Inclusive Global Governance Headlines Hamburg’s C20

GEI’s REN Peng and MA Qianru and traveled to Hamburg, Germany for the C20 conference this year. In addition to enjoying some German foods and beer and meeting lots of contacts doing development work, the GEI colleagues saw progress happening for green finance.

Photo Credit: Bundesregierung/Tybussek

From June 18-19, Germany welcomed representatives from the 20 leading industrial countries and emerging economies to participate in an alphabet-soup of G20, B20, C20, L20, S20, T20 and W20 conferences.

Standing for Governments, Businesses, Labor, Science, Technology and Women, respectively, the conferences are an opportunity for idea exchange and building cooperation for achieving “inclusive global governance.”

What’s notable about the conferences is that they recognize the G20 countries’ major societal stakeholders in development. Plus, each hosting country adds its own flair to the conference with local Civil Society Organizations having the opportunity to submit recommendations directly to top leadership. That’s right, Chancellor Angela Merkel made a special appearance at the C20 conference, addressing the audience and even participating in a panel discussion.

Interview with GEI’s Qianru Ma herself:

Q: Why did you attend C20? Is this your first time attending the conference?

A: Our main objectives for attending C20 this year were to understand other G20’s countries’ civil society sectors; exchange with other civil society groups; and to connect with the Argentina’s civil society sector since Argentina will host 2018’s conferences. Finally, I was eager to attend the summit on “Compact with Africa,” during which G20 countries signed compacts to promote sustainable investments in Africa. GEI has been expanding our Africa work so it’s important that we stay engaged in the international discussions on this topic.

This is not my first time to attend C20. In fact, since 2015, GEI started attending the C20 conference to support our international advocacy work. Last year, G20 was hosted in Hangzhou and C20 took place in Qingdao. For the China conference, we formally participated in the activities of the domestic and international advocacy platform. In fact, we were the general coordinator of the Working Group on Sustainable Finance and Investment and worked with eight other organizations to submit the communique to G20. This year, in Hamburg, I mostly participated in topics related to policy recommendations and consulted on the topic of “responsible investment and the role of the private sector.”

Photo Credit: Veterans Today

Q: Quick! Can you summarize C20 in 5 words?

A: I think the 5 words are:

Inclusive – Every G20 country has a representative and points on the agenda.

Merkel – Chancellor Merkel gave a speech, received policy recommendation, and held a public dialogue session during the C20 conference.

Networking – I met so many interesting people!

Exchange – Many ideas were discussed and debated over the two days.

Resistance – The local people in Hamburg resisted G20 because they saw it as a major inconvenience and not an effective mechanism for change.

Q: Sometimes I feel like these big meetings are more an opportunity to “show face” than actually get work done. What do you think?

A: I think what you get out of large conferences like C20, largely depends on the purpose of your participation in the meeting. For GEI, we believe it is very important for Chinese Civil Society to attend so that we can raise our voices amongst international communities. With Chinese Civil Society starting to go global to speak out on global governance, we, as Chinese NGO, are eager to learn and exchange so to improve our capacity to more actively participate in international discussions.

Q: How was China involved this year?

A: The China Association for NGO Cooperation (CANGO), organized a Workshop during G20 on the title: “China’s climate and infrastructure policies and environmental and social justice.” They shared experience of their project that conducts exchange between Chinese and European NGOs and advised how these groups can work together. Additionally, there’s a lot of networking amongst the Chinese NGOs in attendance.

Q: What are some next steps?

A: We’re on the “the Road to Argentina”! In preparation for the 2018 Conference, we will consider the role we can play and with whom we can cooperation next year. Maybe we will even organize a workshop on sustainable investment and finance! Stay tuned!