Institute of Development Studies

G8 and G20: Recovery from the global crises means recovery for all

25 June 2010

G8 and G20 ministers meet in Toronto, Canada this weekend to agree, among other things, the latest commitments by its members in the fight towards ending global poverty. As countries across the G8 and G20 continue to tighten their belts in order to ease domestic and global financial difficulties, observers await with interest to see what will emerge. Will the final communiqué drop the Gleneagles pledge on assistance to Africa as has been rumoured? And will the language on aid be 'toughened up'?

Central to these discussions should be the impacts of the global economic crisis on poor and vulnerable people in developing countries. Ahead of the meetings, the UN's Secretary General Ban Ki Moon launches his second report on the crises and calls for a dedicated course of action to ensure that that the world's poorest are not excluded from global strategies for recovery. Voices of the Vulnerable whose research was led by IDS Research Fellows Allister McGregor and Naomi Hossain, reveals that despite economic rresilience by a number of developing countries, the burden of coping has been borne disproportionately by poor and vulnerable people.

The report repeats many of the themes that emerged in last year's report with further accounts of lost employment, unaffordability of nutritious food, disproportionately high costs of coping for children, young adults and women, and growing tensions arising within families and communities as they try to make ends meet. In many places, the challenges of the food, fuel and financial crises are compounded by other crises, including political instability and environmental pressures.

While there is now talk of a global recovery getting underway, there is much left to play out in the lives of the worlds poorest. Just as households have borne much of the brunt of coping during the crisis, they now run the risk of being left behind. Future support must be dedicated not just to meeting short-term needs but also to developing new and innovative strategies for building sustainable community resilience to further crisis.

Read the Global Pulse report, Voices of the Vulnerable: Recovery from the ground up (pdf)

Read the message from the UN Secretary General (pdf)

Allister McGregor is Team Leader for the Vulnerability and Poverty Reduction Team at IDS.

Naomi Hossain is a Research Fellow with the Participation and Social Change Team at IDS.