A call for “global coordination”

The top economic officials of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Singapore produced a joint statement today on the economic crisis, which includes a call for action from the G-20: The world faces a crisis of confidence. We all knew that the recovery from the global financial crisis would be prolonged. However, the ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

The top economic officials of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Singapore produced a joint statement today on the economic crisis, which includes a call for action from the G-20:

The top economic officials of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Singapore produced a joint statement today on the economic crisis, which includes a call for action from the G-20:

The world faces a crisis of confidence. We all knew that the recovery from the global financial crisis would be prolonged. However, the more serious malaise today is the lack of confidence in efforts by governments to address the structural problems that underpin weak growth, high unemployment and unsustainable fiscal balance sheets.

Global co-ordination in the recovery is inevitably harder than co-ordinated reflation at the peak of the crisis, because the necessary reforms are more difficult to achieve and sustain. But the major barriers are political not economic, so what is needed is political leadership and courage. More short-term fixes without serious medium term commitments will only weaken confidence further….Progress on an international framework to support rebalancing has to move from discussion to action at this autumn’s meetings of G20 leaders and finance ministers.

Singapore is the only member of the group that is not a G-20 member. But it has emerged as a leading voice for the non-G-20 countries through its leadership of what is called the "global governance group."

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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