JEDDAH: On Nov. 14, 2008, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah attended the first meeting of the leaders of the G20, hosted by US President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. The King’s presence showcased his country’s position as one of the top 20 economies in the world.
The establishment of the G20 was initiated in 1999 during a forum in the German city of Cologne attended by the finance ministers and central bank governors of the original G7 nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US.
In response to a financial imbalance arising from the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the attendees discussed the introduction of a summit that included more members of the global community, specifically 10 industrial countries and 10 emerging market economies.
The founding of the group was primarily an initiative of the German finance minister, Hans Eichel. The G20’s finance ministers subsequently convened each year to discuss international economic policy issues and promote international financial stability.
At the behest of US President George W. Bush’s administration, the annual meeting of G20 finance ministers was elevated to the level of leaders in 2008. This was a response to a call for more-immediate action by heads of state following the collapse of global stock markets that year.
How we wrote it
Arab News highlighted King Abdullah’s call for “tougher regulations” and Arab coordination to mitigate the financial crisis.
And so the G20 leaders assembled in Washington in November for their first high-level summit, which gave Saudi Arabia a chance to demonstrate its potential for global leadership and showcase its economic significance.
During my first semester as a student studying for a master’s degree in public health in Europe in 2008, I kept apace with all news related to the Kingdom and followed the inaugural G20 Summit with great interest, as it was a chance for the leader of my nation to demonstrate to the international community its commitment to its partners and the world.
As a young Saudi, I lived through some of the early reforms introduced by King Abdullah after he became ruler in 2005. I was a witness to the economic boom resulting from these reforms, including the development of the Kingdom’s infrastructure.
These developments also included sending thousands of students around the world to attend top-tier universities through the King Abdullah Scholarship Program, the largest of its kind in the history of the Kingdom and one I was proud to be a part of.
In 2019, now an Arab News reporter, I traveled to Tokyo to report from the annual T20 (Think 20) Summit, one of the G20’s engagement groups. To fully understand the G20, you have to understand the T20. It is the intellectual backbone that connects the policy recommendations, called Task Forces, of successive G20 presidencies. Topics for discussion at T20 summits include trade, climate change, terrorism and gender equality.
During the summit I met the heads of Saudi think tanks and researchers from the Kingdom, who told me about their proposals, many of which would be adopted the following year when Saudi Arabia held the presidency of the G20.
The proposed Task Forces are selected carefully in what the head of the Saudi T20 delegation, Fahad Al-Turki, described as “a collective effort to ensure continuity” and avoid breaking a cycle that began in 2012 when the T20 engagement group was established.
Key Dates
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The Group of 20 is founded after the Asian financial crisis as a forum for the finance ministers and central bank governors of 19 countries plus the EU.
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Hosted by US President George W. Bush, leaders of the G20 members meet in Washington, D.C. amid the global stock market collapse. Saudi delegation is led by King Abdullah.
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First meeting of the Saudi Arabia-China High-Level Joint Committee; participants include Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Xi Jinping, who were attending the G20 Summit in Hangzhou.
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Final communique of G20 summit in Hamburg announces the 2020 summit will take place in Saudi Arabia for first time.
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Saudi Arabia assumes presidency of the G20 for 2020, taking over from Japan.
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In the face of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, plans to stage 15th meeting of the G20 in Riyadh are abandoned. King Salman instead hosts an extraordinary virtual summit that promotes a coordinated set of policies to protect peoples and safeguard the global economy.
For two days I read reports; I spoke to the heads of research centers from my home country and from Japan, Argentina and the US; I sat through sessions open to the public; and I read the final communique of the summit. I now know more.
The G20 is not simply a gathering of leaders: It is a village of ministers, heads of agencies, researchers, economists, mayors, scientists and community leaders that has developed important policies to provide more control over their own economies while also assisting economies that are poorer and facing challenges.
Back in 2008, the world leaders sat for two days behind closed doors in Washington discussing financial market woes and ways to help economies bounce back. At the conclusion of the talks, they gathered for the first ever G20 “family portrait.”
In the Nov. 16 edition of Arab News that year, it was reported that King Abdullah had called for greater international cooperation and coordination to offset the effects of the financial crisis. He emphasized “the need to develop effective monitoring systems” and called on the International Monetary Fund to play a greater role in supervising financial sectors in developed countries.
His speech came at a time when the Kingdom was going through a period of economic reforms designed to modernize its business environment, later bolstered by the launch of Vision 2030. Fast forward to 2022 and 2023, Saudi Arabia’s GDP achieved the highest growth rate among the G20 countries, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s “Global Economic Prospects” report.
This growth in the Saudi economy has led to its classification among the best emerging economies in the world, alongside China, India and Turkiye.
King Abdullah also pledged that Saudi Arabia would provide assistance to developing countries “exceeding the percentage established by the UN for assistance from industrial countries.” The adoption of this role of benefactor was something the Kingdom had been doing for years, even before joining the G20.
The significance of Saudi Arabia’s participation at the first G20 leaders’ summit was that it not only highlighted the country’s role in global markets, but also demonstrated its willingness to be a voice for the region and the wider developing world.
The first G20 leaders’ “family portrait.” AFP
To help ensure the G20’s regional balance over time, a different member state assumes the presidency of the group each year based on a system designed to reflect its nature as an informal political forum. On Dec. 1, 2019, a little over a decade after that first meeting in Washington, Saudi Arabia took over the presidency for 2020 and prepared to host the group’s 15th summit.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of plans to stage the annual meeting in Riyadh. However, Saudi Arabia responded to the situation with imagination and technical and organizational flair.
On March 26, 2020, King Salman presided over an extraordinary virtual summit at which world leaders, connected through video-conferencing software, planned a coordinated global response to the pandemic.
The Saudi presidency included another G20 first: the inaugural meeting of the group’s ministers of culture. In the words of a later analysis by UNESCO, the unprecedented economic and social disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic “had starkly exposed the vulnerability of the culture sector, while also bringing to light its critical contribution to the global economy, and to the resilience, well-being and prosperity of societies.
“Under these unique circumstances, Saudi Arabia successfully campaigned for culture to be added as a distinct track at the G20, thus laying the foundation for an effective cooperation among G20 members to accelerate the recovery of the cultural sector from the repercussions of the pandemic, and to enhance the collective commitment to strengthening culture as a driver for sustainable development, resilience and prosperity of societies.”
- Rawan Radwan, who was regional correspondent for Arab News in 2019 and 2020, based in Jeddah, reported from the T20 (Think 20) Tokyo Summit.
