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Analysis > Compliance

2013 St. Petersburg G20 Summit
Interim Compliance Report

Prepared by
Stacey Bocknek,  Vera V. Gavrilova, Krystel Montpetit, Theodora  Mladenova, Taylor Grott and Antonia Tsapralis
G20 Research Group, Toronto,
and
Andrei Sakharov, Andrey Shelepov and Mark Rakhmangulov
International Organisations Research Institute, Moscow

18 September 2014

The 2013 St. Petersburg G20 Summit Interim Compliance Report reviews progress made on selected commitments set out at the 2013 St. Petersburg Summit for the period of 7 September 2013 to 16 June 2014. A report on the full compliance period since the St. Petersburg Summit will be released on the eve of the Brisbane Summit in November 2014.

Download the full 2013 St. Petersburg G20 Summit Interim Compliance Report (PDF, 388 pages), or download the each section below.

The report contains the following sections, which can be downloaded separately:

• Introduction and Summary
• Macroeconomic: Investment
• Macroeconomic: Credit Access
• Trade
• Financial Regulation: Tax Avoidance
• Food and Agriculture: Food Price Volatility and Sustainable Agriculture
• Climate Change
• Energy: Clean Technology
• Labour and Employment: Labour Policies
• Labour and Employment: Vocational Training Programs
• Crime and Corruption
• Development: Tax Administration
• Labour and Employment: Job Creation
• Labour and Employment: Education
• Macroeconomic: Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
• Development: Green Growth
• Development: Remittances

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Preface

Since the G20 leaders met at the Washington Summit in 2008, the G20 Research Group at the University of Toronto and the International Organisations Research Institute of National Research University Higher School of Economics (IORI HSE) in Moscow have produced reports on their progress in implementing the priority commitments issued at each summit. These reports monitor each G20 member's efforts on a carefully chosen selection of the many commitments announced at each summit. The reports are offered to the general public and to policy makers, academics, civil society, the media and interested citizens around the world in an effort to make the work of the G20 more transparent, accessible and effective, and to provide scientific data to enable the meaningful analysis of the impact of this important informal international institution. Previous reports are available at the G20 Information Centre and the IORI HSE.

The G20 Research Group has been working with the team at IORI HSE since IORI HSE initiated this G20 compliance research in 2009, after the Washington Summit in November 2008. The initial report, covering only one commitment made at that summit, tested the compliance methodology developed by the G8 Research Group and adapted it to the G20.

To make its assessments, the G20 Research Group relies on publicly available information, documentation and media reports. To ensure accuracy, comprehensiveness and integrity, we encourage comments. Indeed, scores can be recalibrated if new material becomes available. All feedback remains anonymous. Responsibility for this report's contents lies exclusively with the authors and analysts of the G20 Research Group and its partners at IORI HSE.

This report assesses performance by G20 members with 16 priority commitments of the 281 commitments made at the 2013 St. Petersburg Summit, held on 5-6 September 2013. This interim report covers only the period of 7 September 2013 to 16 June 2014. A final report will be released on the eve of the 2014 Brisbane Summit that will cover the entire time between the St. Petersburg Summit and the Brisbane Summit.

Professor John Kirton
Co-director, G20 Research Group

Introduction and Summary

The G20 2014 St. Petersburg Interim Compliance Report, prepared by the G20 Research Group at the University of Toronto and the International Organisations Research Institute of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (IORI HSE), analyzes compliance by G20 members with a selection of 16 priority commitments out of a total of 281 commitments made at the St. Petersburg Summit on 5-6 September 2013. The report covers relevant actions taken by the G20 members between 7 September 2013 to 16 June 2014. This timeframe allows for an assessment of compliance approximately at the midpoint between the 2013 St. Petersburg Summit and the Brisbane Summit, which will be hosted by Australia on 15-16 November 2014. A final report assessing compliance for the full period between the two summits will be published on the eve of the Brisbane Summit.

Methodology and Scoring System

This report draws on the methodology developed by the G8 Research Group, which has been monitoring G8 compliance since 1996 (IORI HSE joined this multiyear project in 2005). The use of this methodology builds cross-institutional and cross-member consistency and also allows compatibility with compliance assessments of other institutions.

The methodology uses a scale from -1 to +1, where +1 indicates full compliance with the stated commitment, -1 indicates a failure to comply or action taken that is directly opposite to the stated goal of the commitment, and 0 indicates partial compliance or work in progress, such as initiatives that have been launched but are not yet near completion and whose results can therefore not be assessed. Each member assessed receives a score of -1, 0 or +1 for each commitment. For convenience, the scores in the tables have been converted to percentages, where -1 equals 0 per cent and +1 equals 100 per cent. (The formula to convert a score into a percentage is P=50×(S+1), where P is the percentage and S is the score.)

A failing compliance score does not necessarily imply an unwillingness to comply on the part of G20 members. In some cases policy actions can take multiple compliance cycles to implement and measure. As the G20 Research Group and IORI HSE continue to monitor developments in this issue area, progress made by members will be recorded in future compliance reports.

Commitment Breakdown

The G20 made a total of 281 commitments at the St. Petersburg Summit. These commitments, as identified by the G20 Research Group and HSE, are drawn from the official G20 Leaders' Declaration, the St. Petersburg Action Plan and the St. Petersburg Development Outlook.

[A commitment is defined as a discrete, specific, publicly expressed, collectively agreed statement of intent; a promise by summit members that they will undertake future action to move toward, meet or adjust to an identified target. More details are contained in the G8 Commitment/Compliance Coding and Reference Manual (available here).]

Selection of Commitments

For each compliance cycle (that is, the period between summits), the research team selects commitments that reflect the breadth of the G20 agenda and also reflect the priorities of the summit's host, while balancing the selection to allow for comparison with past and future summits, following the methodology developed by the G8 Research Group.3 The selection also replicates the breakdown of issue areas and the proportion of commitments in each one. Primary criteria for priority commitment selection considers the comprehensiveness and relevance to the summit, the G20 and the world, as well as individual and collective pledges. Selected commitments must also meet secondary criteria of performance measurability and ability to commit within a year, as well as tertiary criteria of significance as identified by scientific teams and relevant stakeholders in the host country.

For the 2014 G20 St. Petersburg Interim Compliance Report, 16 priority commitments were selected from the 281 commitments made at the St. Petersburg Summit (see Table 1).

Interim Compliance Scores

The assessment is based on relevant, publicly available information relating to new initiatives taken from 7 September 2013 to 16 June 2014. The interim compliance scores by commitment are contained in Table 2. Country rankings are listed in Table 3 and commitment rankings are listed in Table 4. Table 5 allows a comparison of the 2013 interim compliance scores with the final scores of previous G20 summits.

For the period from 7 September 2013 to 16 June 2014, G20 members achieved an average final compliance score of +0.39, which translates to 69 per cent. This interim compliance score surpasses the final compliance scores for London, Pittsburgh and Toronto summits.

Interim Compliance by Member

For compliance with the St. Petersburg Summit's priority commitments, the United Kingdom is in first place with a score of +0.88 (94 per cent), followed by France at +0.81 (91 per cent), the European Union at +0.69 (84 per cent) and the United States at +0.63 (81 per cent). The lowest scoring member is Saudi Arabia in last place with a score of -0.06 (47 per cent). The difference between the highest and lowest G20 member compliance scores is +0.94, which is the highest gap after Washington and Pitssburgh summits (1 and 1.63 respectively). For more detailed information about compliance by G20 members, see Table 3.

Compliance by Commitment

Many G20 members are engaged in ongoing, multiyear activities that support their commitments, but this assessment applies only to actions taken during this compliance monitoring period that would result in changes to such initiatives. Employment and labour scored among the highest level of compliance: job creation in first place at +0.85 (93 per cent) and education — are tied with the macroeconomic commitment on small and medium-sized enterprises — in second place at +0.80 (90 per cent). The third employment-related commitment on labour activation is in third place at +0.70 (85 per cent). Three commitments scored at or below 0 (50 per cent): crime and corruption at 0 (50 per cent), climate change at -0.20 (40 per cent) and remittances at -0.35 (33 per cent). For more information on scoring by commitment, see Table 4.

Considerations and Limitations

Several elements affect the findings contained in this report.

With regard to the commitment on fiscal consolidation, the text holds only the “advanced economies” of the G20 accountable. The G20 has identified those members as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union. The average for this commitment was therefore calculated based on this group of 10 and not the G20 as a whole. An argument can be made that this commitment does not reflect compliance of the full G20. Nonetheless, all G20 members, regardless of the status of their economy, agreed to this commitment.

To complement the fiscal consolidation commitment’s focus on developed economies, the commitment on emerging market resilience focuses on the accountability of emerging economies. The G20 considers Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey to be emerging economies. The case for emerging market resilience is the same for fiscal consolidation: while the argument can be made that assessing compliance for a sub-group of the G20 does not reflect compliance for the G20 as a whole, all G20 members agreed to it.

While the purpose of the report is to monitor compliance with G20 commitments, it is necessary to ensure that the monitoring mechanism is realistic and considers the context within which the commitments are made. With new commitments, more attention must be paid to the initial implementation constraints faced by members. One way to accommodate these constraints is to regard the intent to implement policy measures as an illustration of compliance, or being “on track” towards compliance. This initial leeway should only granted for new commitments; intent is not a suitable indicator of compliance for medium-term or longstanding commitments. Over time as commitments become integrated in the G20 compliance mechanism, compliance guidelines should become more stringent (as members become more accustomed to the nature of the issue and the requirements for compliance).

See also Appendix: General Considerations.

Future Research and Reports

The information contained in this report provides G20 members and other stakeholders with an indication of their compliance in the period immediately following the Cannes Summit. This draft has been produced as an invitation for others to provide additional or more complete information on compliance before the finished final report will be published in near future. Feedback should be sent to g20@utoronto.ca.

Appendix: General Considerations

In evaluating the results of this report, the following considerations should be kept in mind.

1. Assessments contained in this report apply to commitment-related actions taken by G20 members only since the commitments were declared publicly at the last summit.
2. Compliance has been assessed against a selected set of priority commitments, rather than all commitments contained in the summit documents. The selection is intended to produce a representative subset of the total body of commitments. An ideal set of priority commitments represents proportionally the amount of attention paid to each policy area in summit documents, reflects the relative ambition of summit commitments, and holds as many G20 members to account for compliance as possible.
3. In addition to producing commitments, summits provide value by establishing new principles and norms, creating and highlighting issues and issue areas and altering the traditional discourse used to discuss priorities. Some of the most important decisions reached at summits may be done in private and not encoded in the public record of the summit documents.
4. Some commitments cover several years and thus compliance takes longer than the summit-tosummit timeframe applied in this report. For this reason, full compliance (denoted by a +1 score) might not require that G20 members carry out a given commitment completely, but might instead demand clear, visible progress commensurate with the overall timetable as well as public statements of support of commitment objectives.

5. In some cases, a G20 member might choose not to comply with a particular summit commitment for good reason, for example if global conditions have changed dramatically since the commitment was made or if new knowledge has become available about how a particular problem can best be solved.
6. As each G20 member has its own constitutional, legal and institutional processes for undertaking action at the national level (and in the case of the European Union at the supranational level), each member is free to act according to its own legislative schedule. Of particular importance here is the annual schedule for creating budgets, seeking legislative approval and appropriating funds.
7. Commitments in G20 summit documents might also be included, in whole or in part, in documents released by other international forums, as the decisions of other international organizations or even national statements such as the State of the Union Address in the United States, the Queen’s Speech in the United Kingdom and the Speech from the Throne in Canada. Merely repeating a G20 commitment in another forum does not count fully as compliant behaviour.
8. This report assesses G20 members’ action in accordance with the text of actual, specific commitments made in G20 summit documents. Because commitments demand that policymakers and regulators act specifically to meet the identified objectives, this report holds policymakers accountable for pushing and passing recommended policies. Furthermore, compliance is assessed against the precise, particular commitment, rather than what might be regarded as a necessary or appropriate action to solve the problem being addressed.
9. As individual members can take different actions to comply with the same commitment, no standardized cross-national evaluative criterion can be universally applied. The interpretive guidelines attempt to provide an equitable method for assessing compliance.
10. Because the evaluative scale used in this compliance report runs from -1 to +1, any score in the positive range represents at least some degree of compliance.
11. These scores represent compliance only with commitments made at the G20 summit and do not indicate whether commitments made elsewhere are complied with to a higher or lower degree than those made at the G20 summit.
12. In some cases, full compliance by all members of the G20 with a commitment is contingent on cooperative behaviour on the part of other actors.

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Table 1: 2013 G20 St. Petersburg Summit Commitments Selected for Compliance

Note: Number in square brackets refers to the list of total commitments available on the G20 Information Centre website here.

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Table 2: 2013 G20 St. Petersburg Summit Interim Compliance Scores

Table 3: 2013 G20 St. Petersburg Summit Interim Compliance by Member

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Table 4: 2013 G20 St. Petersburg Summit Interim Compliance by Commitment

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Table 5: G20 Final Compliance by Member, 2008-2013

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