“Today, we designated the G20 as the premier forum for our international economic co-operation.” This statement is among the most important made in this pivotal year of 2009. The “Great Recession” has transformed the governance of the world economy: emerging economies are now equal partners. The question is whether the members of the G20 will deliver on their promises now that the worst of the crisis has passed.

The G20 is justified in claiming, in their communiqué, that at the London summit in April “our countries agreed to do everything necessary to ensure recovery, to repair our financial systems and to maintain the global flow of capital. It worked.” Leaders have lived up to promises to increase resources for the International Monetary Fund. This has, in all, been an era of desperate co-operation. Now leaders must build on the success.

They know very well why: “The process of recovery and repair remains incomplete. In many countries, unemployment remains unacceptably high. The conditions for a recovery of private demand are not yet fully in place.” More-over, beyond the immediate need to restore economies to health lies a host of longer-term challenges.