Brazil’s first G20 presidency culminated in the summit in Rio de Janeiro from 18-19 November. The main highlight is that the taxation of high net worth individuals was put on the international policy agenda. The ongoing process of reforming the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) received further impetus with the adoption of a new roadmap. The Brazilian government sought to better link G20 policy-making with the United Nations and established new formats for stakeholder engagement, notably the G20 Social Summit. 

The outcome document adopted by consensus at the G20 Heads of State Summit emphasises that Rio de Janeiro was also the birthplace of the Sustainable Development Agenda. While the G20 is traditionally a forum for economic policy coordination, President Lula’s government made a visible effort to ensure that the social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development were also taken into account. In particular, inequality and the climate crisis featured prominently in the document. The G20 summit took place at the same time as the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku – which may explain the absence of G20 Heads of State there. Brazil will host the next Conference of the Parties (COP 30) in Belém in November 2025.

Wealth taxation on the agenda

The effort to promote wealth taxation is a novelty on the G20 agenda, and can be seen as a key action to reduce inequality and raise additional finance for sustainable development and public goods. Wealth taxation had already been on the agenda of G20 Finance Ministers’ meetings throughout the year and had received some pushback from other G20 Members. The language adopted in paragraph 20 is therefore vague: “With full respect to tax sovereignty, we will seek to engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed. (…)” Nevertheless, the issue is now on the international agenda, and probably here to stay. 

To the surprise of many, the G20 Declaration encourages the Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) – an informal negotiating format hosted by the OECD that includes non-OECD countries – “to consider working on these issues”. The Inclusive Framework was considered redundant after the negotiations on the BEPS Agreement were concluded in 2021. Many countries, particularly from Latin America, want wealth taxes to be included in the work on the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation which starts in 2025. 

The revenue potential of wealth taxes is huge: a study by Gabriel Zucman for the G20 found that a 2% tax on the wealth of the 3000 richest billionaires could raise US$ 200-250 billion annually. The Tax Justice Network argued that a global wealth tax based on the Spanish model could raise US$ 2 trillion a year. It could thus fill about half of the annual financing gap for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which stands at around US$ 4 trillion. 

Limited progress on financing for development 

The Rio Summit was the last meeting of G20 Heads of States before the international community will gather for the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) and was seen as an important milestone in the preparatory process. 

The main focus of the G20 Summit was the reform of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The G20 has a special responsibility here, the two international institutions are dominated by G20 member states as their governance structures give more voting rights to larger economies. The key outcome  is the “G20 Roadmap towards better, bigger and more effective MDBs”. Its annex lists 44 actions, including the promotion of local currency lending and implementation through borrowing countries’ own systems. Most of these are not really new, but refer to ongoing work at the MDBs. However, they may have received additional political impetus from the G20 endorsement. 

The G20 also “continue[s] to invite countries that are willing and legally able to explore channeling Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to MDBs”. Notably, the G20 declaration adopted in Rio does not reaffirm the agreement reached at the UN Summit of the Future that richer countries should rechannel at least half of the allocation they received in 2021. 

Sectoral issues featured prominently at the Rio Summit, with the Brazilian presidency placing particular emphasis on hunger and launching a new Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty. The Brazilian G20 presidency also launched a new vertical fund, the Tropical Forest Finance Facility (TFFF), to support the conservation of tropical rainforests. The fundraising target of US$ 125 billion is ambitious, and the fact that the outcome document only “take[s] note” of the TFFF already indicates the limited willingness of other G20 members to contribute substantial amounts. The G20 Summit was also expected to be a milestone in the World Health Organisation’s Investment Round which aims to raise US$ 7.1 billion. However, no new pledges from the G20 have been reported by the end of the Summit. 

Global Governance Reform

Another objective of the Brazilian presidency was to promote global governance reform. Remarkably, and for the first time ever, the 2024 G20 Summit declaration devotes considerable space to discussing the reform and strengthening of the United Nations, with entire paragraphs on the UN General Assembly (63), the UN Security Council (64), the Economic and Social Council (65), and even the Peacebuilding Commission (66) and the UN Secretariat (67). It is also remarkable that the G20 is doing this without referring to the fact that the UN General Assembly -  in its universal format with 193 Member States – recently did exactly the same, adopting a comprehensive agreement on UN reform in the Pact for the Future just two months earlier. 

The Brazilian presidency points out that one of this year´s meetings of foreign ministers took place at the UN, in an attempt to better integrate the work of the G20 into the UN system. Despite this laudable effort, the G20, in its exclusive format, continues to create parallel governance structures, that duplicate the work of the UN system. The Brazilian presidency contributed to the further proliferation of G20 working groups by founding two new ones, on “Research and Innovation” and “Women Empowerment”. 

Lastly, the Brazilian G20 Presidency established new formats for stakeholder engagement, notably the G20 Social Summit, which took place in the days before the Heads of State Summit and attracted 50,000 people. The interaction between civil society organisations (CSOs) and the G20 presidency was strong in 2024, and the strong focus that the Brazilian government has put on inequality and climate change has certainly benefitted from that. The final declaration of the Social Summit also indicates that CSOs need to be careful to avoid cooptation, as it is remarkably close to the Brazilian government´s agenda, for example in calling for reform of the UN Security Council (Brazil´s ambition is to become a permanent member). It remains to be seen whether this format is going to continue under the following G20 presidencies which are South Africa in 2025, the USA (under the new Trump Administration) in 2026, and most likely Saudi Arabia again in 2027.