Policy Backgrounders

G20 and G7 Foreign Ministers and G20 Finance Ministers Meetings

March 01, 2024

Trusted Insights for What’s Ahead™

In a busy week for international diplomacy, the foreign ministers of the G20 countries and the G7 countries each met. The foreign ministers’ meeting was quickly followed by a meeting of G20 finance ministers and heads of central banks. While the formal purpose of the meetings was to prepare for summit meetings with heads of government later this year (November 18-19 in Rio de Janeiro for the G20 and June 13-15 in Apulia, Italy, for the G7), the meetings are nevertheless important in their own right.

• Global governance reform is an important priority for Brazil and other developing countries, but there will likely be little progress except perhaps at multilateral financial institutions such as the regional development banks.
• Ukraine and Gaza remain divisive issues among G20 countries, making true consensus difficult – and raising the likelihood that the summit this fall will be contentious and produce few concrete results. However, the finance ministers are somewhat optimistic about the prospects for the global economy as inflation falls and fiscal conditions improve in many countries.
• G7 finance ministers are strongly considering setting up an international fund to hold seized Russian assets and eventually use them for Ukraine reconstruction – but divisions remain among the allies and no actual seizures will happen quickly.