Fostering Bold and Innovative Ideas for Urgent Global Challenges: The V20 Contribution to the G20 during the China–German Transition

Since its self-appointment as the core global economic “Steering Committee” of systematically important countries in 2008–2009, the G20 has been facing a growing number of functional demands. Only the G20 has the ability to address global systemic risks, coordinate macro-economic policies among the major economic countries, provided coherent leadership to international institutions, and reduce policy frictions between emerging and established powers. Yet, despite rising expectations toward the G20, its effectiveness, seemingly, has gradually decreased. Its role as a platform for grand bargains and responsible global management by top political leadership has been overtaken increasingly by technical small bargains and routinized communiqués written by experts that only provide small steps forward. Even the vigorous and dynamic G20 Chinese and German presidencies in 2016 and 2017, respectively, had to scale back ambitious global goals and settle for normative commitments and minor adjustments. In response, a network of scholars, think tank leaders, policy leaders, and societal leaders came together in 2016 and 2017 as the Vision 20 to offer a way forward, a process, and a set of concrete ideas to nudge the G20 toward its potential as a long-term oriented flexible institution that is able to anticipate large-scale common systemic risks and muster collective responses. At a time of growing geopolitical tensions caused by shifts in the global balance of power, securitization of economic flows, and a broad-based social backlash against inequalities and fears generated by globalization, innovative solutions for collective global governance are urgently needed. This article summarizes the dynamic that lead to the Vision 20 effort and its early results.