadership role in the alternative exclusive club, BRICS. Lula feels most comfortable presenting himself as the defender of the global South and making himself its most visible public face.
