Top Recommendations from the G20 Engagement Groups
It is our privilege and pleasure to present to you the results of a high-level evaluation of all G20 Engagement Group recommendations, conducted by the G20 Research Group, in collaboration with the Global Solutions Initiative. This evaluation has culminated in the identification of the “Top 20 Synthesis Recommendations,” in the judgment of the Expert Evaluation Panel.
Through the “Top 20 Synthesis Recommendations,” the G20 Research Group and the Global Solutions Initiative seek to support the Saudi Arabian G20 Presidency 2020 by highlighting some major policy proposals generated by the G20 Engagement Groups. Each of these proposals addresses an essential current global challenge, is innovative, ambitious and practically implementable and serves the global public interest, and covers multiple areas of policy making. Each proposal calls for consistent responses across decision-making domains (covering government, business and civil society) and levels of responsibility (from local to national to supra-national). Most importantly, each proposal serves the global public interest. Each aims to recouple economic prosperity (in terms of material living standards) with social prosperity (in terms of human wellbeing in thriving societies).
The eight formal Engagement Groups of the G20 produced 376 recommendations under the G20 Presidency of Saudi Arabia. The recommendations were assessed by the following criteria:
Assessment Criteria | Points |
Desirability | |
Human wellbeing | 20 |
Synergies not silos | 20 |
Timely, well-tailpred, ambitious | 10 |
Practicality | |
Leader like | 10 |
Commitment with compliance | 10 |
G20 value added | 10 |
Presidency priorities match | 10 |
Broad engagement group support | 10 |
The application of these criteria by John Kirton from the G20 Research Group and Dennis J. Snower from the Global Solutions Initiative produced a short list of recommendations that were sent for a second, more systematic evaluation using the same criteria to the Expert Evaluation Panel. The members of the Expert Evaluation Panel were selected on account of their longstanding involvement in the G20 intergovernmental or engagement group process and their expertise in the key subjects that the G20 addressed under the G20 Presidency 2020. The members collectively covered most major geographic regions and levels of development of G20 members.
The resulting “Top 20 Synthesis Recommendations” had substantial levels of balance and inclusiveness across the eight formal engagement groups and the core priorities of the G20. The evaluation process strove to synthesize, shape, sharpen and strengthen several similar recommendations generated by various Engagement Groups in the same or complementary policy areas. The result is a set of “synthetic” recommendations, explicitly promising co-benefits for several policy areas, rather than in the silo of a single area.
We hope that this initiative of the G20 Research Group and the Global Solutions Initiative is useful to the G20 for underpinning further G20 policy efforts and communicating with the wider public.
Sincerely yours,
John Kirton and Dennis J. Snower