Summary: Even for those expecting little from last week’s G20 summit (for our views, see What went wrong; an agenda for the G20, ASI, 30 March 2009), the outcome is depressing. There were some worthwhile achievements, but also heroic hypocrisy, unreliable sums, weak promises, meaningless language and selfserving commitments. It can only be that the G20 leaders themselves were more fully seized of their domestic weaknesses than their international responsibilities.
In this light, they knowingly involved themselves in a futile exercise in the hope that the world will make its own way out of its current disarray with or without their contribution. But before we lay into every aspect of the G20 outcome, let’s recognise such good as did emerge.