After four years of discord and obstruction during the Trump presidency, there is a distinctly upbeat mood around the G7 meetings this year. Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, has committed to strengthening global cooperation, heralding what his treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has called “a revival of multilateralism”.
Tangible signs of that revival have certainly appeared over the past five months: world leaders have agreed to issue new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), curtail corporate tax avoidance, launch negotiations over a patent waiver to increase production of COVID-19 vaccines, and renew climate commitments.
But this ‘progress’ has not turned around the fortunes of the poorest countries that have been hardest hit by the pandemic, both in terms of excess deaths and economic damage, and which are now facing a hazardous combination of debt distress and fiscal asphyxiation. A series of half-baked wins is nothing to celebrate if it feeds complacency in the face of ongoing tragedy.
