LEADERS’ STATEMENT 

THE PITTSBURGH SUMMIT 

SEPTEMBER 24 – 25 2009 

PREAMBLE 

1. We meet in the midst of a critical transition from crisis to recovery to turn the page on 

an era of irresponsibility and to adopt a set of policies, regulations and reforms to 

meet the needs of the 21st century global economy. 

 

2. When we last gathered in April, we confronted the greatest challenge to the world 

economy in our generation. 

3. Global output was contracting at pace not seen since the 1930s. Trade was 

plummeting. Jobs were disappearing rapidly. Our people worried that the world was 

on the edge of a depression. 

4. At that time, our countries agreed to do everything necessary to ensure recovery, to 

repair our financial systems and to maintain the global flow of capital. 

5. It worked. 

6. Our forceful response helped stop the dangerous, sharp decline in global activity and 

stabilize financial markets. Industrial output is now rising in nearly all our 

economies. International trade is starting to recover. Our financial institutions are 

raising needed capital, financial markets are showing a willingness to invest and lend, 

and confidence has improved. 

7. Today, we reviewed the progress we have made since the London Summit in April. 

Our national commitments to restore growth resulted in the largest and most 

coordinated fiscal and monetary stimulus ever undertaken. We acted together to 

increase dramatically the resources necessary to stop the crisis from spreading around 

the world. We took steps to fix the broken regulatory system and started to 

implement sweeping reforms to reduce the risk that financial excesses will again 

destabilize the global economy. 

8. A sense of normalcy should not lead to complacency. 

9. 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. We cannot rest until the global economy is 

restored to full health, and hard-working families the world over can find decent jobs. 

10. We pledge today to sustain our strong policy response until a durable recovery is 

secured. We will act to ensure that when growth returns, jobs do too. We will avoid 

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any premature withdrawal of stimulus. At the same time, we will prepare our exit 

strategies and, when the time is right, withdraw our extraordinary policy support in a 

cooperative and coordinated way, maintaining our commitment to fiscal 

responsibility. 

11. Even as the work of recovery continues, we pledge to adopt the policies needed to lay 

the foundation for strong, sustained and balanced growth in the 21st century. We 

recognize that we have to act forcefully to overcome the legacy of the recent, severe 

global economic crisis and to help people cope with the consequences of this crisis. 

We want growth without cycles of boom and bust and markets that foster 

responsibility not recklessness. 

12. Today we agreed: 

13. To launch a framework that lays out the policies and the way we act together to 

generate strong, sustainable and balanced global growth. We need a durable 

recovery that creates the good jobs our people need. 

14. We need to shift from public to private sources of demand, establish a pattern of 

growth across countries that is more sustainable and balanced, and reduce 

development imbalances. We pledge to avoid destabilizing booms and busts in 

asset and credit prices and adopt macroeconomic policies, consistent with price 

stability, that promote adequate and balanced global demand. We will also make 

decisive progress on structural reforms that foster private demand and strengthen 

long-run growth potential. 

15. Our Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth is a compact that 

commits us to work together to assess how our policies fit together, to evaluate 

whether they are collectively consistent with more sustainable and balanced 

growth, and to act as necessary to meet our common objectives. 

16. To make sure our regulatory system for banks and other financial firms reins in the 

excesses that led to the crisis. Where reckless behavior and a lack of responsibility 

led to crisis, we will not allow a return to banking as usual. 

17. We committed to act together to raise capital standards, to implement strong 

international compensation standards aimed at ending practices that lead to 

excessive risk-taking, to improve the over-the-counter derivatives market and to 

create more powerful tools to hold large global firms to account for the risks they 

take. Standards for large global financial firms should be commensurate with the 

cost of their failure. For all these reforms, we have set for ourselves strict and 

precise timetables. 

18. To reform the global architecture to meet the needs of the 21st century. After this 

crisis, critical players need to be at the table and fully vested in our institutions to 

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allow us to cooperate to lay the foundation for strong, sustainable and balanced 

growth. 

19. We designated the G-20 to be the premier forum for our international economic 

cooperation. We established the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to include major 

emerging economies and welcome its efforts to coordinate and monitor progress 

in strengthening financial regulation. 

20. We are committed to a shift in International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota share to 

dynamic emerging markets and developing countries of at least 5% from overrepresented countries to under-represented countries using the current quota 

formula as the basis to work from. Today we have delivered on our promise to 

contribute over $500 billion to a renewed and expanded IMF New Arrangements 

to Borrow (NAB). 

21. We stressed the importance of adopting a dynamic formula at the World Bank 

which primarily reflects countries’ evolving economic weight and the World 

Bank’s development mission, and that generates an increase of at least 3% of 

voting power for developing and transition countries, to the benefit of underrepresented countries. While recognizing that over-represented countries will 

make a contribution, it will be important to protect the voting power of the 

smallest poor countries. We called on the World Bank to play a leading role in 

responding to problems whose nature requires globally coordinated action, such 

as climate change and food security, and agreed that the World Bank and the 

regional development banks should have sufficient resources to address these 

challenges and fulfill their mandates. 

22. To take new steps to increase access to food, fuel and finance among the world’s 

poorest while clamping down on illicit outflows. Steps to reduce the development gap 

can be a potent driver of global growth. 

23. Over four billion people remain undereducated, ill-equipped with capital and 

technology, and insufficiently integrated into the global economy. We need to 

work together to make the policy and institutional changes needed to accelerate 

the convergence of living standards and productivity in developing and emerging 

economies to the levels of the advanced economies. To start, we call on the 

World Bank to develop a new trust fund to support the new Food Security 

Initiative for low-income countries announced last summer. We will increase, on 

a voluntary basis, funding for programs to bring clean affordable energy to the 

poorest, such as the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program. 

24. To phase out and rationalize over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies 

while providing targeted support for the poorest. Inefficient fossil fuel subsidies 

encourage wasteful consumption, reduce our energy security, impede investment in 

clean energy sources and undermine efforts to deal with the threat of climate change. 

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25. We call on our Energy and Finance Ministers to report to us their implementation 

strategies and timeline for acting to meet this critical commitment at our next 

meeting. 

26. We will promote energy market transparency and market stability as part of our 

broader effort to avoid excessive volatility. 

27. To maintain our openness and move toward greener, more sustainable growth. 

28. We will fight protectionism. We are committed to bringing the Doha Round to a 

successful conclusion in 2010. 

29. We will spare no effort to reach agreement in Copenhagen through the United 

Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. 

30. We warmly welcome the report by the Chair of the London Summit commissioned at 

our last meeting and published today. 

31. Finally, we agreed to meet in Canada in June 2010 and in Korea in November 2010. 

We expect to meet annually thereafter and will meet in France in 2011. 

* * *

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1. We assessed the progress we have made together in addressing the global crisis and 

agreed to maintain our steps to support economic activity until recovery is assured. 

We further committed to additional steps to ensure strong, sustainable, and balanced 

growth, to build a stronger international financial system, to reduce development 

imbalances, and to modernize our architecture for international economic 

cooperation. 

A Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth 

2. The growth of the global economy and the success of our coordinated effort to 

respond to the recent crisis have increased the case for more sustained and systematic 

international cooperation. In the short-run, we must continue to implement our 

stimulus programs to support economic activity until recovery clearly has taken hold. 

We also need to develop a transparent and credible process for withdrawing our 

extraordinary fiscal, monetary and financial sector support, to be implemented when 

recovery becomes fully secured. We task our Finance Ministers, working with input 

from the IMF and FSB, at their November meeting to continue developing 

cooperative and coordinated exit strategies recognizing that the scale, timing, and 

sequencing of this process will vary across countries or regions and across the type of 

policy measures. Credible exit strategies should be designed and communicated 

clearly to anchor expectations and reinforce confidence. 

3. The IMF estimates that world growth will resume this year and rise by nearly 3% by 

the end of 2010. Subsequently, our objective is to return the world to high, 

sustainable, and balanced growth, while maintaining our commitment to fiscal 

responsibility and sustainability, with reforms to increase our growth potential and 

capacity to generate jobs and policies designed to avoid both the re-creation of asset 

bubbles and the re-emergence of unsustainable global financial flows. We commit to 

put in place the necessary policy measures to achieve these outcomes. 

4. We will need to work together as we manage the transition to a more balanced pattern 

of global growth. The crisis and our initial policy responses have already produced 

significant shifts in the pattern and level of growth across countries. Many countries 

have already taken important steps to expand domestic demand, bolstering global 

activity and reducing imbalances. In some countries, the rise in private saving now 

underway will, in time, need to be augmented by a rise in public saving. Ensuring a 

strong recovery will necessitate adjustments across different parts of the global 

economy, while requiring macroeconomic policies that promote adequate and 

balanced global demand as well as decisive progress on structural reforms that foster 

private domestic demand, narrow the global development gap, and strengthen longrun growth potential. The IMF estimates that only with such adjustments and 

realignments, will global growth reach a strong, sustainable, and balanced pattern. 

While governments have started moving in the right direction, a shared understanding 

and deepened dialogue will help build a more stable, lasting, and sustainable pattern 

of growth. Raising living standards in the emerging markets and developing 

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countries is also a critical element in achieving sustainable growth in the global 

economy. 

5. Today we are launching a Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth. 

To put in place this framework, we commit to develop a process whereby we set out 

our objectives, put forward policies to achieve these objectives, and together assess 

our progress. We will ask the IMF to help us with its analysis of how our respective 

national or regional policy frameworks fit together. We will ask the World Bank to 

advise us on progress in promoting development and poverty reduction as part of the 

rebalancing of global growth. We will work together to ensure that our fiscal, 

monetary, trade, and structural policies are collectively consistent with more 

sustainable and balanced trajectories of growth. We will undertake macro prudential 

and regulatory policies to help prevent credit and asset price cycles from becoming 

forces of destabilization. As we commit to implement a new, sustainable growth 

model, we should encourage work on measurement methods so as to better take into 

account the social and environmental dimensions of economic development. 

6. We call on our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to launch the new 

Framework by November by initiating a cooperative process of mutual assessment of 

our policy frameworks and the implications of those frameworks for the pattern and 

sustainability of global growth. We believe that regular consultations, strengthened 

cooperation on macroeconomic policies, the exchange of experiences on structural 

policies, and ongoing assessment will promote the adoption of sound policies and 

secure a healthy global economy. Our compact is that: 

• G-20 members will agree on shared policy objectives. These objectives should be 

updated as conditions evolve. 

• G-20 members will set out our medium-term policy frameworks and will work 

together to assess the collective implications of our national policy frameworks 

for the level and pattern of global growth and to identify potential risks to 

financial stability. 

• G-20 Leaders will consider, based on the results of the mutual assessment, and 

agree any actions to meet our common objectives. 

7. This process will only be successful if it is supported by candid, even-handed, and 

balanced analysis of our policies. We ask the IMF to assist our Finance Ministers and 

Central Bank Governors in this process of mutual assessment by developing a 

forward-looking analysis of whether policies pursued by individual G-20 countries 

are collectively consistent with more sustainable and balanced trajectories for the 

global economy, and to report regularly to both the G-20 and the International 

Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), building on the IMF’s existing bilateral 

and multilateral surveillance analysis, on global economic developments, patterns of 

growth and suggested policy adjustments. Our Finance Ministers and Central Bank 

Governors will elaborate this process at their November meeting and we will review 

the results of the first mutual assessment at our next summit. 

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8. These policies will help us to meet our responsibility to the community of nations to 

build a more resilient international financial system and to reduce development 

imbalances. 

9. Building on Chancellor Merkel’s proposed Charter, on which we will continue to 

work, we adopted today Core Values for Sustainable Economic Activity, which will 

include those of propriety, integrity, and transparency, and which will underpin the 

Framework. 

Strengthening the International Financial Regulatory System 

10. Major failures of regulation and supervision, plus reckless and irresponsible risk 

taking by banks and other financial institutions, created dangerous financial fragilities 

that contributed significantly to the current crisis. A return to the excessive risk 

taking prevalent in some countries before the crisis is not an option. 

11. Since the onset of the global crisis, we have developed and begun implementing 

sweeping reforms to tackle the root causes of the crisis and transform the system for 

global financial regulation. Substantial progress has been made in strengthening 

prudential oversight, improving risk management, strengthening transparency, 

promoting market integrity, establishing supervisory colleges, and reinforcing 

international cooperation. We have enhanced and expanded the scope of regulation 

and oversight, with tougher regulation of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, 

securitization markets, credit rating agencies, and hedge funds. We endorse the 

institutional strengthening of the FSB through its Charter, following its establishment 

in London, and welcome its reports to Leaders and Ministers. The FSB’s ongoing 

efforts to monitor progress will be essential to the full and consistent implementation 

of needed reforms. We call on the FSB to report on progress to the G-20 Finance 

Ministers and Central Bank Governors in advance of the next Leaders summit. 

12. Yet our work is not done. Far more needs to be done to protect consumers, 

depositors, and investors against abusive market practices, promote high quality 

standards, and help ensure the world does not face a crisis of the scope we have seen. 

We are committed to take action at the national and international level to raise 

standards together so that our national authorities implement global standards 

consistently in a way that ensures a level playing field and avoids fragmentation of 

markets, protectionism, and regulatory arbitrage. Our efforts to deal with impaired 

assets and to encourage the raising of additional capital must continue, where needed. 

We commit to conduct robust, transparent stress tests as needed. We call on banks to 

retain a greater proportion of current profits to build capital, where needed, to support 

lending. Securitization sponsors or originators should retain a part of the risk of the 

underlying assets, thus encouraging them to act prudently. It is important to ensure 

an adequate balance between macroprudential and microprudential regulation to 

control risks, and to develop the tools necessary to monitor and assess the buildup of 

macroprudential risks in the financial system. In addition, we have agreed to improve 

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13. As we encourage the resumption of lending to households and businesses, we must 

take care not to spur a return of the practices that led to the crisis. The steps we are 

taking here, when fully implemented, will result in a fundamentally stronger financial 

system than existed prior to the crisis. If we all act together, financial institutions will 

have stricter rules for risk-taking, governance that aligns compensation with longterm performance, and greater transparency in their operations. All firms whose 

failure could pose a risk to financial stability must be subject to consistent, 

consolidated supervision and regulation with high standards. Our reform is multifaceted but at its core must be stronger capital standards, complemented by clear 

incentives to mitigate excessive risk-taking practices. Capital allows banks to 

withstand those losses that inevitably will come. It, together with more powerful 

tools for governments to wind down firms that fail, helps us hold firms accountable 

for the risks that they take. Building on their Declaration on Further Steps to 

Strengthen the International Financial System, we call on our Finance Ministers and 

Central Bank Governors to reach agreement on an international framework of reform 

in the following critical areas: 

• Building high quality capital and mitigating pro-cyclicality: We commit to 

developing by end-2010 internationally agreed rules to improve both the quantity 

and quality of bank capital and to discourage excessive leverage. These rules will 

be phased in as financial conditions improve and economic recovery is assured, 

with the aim of implementation by end-2012. The national implementation of 

higher level and better quality capital requirements, counter-cyclical capital 

buffers, higher capital requirements for risky products and off-balance sheet 

activities, as elements of the Basel II Capital Framework, together with 

strengthened liquidity risk requirements and forward-looking provisioning, will 

reduce incentives for banks to take excessive risks and create a financial system 

better prepared to withstand adverse shocks. We welcome the key measures 

recently agreed by the oversight body of the Basel Committee to strengthen the 

supervision and regulation of the banking sector. We support the introduction of 

a leverage ratio as a supplementary measure to the Basel II risk-based framework 

with a view to migrating to a Pillar 1 treatment based on appropriate review and 

calibration. To ensure comparability, the details of the leverage ratio will be 

harmonized internationally, fully adjusting for differences in accounting. All 

major G-20 financial centers commit to have adopted the Basel II Capital 

Framework by 2011. 

• Reforming compensation practices to support financial stability: Excessive 

compensation in the financial sector has both reflected and encouraged excessive 

risk taking. Reforming compensation policies and practices is an essential part of 

our effort to increase financial stability. We fully endorse the implementation 

standards of the FSB aimed at aligning compensation with long-term value 

creation, not excessive risk-taking, including by (i) avoiding multi-year 

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guaranteed bonuses; (ii) requiring a significant portion of variable compensation 

to be deferred, tied to performance and subject to appropriate clawback and to be 

vested in the form of stock or stock-like instruments, as long as these create 

incentives aligned with long-term value creation and the time horizon of risk; (iii) 

ensuring that compensation for senior executives and other employees having a 

material impact on the firm’s risk exposure align with performance and risk; (iv) 

making firms’ compensation policies and structures transparent through 

disclosure requirements; (v) limiting variable compensation as a percentage of 

total net revenues when it is inconsistent with the maintenance of a sound capital 

base; and (vi) ensuring that compensation committees overseeing compensation 

policies are able to act independently. Supervisors should have the responsibility 

to review firms’ compensation policies and structures with institutional and 

systemic risk in mind and, if necessary to offset additional risks, apply corrective 

measures, such as higher capital requirements, to those firms that fail to 

implement sound compensation policies and practices. Supervisors should have 

the ability to modify compensation structures in the case of firms that fail or 

require extraordinary public intervention. We call on firms to implement these 

sound compensation practices immediately. We task the FSB to monitor the 

implementation of FSB standards and propose additional measures as required by 

March 2010. 

• Improving over-the-counter derivatives markets: All standardized OTC 

derivative contracts should be traded on exchanges or electronic trading 

platforms, where appropriate, and cleared through central counterparties by end2012 at the latest. OTC derivative contracts should be reported to trade 

repositories. Non-centrally cleared contracts should be subject to higher capital 

requirements. We ask the FSB and its relevant members to assess regularly 

implementation and whether it is sufficient to improve transparency in the 

derivatives markets, mitigate systemic risk, and protect against market abuse. 

• Addressing cross-border resolutions and systemically important financial 

institutions by end-2010: Systemically important financial firms should develop 

internationally-consistent firm-specific contingency and resolution plans. Our 

authorities should establish crisis management groups for the major cross-border 

firms and a legal framework for crisis intervention as well as improve information 

sharing in times of stress. We should develop resolution tools and frameworks for 

the effective resolution of financial groups to help mitigate the disruption of 

financial institution failures and reduce moral hazard in the future. Our prudential 

standards for systemically important institutions should be commensurate with the 

costs of their failure. The FSB should propose by the end of October 2010 

possible measures including more intensive supervision and specific additional 

capital, liquidity, and other prudential requirements. 

14. We call on our international accounting bodies to redouble their efforts to achieve a 

single set of high quality, global accounting standards within the context of their 

independent standard setting process, and complete their convergence project by June 

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2011. The International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) institutional 

framework should further enhance the involvement of various stakeholders. 

15. Our commitment to fight non-cooperative jurisdictions (NCJs) has produced 

impressive results. We are committed to maintain the momentum in dealing with tax 

havens, money laundering, proceeds of corruption, terrorist financing, and prudential 

standards. We welcome the expansion of the Global Forum on Transparency and 

Exchange of Information, including the participation of developing countries, and 

welcome the agreement to deliver an effective program of peer review. The main 

focus of the Forum’s work will be to improve tax transparency and exchange of 

information so that countries can fully enforce their tax laws to protect their tax base. 

We stand ready to use countermeasures against tax havens from March 2010. We 

welcome the progress made by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in the fight 

against money laundering and terrorist financing and call upon the FATF to issue a 

public list of high risk jurisdictions by February 2010. We call on the FSB to report 

progress to address NCJs with regards to international cooperation and information 

exchange in November 2009 and to initiate a peer review process by February 2010. 

16. We task the IMF to prepare a report for our next meeting with regard to the range of 

options countries have adopted or are considering as to how the financial sector could 

make a fair and substantial contribution toward paying for any burdens associated 

with government interventions to repair the banking system. 

Modernizing our Global Institutions to Reflect Today’s Global Economy 

17. Modernizing the international financial institutions and global development 

architecture is essential to our efforts to promote global financial stability, foster 

sustainable development, and lift the lives of the poorest. We warmly welcome 

Prime Minister Brown’s report on his review of the responsiveness and adaptability 

of the international financial institutions (IFIs) and ask our Finance Ministers to 

consider its conclusions. 

Reforming the Mandate, Mission and Governance of the IMF 

18. Our commitment to increase the funds available to the IMF allowed it to stem the 

spread of the crisis to emerging markets and developing countries. This commitment 

and the innovative steps the IMF has taken to create the facilities needed for its 

resources to be used efficiently and flexibly have reduced global risks. Capital again 

is flowing to emerging economies. 

19. We have delivered on our promise to treble the resources available to the IMF. We 

are contributing over $500 billion to a renewed and expanded IMF New 

Arrangements to Borrow (NAB). The IMF has made Special Drawing Rights (SDR) 

allocations of $283 billion in total, more than $100 billion of which will supplement 

emerging market and developing countries’ existing reserve assets. Resources from 

the agreed sale of IMF gold, consistent with the IMF’s new income model, and funds 

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from internal and other sources will more than double the Fund’s medium-term 

concessional lending capacity. 

20. Our collective response to the crisis has highlighted both the benefits of international 

cooperation and the need for a more legitimate and effective IMF. The Fund must 

play a critical role in promoting global financial stability and rebalancing growth. We 

welcome the reform of IMF’s lending facilities, including the creation of the 

innovative Flexible Credit Line. The IMF should continue to strengthen its capacity 

to help its members cope with financial volatility, reducing the economic disruption 

from sudden swings in capital flows and the perceived need for excessive reserve 

accumulation. As recovery takes hold, we will work together to strengthen the 

Fund’s ability to provide even-handed, candid and independent surveillance of the 

risks facing the global economy and the international financial system. We ask the 

IMF to support our effort under the Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced 

Growth through its surveillance of our countries’ policy frameworks and their 

collective implications for financial stability and the level and pattern of global 

growth. 

21. Modernizing the IMF’s governance is a core element of our effort to improve the 

IMF’s credibility, legitimacy, and effectiveness. We recognize that the IMF should 

remain a quota-based organization and that the distribution of quotas should reflect 

the relative weights of its members in the world economy, which have changed 

substantially in view of the strong growth in dynamic emerging market and 

developing countries. To this end, we are committed to a shift in quota share to 

dynamic emerging market and developing countries of at least five percent from overrepresented to under-represented countries using the current IMF quota formula as the 

basis to work from. We are also committed to protecting the voting share of the 

poorest in the IMF. On this basis and as part of the IMF’s quota review, to be 

completed by January 2011, we urge an acceleration of work toward bringing the 

review to a successful conclusion. As part of that review, we agree that a number of 

other critical issues will need to be addressed, including: the size of any increase in 

IMF quotas, which will have a bearing on the ability to facilitate change in quota 

shares; the size and composition of the Executive Board; ways of enhancing the 

Board’s effectiveness; and the Fund Governors’ involvement in the strategic 

oversight of the IMF. Staff diversity should be enhanced. As part of a 

comprehensive reform package, we agree that the heads and senior leadership of all 

international institutions should be appointed through an open, transparent and meritbased process. We must urgently implement the package of IMF quota and voice 

reforms agreed in April 2008. 

Reforming the Mission, Mandate and Governance of Our Development banks 

22. The Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) responded to our April call to 

accelerate and expand lending to mitigate the impact of the crisis on the world’s 

poorest with streamlined facilities, new tools and facilities, and a rapid increase in 

their lending. They are on track to deliver the promised $100 billion in additional 

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lending. We welcome and encourage the MDBs to continue making full use of their 

balance sheets. We also welcome additional measures such as the temporary use of 

callable capital contributions from a select group of donors as was done at the 

InterAmerican Development Bank (IaDB). Our Finance Ministers should consider 

how mechanisms such as temporary callable and contingent capital could be used in 

the future to increase MDB lending at times of crisis. We reaffirm our commitment 

to ensure that the Multilateral Development Banks and their concessional lending 

facilities, especially the International Development Agency (IDA) and the African 

Development Fund, are appropriately funded. 

23. Even as we work to mitigate the impact of the crisis, we must strengthen and reform 

the global development architecture for responding to the world’s long-term 

challenges. 

24. We agree that development and reducing global poverty are central to the 

development banks’ core mission. The World Bank and other multilateral 

development banks are also critical to our ability to act together to address challenges, 

such as climate change and food security, which are global in nature and require 

globally coordinated action. The World Bank, working with the regional 

development banks and other international organizations, should strengthen: 

• its focus on food security through enhancements in agricultural productivity and 

access to technology, and improving access to food, in close cooperation with 

relevant specialized agencies; 

• its focus on human development and security in the poorest and most challenging 

environments; 

• support for private-sector led growth and infrastructure to enhance opportunities 

for the poorest, social and economic inclusion, and economic growth; and 

• contributions to financing the transition to a green economy through investment in 

sustainable clean energy generation and use, energy efficiency and climate 

resilience; this includes responding to countries needs to integrate climate change 

concerns into their core development strategies, improved domestic policies, and 

to access new sources of climate finance. 

25. To enhance their effectiveness, the World Bank and the regional development banks 

should strengthen their coordination, when appropriate, with other bilateral and 

multilateral institutions. They should also strengthen recipient country ownership of 

strategies and programs and allow adequate policy space. 

26. We will help ensure the World Bank and the regional development banks have 

sufficient resources to fulfill these four challenges and their development mandate, 

including through a review of their general capital increase needs to be completed by 

the first half of 2010. Additional resources must be joined to key institutional 

reforms to ensure effectiveness: greater coordination and a clearer division of labor; 

an increased commitment to transparency, accountability, and good corporate 

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governance; an increased capacity to innovate and achieve demonstrable results; and 

greater attention to the needs of the poorest populations. 

27. We commit to pursue governance and operational effectiveness reform in conjunction 

with voting reform to ensure that the World Bank is relevant, effective, and 

legitimate. We stress the importance of moving towards equitable voting power in 

the World Bank over time through the adoption of a dynamic formula which 

primarily reflects countries’ evolving economic weight and the World Bank’s 

development mission, and that generates in the next shareholding review a significant 

increase of at least 3% of voting power for developing and transition countries, in 

addition to the 1.46% increase under the first phase of this important adjustment, to 

the benefit of under-represented countries. While recognizing that over-represented 

countries will make a contribution, it will be important to protect the voting power of 

the smallest poor countries. We recommit to reaching agreement by the 2010 Spring 

Meetings. 

Energy Security and Climate Change 

28. Access to diverse, reliable, affordable and clean energy is critical for sustainable 

growth. Inefficient markets and excessive volatility negatively affect both producers 

and consumers. Noting the St. Petersburg Principles on Global Energy Security, 

which recognize the shared interest of energy producing, consuming and transiting 

countries in promoting global energy security, we individually and collectively 

commit to: 

• Increase energy market transparency and market stability by publishing complete, 

accurate, and timely data on oil production, consumption, refining and stock 

levels, as appropriate, on a regular basis, ideally monthly, beginning by January 

2010. We note the Joint Oil Data Initiative as managed by the International 

Energy Forum (IEF) and welcome their efforts to examine the expansion of their 

data collection to natural gas. We will improve our domestic capabilities to 

collect energy data and improve energy demand and supply forecasting and ask 

the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Organization of Petroleum 

Exporting Countries (OPEC) to ramp up their efforts to assist interested countries 

in developing those capabilities. We will strengthen the producer-consumer 

dialogue to improve our understanding of market fundamentals, including supply 

and demand trends, and price volatility, and note the work of the IEF experts 

group. 

• Improve regulatory oversight of energy markets by implementing the 

International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) recommendations 

on commodity futures markets and calling on relevant regulators to collect data on 

large concentrations of trader positions on oil in our national commodities futures 

markets. We ask our relevant regulators to report back at our next meeting on 

progress towards implementation. We will direct relevant regulators to also 

collect related data on over-the-counter oil markets and to take steps to combat 

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market manipulation leading to excessive price volatility. We call for further 

refinement and improvement of commodity market information, including 

through the publication of more detailed and disaggregated data, coordinated as 

far as possible internationally. We ask IOSCO to help national governments 

design and implement these policies, conduct further analysis including with 

regard with to excessive volatility, make specific recommendations, and to report 

regularly on our progress. 

29. Enhancing our energy efficiency can play an important, positive role in promoting 

energy security and fighting climate change. Inefficient fossil fuel subsidies 

encourage wasteful consumption, distort markets, impede investment in clean energy 

sources and undermine efforts to deal with climate change. The Organization for 

Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the IEA have found that 

eliminating fossil fuel subsidies by 2020 would reduce global greenhouse gas 

emissions in 2050 by ten percent. Many countries are reducing fossil fuel subsidies 

while preventing adverse impact on the poorest. Building on these efforts and 

recognizing the challenges of populations suffering from energy poverty, we commit 

to: 

• Rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies 

that encourage wasteful consumption. As we do that, we recognize the 

importance of providing those in need with essential energy services, including 

through the use of targeted cash transfers and other appropriate mechanisms. This 

reform will not apply to our support for clean energy, renewables, and 

technologies that dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We will have 

our Energy and Finance Ministers, based on their national circumstances, develop 

implementation strategies and timeframes, and report back to Leaders at the next 

Summit. We ask the international financial institutions to offer support to 

countries in this process. We call on all nations to adopt policies that will phase 

out such subsidies worldwide. 

30. We request relevant institutions, such as the IEA, OPEC, OECD, and World Bank, 

provide an analysis of the scope of energy subsidies and suggestions for the 

implementation of this initiative and report back at the next summit. 

31. Increasing clean and renewable energy supplies, improving energy efficiency, and 

promoting conservation are critical steps to protect our environment, promote 

sustainable growth and address the threat of climate change. Accelerated adoption of 

economically sound clean and renewable energy technology and energy efficiency 

measures diversifies our energy supplies and strengthens our energy security. We 

commit to: 

• Stimulate investment in clean energy, renewables, and energy efficiency and 

provide financial and technical support for such projects in developing countries. 

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• Take steps to facilitate the diffusion or transfer of clean energy technology 

including by conducting joint research and building capacity. The reduction or 

elimination of barriers to trade and investment in this area are being discussed and 

should be pursued on a voluntary basis and in appropriate fora. 

32. As leaders of the world’s major economies, we are working for a resilient, 

sustainable, and green recovery. We underscore anew our resolve to take strong 

action to address the threat of dangerous climate change. We reaffirm the objective, 

provisions, and principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate 

Change (UNFCCC), including common but differentiated responsibilities. We note 

the principles endorsed by Leaders at the Major Economies Forum in L’Aquila, Italy. 

We will intensify our efforts, in cooperation with other parties, to reach agreement in 

Copenhagen through the UNFCCC negotiation. An agreement must include 

mitigation, adaptation, technology, and financing. 

33. We welcome the work of the Finance Ministers and direct them to report back at their 

next meeting with a range of possible options for climate change financing to be 

provided as a resource to be considered in the UNFCCC negotiations at Copenhagen. 

Strengthening Support for the Most Vulnerable 

34. Many emerging and developing economies have made great strides in raising living 

standards as their economies converge toward the productivity levels and living 

standards of advanced economies. This process was interrupted by the crisis and is 

still far from complete. The poorest countries have little economic cushion to protect 

vulnerable populations from calamity, particularly as the financial crisis followed 

close on the heels of a global spike in food prices. We note with concern the adverse 

impact of the global crisis on low income countries’ (LICs) capacity to protect critical 

core spending in areas such as health, education, safety nets, and infrastructure. The 

UN's new Global Impact Vulnerability Alert System will help our efforts to monitor 

the impact of the crisis on the most vulnerable. We share a collective responsibility 

to mitigate the social impact of the crisis and to assure that all parts of the globe 

participate in the recovery. 

35. The MDBs play a key role in the fight against poverty. We recognize the need for 

accelerated and additional concessional financial support to LICs to cushion the 

impact of the crisis on the poorest, welcome the increase in MDB lending during the 

crisis and support the MDBs having the resources needed to avoid a disruption of 

concessional financing to the most vulnerable countries. The IMF also has increased 

its concessional lending to LICs during the crisis. Resources from the sale of IMF 

gold, consistent with the new income model, and funds from internal and other 

sources will double the Fund’s medium-term concessional lending capacity. 

36. Several countries are considering creating, on a voluntary basis, mechanisms that 

could allow, consistent with their national circumstances, the mobilization of existing 

SDR resources to support the IMF’s lending to the poorest countries. Even as we 

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work to mitigate the impact of the crisis, we must strengthen and reform the global 

development architecture for responding to the world’s long-term challenges. We ask 

our relevant ministers to explore the benefits of a new crisis support facility in IDA to 

protect LICs from future crises and the enhanced use of financial instruments in 

protecting the investment plans of middle income countries from interruption in times 

of crisis, including greater use of guarantees. 

37. We reaffirm our historic commitment to meet the Millennium Development Goals 

and our respective Official Development Assistance (ODA) pledges, including 

commitments on Aid for Trade, debt relief, and those made at Gleneagles, especially 

to sub-Saharan Africa, to 2010 and beyond. 

38. Even before the crisis, too many still suffered from hunger and poverty and even 

more people lack access to energy and finance. Recognizing that the crisis has 

exacerbated this situation, we pledge cooperation to improve access to food, fuel, and 

finance for the poor. 

39. Sustained funding and targeted investments are urgently needed to improve long-term 

food security. We welcome and support the food security initiative announced in 

L’Aquila and efforts to further implement the Global Partnership for Agriculture and 

Food Security and to address excessive price volatility. We call on the World Bank 

to work with interested donors and organizations to develop a multilateral trust fund 

to scale-up agricultural assistance to low-income countries. This will help support 

innovative bilateral and multilateral efforts to improve global nutrition and build 

sustainable agricultural systems, including programs like those developed through the 

Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP). It should be 

designed to ensure country ownership and rapid disbursement of funds, fully 

respecting the aid effectiveness principles agreed in Accra, and facilitate the 

participation of private foundations, businesses, and non-governmental organizations 

(NGOs) in this historic effort. These efforts should complement the UN 

Comprehensive Framework for Agriculture. We ask the World Bank, the African 

Development Bank, UN, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International 

Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), World Food Programme (WFP) and 

other stakeholders to coordinate their efforts, including through country-led 

mechanisms, in order to complement and reinforce other existing multilateral and 

bilateral efforts to tackle food insecurity. 

40. To increase access to energy, we will promote the deployment of clean, affordable 

energy resources to the developing world. We commit, on a voluntary basis, to 

funding programs that achieve this objective, such as the Scaling Up Renewable 

Energy Program and the Energy for the Poor Initiative, and to increasing and more 

closely harmonizing our bilateral efforts. 

41. We commit to improving access to financial services for the poor. We have agreed to 

support the safe and sound spread of new modes of financial service delivery capable 

of reaching the poor and, building on the example of micro finance, will scale up the 

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successful models of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) financing. Working 

with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), the International Finance 

Corporation (IFC) and other international organizations, we will launch a G-20 

Financial Inclusion Experts Group. This group will identify lessons learned on 

innovative approaches to providing financial services to these groups, promote 

successful regulatory and policy approaches and elaborate standards on financial 

access, financial literacy, and consumer protection. We commit to launch a G-20 

SME Finance Challenge, a call to the private sector to put forward its best proposals 

for how public finance can maximize the deployment of private finance on a 

sustainable and scalable basis. 

42. As we increase the flow of capital to developing countries, we also need to prevent its 

illicit outflow. We will work with the World Bank’s Stolen Assets Recovery (StAR) 

program to secure the return of stolen assets to developing countries, and support 

other efforts to stem illicit outflows. We ask the FATF to help detect and deter the 

proceeds of corruption by prioritizing work to strengthen standards on customer due 

diligence, beneficial ownership and transparency. We note the principles of the Paris 

Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action and will work to 

increase the transparency of international aid flows by 2010. We call for the adoption 

and enforcement of laws against transnational bribery, such as the OECD AntiBribery Convention, and the ratification by the G-20 of the UN Convention against 

Corruption (UNCAC) and the adoption during the third Conference of the Parties in 

Doha of an effective, transparent, and inclusive mechanism for the review of its 

implementation. We support voluntary participation in the Extractive Industries 

Transparency Initiative, which calls for regular public disclosure of payments by 

extractive industries to governments and reconciliation against recorded receipt of 

those funds by governments. 

Putting Quality Jobs at the Heart of the Recovery 

43. The prompt, vigorous and sustained response of our countries has saved or created 

millions of jobs. Based on International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates, our 

efforts will have created or saved at least 7 – 11 million jobs by the end of this year. 

Without sustained action, unemployment is likely to continue rising in many of our 

countries even after economies stabilize, with a disproportionate impact on the most 

vulnerable segments of our population. As growth returns, every country must act to 

ensure that employment recovers quickly. We commit to implementing recovery 

plans that support decent work, help preserve employment, and prioritize job growth. 

In addition, we will continue to provide income, social protection, and training 

support for the unemployed and those most at risk of unemployment. We agree that 

the current challenges do not provide an excuse to disregard or weaken internationally 

recognized labor standards. To assure that global growth is broadly beneficial, we 

should implement policies consistent with ILO fundamental principles and rights at 

work. 

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44. Our new Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth requires structural 

reforms to create more inclusive labor markets, active labor market policies, and 

quality education and training programs. Each of our countries will need, through its 

own national policies, to strengthen the ability of our workers to adapt to changing 

market demands and to benefit from innovation and investments in new technologies, 

clean energy, environment, health, and infrastructure. It is no longer sufficient to 

train workers to meet their specific current needs; we should ensure access to training 

programs that support lifelong skills development and focus on future market needs. 

Developed countries should support developing countries to build and strengthen 

their capacities in this area. These steps will help to assure that the gains from new 

inventions and lifting existing impediments to growth are broadly shared. 

45. We pledge to support robust training efforts in our growth strategies and investments. 

We recognize successful employment and training programs are often designed 

together with employers and workers, and we call on the ILO, in partnership with 

other organizations, to convene its constituents and NGOs to develop a training 

strategy for our consideration. 

 

46. We agree on the importance of building an employment-oriented framework for 

future economic growth. In this context, we reaffirm the importance of the London 

Jobs Conference and Rome Social Summit. We also welcome the recently-adopted 

ILO Resolution on Recovering from the Crisis: A Global Jobs Pact, and we commit 

our nations to adopt key elements of its general framework to advance the social 

dimension of globalization. The international institutions should consider ILO 

standards and the goals of the Jobs Pact in their crisis and post-crisis analysis and 

policy-making activities. 

47. To ensure our continued focus on employment policies, the Chair of the Pittsburgh 

Summit has asked his Secretary of Labor to invite our Employment and Labor 

Ministers to meet as a group in early 2010 consulting with labor and business and 

building on the upcoming OECD Labour and Employment Ministerial meeting on the 

jobs crisis. We direct our Ministers to assess the evolving employment situation, 

review reports from the ILO and other organizations on the impact of policies we 

have adopted, report on whether further measures are desirable, and consider 

medium-term employment and skills development policies, social protection 

programs, and best practices to ensure workers are prepared to take advantage of 

advances in science and technology. 

An Open Global Economy 

48. Continuing the revival in world trade and investment is essential to restoring global 

growth. It is imperative we stand together to fight against protectionism. We 

welcome the swift implementation of the $250 billion trade finance initiative. We 

will keep markets open and free and reaffirm the commitments made in Washington 

and London: to refrain from raising barriers or imposing new barriers to investment 

or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions or implementing 

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World Trade Organization (WTO) inconsistent measures to stimulate exports and 

commit to rectify such measures as they arise. We will minimize any negative impact 

on trade and investment of our domestic policy actions, including fiscal policy and 

action to support the financial sector. We will not retreat into financial protectionism, 

particularly measures that constrain worldwide capital flows, especially to developing 

countries. We will notify promptly the WTO of any relevant trade measures. We 

welcome the latest joint report from the WTO, OECD, IMF, and United Nations 

Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and ask them to continue to 

monitor the situation within their respective mandates, reporting publicly on these 

commitments on a quarterly basis. 

49. We remain committed to further trade liberalization. We are determined to seek an 

ambitious and balanced conclusion to the Doha Development Round in 2010, 

consistent with its mandate, based on the progress already made, including with 

regard to modalities. We understand the need for countries to directly engage with 

each other, within the WTO bearing in mind the centrality of the multilateral process, 

in order to evaluate and close the remaining gaps. We note that in order to conclude 

the negotiations in 2010, closing those gaps should proceed as quickly as possible. 

We ask our ministers to take stock of the situation no later than early 2010, taking 

into account the results of the work program agreed to in Geneva following the Delhi 

Ministerial, and seek progress on Agriculture, Non-Agricultural Market Access, as 

well as Services, Rules, Trade Facilitation and all other remaining issues. We will 

remain engaged and review the progress of the negotiations at our next meeting. 

The Path from Pittsburgh 

50. Today, we designated the G-20 as the premier forum for our international economic 

cooperation. We have asked our representatives to report back at the next meeting 

with recommendations on how to maximize the effectiveness of our cooperation. We 

agreed to have a G-20 Summit in Canada in June 2010, and in Korea in November 

2010. We expect to meet annually thereafter, and will meet in France in 2011. 

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ANNEX: Core Values for Sustainable Economic Activity

1. The economic crisis demonstrates the importance of ushering in a new era of 

sustainable global economic activity grounded in responsibility. The current crisis 

has once again confirmed the fundamental recognition that our growth and prosperity 

are interconnected, and that no region of the globe can wall itself off in a globalized 

world economy. 

2. We, the Leaders of the countries gathered for the Pittsburgh Summit, recognize that 

concerted action is needed to help our economies get back to stable ground and 

prosper tomorrow. We commit to taking responsible actions to ensure that every 

stakeholder – consumers, workers, investors, entrepreneurs – can participate in a 

balanced, equitable, and inclusive global economy. 

3. We share the overarching goal to promote a broader prosperity for our people through 

balanced growth within and across nations; through coherent economic, social, and 

environmental strategies; and through robust financial systems and effective 

international collaboration. 

4. We recognize that there are different approaches to economic development and 

prosperity, and that strategies to achieve these goals may vary according to countries’ 

circumstances. 

5. We also agree that certain key principles are fundamental, and in this spirit we 

commit to respect the following core values: 

• We have a responsibility to ensure sound macroeconomic policies that serve longterm economic objectives and help avoid unsustainable global imbalances. 

• We have a responsibility to reject protectionism in all its forms, support open 

markets, foster fair and transparent competition, and promote entrepreneurship 

and innovation across countries. 

• We have a responsibility to ensure, through appropriate rules and incentives, that 

financial and other markets function based on propriety, integrity and 

transparency and to encourage businesses to support the efficient allocation of 

resources for sustainable economic performance. 

• We have a responsibility to provide for financial markets that serve the needs of 

households, businesses and productive investment by strengthening oversight, 

transparency, and accountability. 

• We have a responsibility to secure our future through sustainable consumption, 

production and use of resources that conserve our environment and address the 

challenge of climate change. 

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• We have a responsibility to invest in people by providing education, job training, 

decent work conditions, health care and social safety net support, and to fight 

poverty, discrimination, and all forms of social exclusion.

• We have a responsibility to recognize that all economies, rich and poor, are 

partners in building a sustainable and balanced global economy in which the 

benefits of economic growth are broadly and equitably shared. We also have a 

responsibility to achieve the internationally agreed development goals. 

• We have a responsibility to ensure an international economic and financial 

architecture that reflects changes in the world economy and the new challenges of 

globalization. 

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G-20 Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth 

1. Our countries have a shared responsibility to adopt policies to achieve strong, 

sustainable and balanced growth, to promote a resilient international financial system, 

and to reap the benefits of an open global economy. To this end, we recognize that 

our strategies will vary across countries. In our Framework for Strong, Sustainable 

and Balanced Growth, we will: 

• implement responsible fiscal policies, attentive to short-term flexibility 

considerations and longer-run sustainability requirements. 

• strengthen financial supervision to prevent the re-emergence in the financial 

system of excess credit growth and excess leverage and undertake macro 

prudential and regulatory policies to help prevent credit and asset price cycles 

from becoming forces of destabilization. 

• promote more balanced current accounts and support open trade and investment 

to advance global prosperity and growth sustainability, while actively rejecting 

protectionist measures. 

• undertake monetary policies consistent with price stability in the context of 

market oriented exchange rates that reflect underlying economic fundamentals. 

• undertake structural reforms to increase our potential growth rates and, where 

needed, improve social safety nets. 

• promote balanced and sustainable economic development in order to narrow 

development imbalances and reduce poverty. 

2. We recognize that the process to ensure more balanced global growth must be 

undertaken in an orderly manner. All G-20 members agree to address the respective 

weaknesses of their economies. 

• G-20 members with sustained, significant external deficits pledge to undertake 

policies to support private savings and undertake fiscal consolidation while 

maintaining open markets and strengthening export sectors. 

• G-20 members with sustained, significant external surpluses pledge to strengthen 

domestic sources of growth. According to national circumstances this could 

include increasing investment, reducing financial markets distortions, boosting 

productivity in service sectors, improving social safety nets, and lifting constraints 

on demand growth. 

3. Each G-20 member bears primary responsibility for the sound management of its 

economy. The G-20 members also have a responsibility to the community of nations 

to assure the overall health of the global economy. Regular consultations, 

strengthened cooperation on macroeconomic policies, the exchange of experiences on 

structural policies, and ongoing assessment can strengthen our cooperation and 

promote the adoption of sound policies. As part of our process of mutual assessment: 

• G-20 members will agree on shared policy objectives. These objectives should be 

updated as conditions evolve. 

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• G-20 members will set out their medium-term policy frameworks and will work 

together to assess the collective implications of our national policy frameworks 

for the level and pattern of global growth, and to identify potential risks to 

financial stability. 

• G-20 leaders will consider, based on the results of the mutual assessment, and 

agree any actions to meet our common objectives. 

4. We call on our Finance Ministers to develop our process of mutual assessment to 

evaluate the collective implications of national policies for the world economy. To 

accomplish this, our Finance Ministers should, with the assistance of the IMF: 

• Develop a forward looking assessment of G-20 economic developments to help 

analyze whether patterns of demand and supply, credit, debt and reserves growth 

are supportive of strong, sustainable and balanced growth. 

• Assess the implications and consistency of fiscal and monetary policies, credit 

growth and asset markets, foreign exchange developments, commodity and 

energy prices, and current account imbalances. 

• Report regularly to both the G-20 and the IMFC on global economic 

developments, key risks, and concerns with respect to patterns of growth and 

suggested G-20 policy adjustments, individually and collectively.