The G20
The G20 is an informal
group of 19 countries and the European Union,
with representatives of the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank. The finance ministers and central bank
governors began meeting in 1999, at the suggestion of the
G7 finance ministers in response to the global financial crisis
of 1997-99. Since then, there has been a finance
ministerial meeting every fall.
In October 2008, in the aftermath of the financial crisis
that began in the United States in September,
President George W. Bush announced that
he would host a meeting of the leaders of the G20 countries
— creating the first ever G20 summit — in Washington DC
on November 14-15, 2008, to coordinate the global response.
At that meeting, the leaders agreed to meet again.
Thus British prime minister Gordon Brown agreed to host
the second G20 summit in London on April 1-2, 2009.
This was followed by the third G20 summit hosted by
U.S. president Barack Obama in Pittsburgh
on September 24-25, 2009.
To help prepare these summits, additional meetings
of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors
were also held, at Horsham, UK, in March 2009 and in London
in September 2009, as well as meetings in Washington
in October 2008.