After what some commentators referred to as an ‘uninspiring’ Group of 20 (G20) summit in India last autumn, serious questions remain about its future (Box 1). The absence of two of the group’s most prominent members – China’s Xi Jinping, who has never before missed a G20 meeting since taking power in 2012, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, for the second year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – contributed to concerns over the G20’s continuing relevance.
Founded in 1999, the G20 was initially set up as an economic body of finance ministers in response to the global economic difficulties of the 1990s. The attendance of heads of state – along with their respective finance or foreign ministers at annual meetings – has helped to make the G20 one of the most influential groups for international economic and financial cooperation. The eighteenth G20 summit in 2023 celebrated the addition of the African Union to the group.
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