Leaders of the G20 group of the world’s most powerful countries pledged to bring the world economy out of recession when they met in London in April.
As they meet in Pittsburgh, five months later, just how far have their governments gone in meeting some of their key commitments?
In April, headlines trumpeted a $1.1 trillion deal to help countries fight the economic crisis. Much of this funding was to be directed toward the International Monetary Fund.
* The G20 has succeeded in increasing the IMF’s lending capacity by $500bn to $750bn. The target was only met earlier this month after the EU increased its initial pledge of about $100bn to $178bn. Only a tiny fraction of this ($2.3bn) has so far been allocated
* The IMF has allocated an additional $250bn worth of reserves to member countries that can be tapped when needed. Around $100bn has been allocated to developing countries
* The IMF has also approved its first major sale of gold since 2000 to raise money for additional financing for poor countries. The sale of 403 metric tonnes of gold should raise $13bn – more than the $6bn asked for by the G20
* The G20 also pledged to help boost trade by providing $250bn worth of financing, with $50bn expected to come from the World Bank. The G20 says that $65bn has been taken up so far. For its part, the World Bank has only received commitments of $7.8bn from donors
* The G20 said it would support an increase in lending to poor countries of at least $100bn through multilateral development banks (MDBs). The G20 says MDBs are planning to lend an extra $110bn this year but concrete figures are hard to come by and it’s not clear if this is from fresh or existing funding.
G20 governments pledged a total of $5tn in stimulus measures to boost their own economies, predicting that the extra cash would increase global economic output by 4% by the end of 2010.
However, few countries have detailed exactly how much they have spent and the IMF’s own estimate is slightly more cautious at 2% of GDP in 2009 and 1.5% of GDP in 2010.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has suggested that more than half of the $5tn has yet to be committed and has warned against switching off “the economic life support”.
However, the debate in Pittsburgh is likely to turn to how the the global economy can wean itself off the extra support now that there are signs of a recovery.
There are also fears that increased public spending could jeopardise any rebound given high levels of government debt and the deficits they have created in some countries.