The G8 heads of states/governments come together each year to discuss current major domestic and global issues. There are lower level ministerial meetings of the G8 several times a year, where foreign ministers, finance ministers, environment ministers meet to discuss issues in their respectable areas.
Decisions of the heads of governments of the G8 or its ministerial meetings are notable for taking place within the group instead of other major international forums. Many of those decisions remain decisions without real results though.
Since the end of the 90s there were such commintments to fight against global poverty, fight diseases including HIV/Aids, they initiated development programmes and debt-relief schemes, agreed to launch common databases to fight against terrorism and pedophilia to name just a few major issues.
As in international organizations there occur disagreements among the G8 members in certain issues as well. Most notably the measures to be taken to fight against climate change seem to be a topic on which these eight cannot come to a common conclusion.
Critics like to take a deeper look in quantified commitments several years on and rarely find any that came to realization with the promised amounts in the promised deadline.
Since 2009, during the economic crises there were strong commitments for cooperation in economic and financial areas, but even that momentum weakens year by year.
You can read more about the G8’s “empty promises” clicking here.
According to the official site of the UK Presidency, Prime Minister David Cameron is determined to achieve change on the following three issues this year:
- advancing trade
- ensuring tax compliance
- promoting greater transparency
We’ll see how it goes.
A more detailed post about current issues on the table of the G8 coming later, stay tuned for that.
