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Analysis

G20@20 Review’s Recommendations and G20 Compliance

John Kirton, Director, G20 Research Group
January 7, 2026

How well do the findings and recommendations contained in the G20@20 Review – summarized below in Appendix A – coincide with member governments’ compliance with their leaders’ G20 summit commitments since the start in 2008?

It is important to know. The collective commitments made by political leaders at summits mean little in the real world if their governments do not faithfully implement those commitments before the next G20 summit is held. Such implementation is critical in order to improve the effectiveness, accountability, transparency and trust that G20 leaders want and badly need now. And the report, published by South Africa’s 2025 G20 presidency to assess the full first cycle of G0 presidencies between 2008 and 2024, repeatedly mentions how G20 summit performance has recently declined and how these critical components of performance must now be improved.

A preliminary answer to this central question comes by first identifying the findings and recommendations about the G20’s policy agenda and working methods that are highlighted in the executive summary of the G20@20 Review Final Report, released on December 5, 2025, and then comparing and correlating them with the data on compliance with G20 summit commitments produced by the G20 Research Group from 2008 to 2024 – the period covered by the G20@20 Review itself. The analysis below starts that task. It focuses on three key components: the G20’s priority policy subjects, its relationship with core international organizations, and the streamlining of workstreams to change the number of subjects addressed and commitments made.

1. Priority Policy Subjects

The G20@20 Review concluded that the G20 did best and should thus focus on the 13 subjects: strong, sustainable and balanced economic growth and the directly related subjects of macroeconomic policy, financial regulation, taxation, development, food security, health, trade and investment, the digital economy (or digitalization), energy, climate, employment, and anticorruption. Its specific recommendations agreed in more general terms. G20 leaders have made commitments on all of these subjects, in varying degrees (see Appendix B).

By subject, members’ compliance coincided highly on the six subjects of macroeconomic policy, where compliance averaged 81%, on financial regulation with 76%, labour and employment with 76%, taxation and digitalization with 75%, and energy at 71% (see Appendix C).

But compliance fell below the overall average of 71% on the five proposed subjects of climate, food and agriculture, and health with 70%, development with 68%, and trade and investment with 67%.

Further discordance also came on the two subjects that the report discarded despite their having above-average compliance: terrorism with 77%, and migration and refugees with 74%.

Agreement came on the six discarded subjects with below-average compliance: infrastructure with 70%, reform of international financial institutions (IFIs) and environment both with 69%, gender equality with 65%, crime and corruption with 60%, and regional security with 48%.

2. Relationship with Core International Organizations

The G20@20 Review approved and recommended close engagement with core international organizations, specifying the United Nations, World Trade Organization (WTO), World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Financial Stability Board (FSB), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The report’s executive summary did not note that the IMF and World Bank have been full members of the G20 since the summits’ start and thus have a privileged status well above the other international organizations it identified.

The executive summary’s 13 priority subjects matched with specific international organizations on six subjects: macroeconomic policy with the IMF, financial policy with the FSB, taxation with the OECD, development with the World Bank, labour and employment with the ILO, and trade and investment with the WTO.

But it had no priority subject, such as terrorism or regional security, that matched the listed UN, whose secretary general has attended every G20 summit since the start.

Nor did it match the specified priority subjects of food, health, digitalization, energy, climate and anticorruption, with, respectively, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, International Energy Agency, UN Climate and Interpol.

Moreover, the six priority subjects that were matched with a specific core international organization had commitments that were complied with as follows:

• macroeconomic policy – IMF with 81%
• financial policy – FSB with 76%
• tax – OECD 75%
• development – World Bank with 68%
• labour and employment – ILO with 76%, and
• trade and investment – WTO with 67%.

These six subject–international organization matches averaged compliance of 74%, slightly above the average all-subject compliance of 71%.

A more detailed analysis of several specific priority subjects finds that compliance on climate change is improved by reference to the core international organization of UN Climate and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the same is true for UN Women and gender equality more generally (see Appendix C).

3. Streamlined Workstreams

The G20@20 Review’s Executive Summary recommends streamlining workstreams but ensuring continuity, legitimacy and response to emerging issues. This relates directly, if inconclusively, to the ongoing debate over whether the “more the merrier” or “fewer for focus” in terms of the number and breadth of subjects on the summit agenda, the number of words and commitments in the outcome documents would improve compliance would improve members’ compliance with their leaders’ G20 summit commitments.

On balance, the evidence on compliance suggests that a high quantity and thus “the more the merrier” prevails (see Appendix B). Since 2008, macroeconomic policy has had the most commitments with 530 and the highest compliance with them of 81%. Financial regulation has the third highest number of commitments with 325 and the third highest compliance of 76%. Energy comes fifth with 200 commitments and eighth with compliance of 71%. The subject of labour and employment has 193 commitments and 76% compliance. Taxation, with 116 commitments, has 75% compliance. Digitalization, including information and communication technology, has 250 commitments and 75% compliance.

However, several subjects also have many commitments but only below-average compliance:

• development (415 commitments versus 68% compliance)
• trade and investment (213 commitments versus 67%)
• food and agriculture (192 commitments versus 70%)
• climate change (180 commitments versus 70%)
• health (177 commitments versus 70%)
• IFI reform (176 commitments versus 69%)
• the environment (156 commitments versus 69%), and
• gender (124 commitments versus 65%).

A more detailed analysis of several specific subjects supports the “more the merrier” case for raising compliance. Compliance rises on macroeconomic policy with priority placement for its words on this subject in the outcome documents (that is, when it is highlighted in the preamble or mentioned in a chair's summary). It also does so on energy with more energy conclusions and commitments, on health with more health commitments and more specific ones, on infrastructure with more infrastructure conclusions and commitments, on IFI reform with more commitments and more specific ones, and on gender with a greater portion of gender conclusions and commitments, especially core gender ones (that is, commitments that directly and specifically address gender issues). Only on development does fewer commitments coincide with higher compliance.

Conclusion

Should G20 leaders wish to strengthen their effectiveness, accountability, transparency, legitimacy and trust,  by having their governments comply more with their summit commitments, they should act on the G20@20 Review’s recommendation to conduct another stocktake within the next three to five years, but also mobilize this and other evidence on compliance in it, and include the views of the G20 leaders themselves.

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Appendix A: G20@20 Executive Summary Findings ↩

1. Strengthen cooperation on crisis, longer challenges and emerging threats.
2. Remain the central global forum and guide for international economic cooperation and growth.
3. Remain a leaders-led, informal, summit-centred group.
4. Recognize that crisis is the key cause of effectiveness in prevention and response.
5. Drive progress on financial stability, tax, debt relief, reform of multilateral development banks, health, food security, sustainable development, energy, environment, climate change and financial inclusion.
6. Address declining effectiveness due to geopolitics, broadening agenda, insufficient continuity.
7. Recognize that effectiveness improves with focus on core economic issues: financial regulation and macroeconomic policy, taxation, development, health, agriculture, gender equality, anticorruption, digitalization, employment, but not culture, tourism or disaster risk reduction.
8. Focus on strong, sustainable and balanced growth and economic growth, macroeconomic policy, financial regulation, taxation, development, food security, health, trade and investment, digital economy, energy, climate, employment and anticorruption.
9. Streamline workstreams but ensure continuity, legitimacy and response to emerging issues.
10. Improve continuity among presidencies.
11. Rotate presidencies per the 2011 Cannes Summit principles, for regional and advanced-emerging economy balance.
12. Engage closely with international organizations, namely the United Nations, World Trade Organization, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Financial Stability Board, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and International Labour Organization.
13. Value the engagement groups and summit’s invited guests.
14. Review the G20’s agenda and working methods periodically.

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Appendix B: G20 Commitments by Subject, 2008–2024 ↩

Notes: a Only core commitments.
ICT = information and communications technologies; IFI = international financial institution.

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Appendix C: G20 Compliance Results and Their Compliance Drivers ↩

a See Joanna Davies, “G20 Performance on Trade,” Sonja Dobson, “G20 Performance on Development,” Maria Fernanda Erthal, “G20 Performance on International Financial Institution Reform,” Siobhan Mehrotra, “G20 Performance on Environment,” Angela Minyi Hou, “G20 Performance on Macroeconomic Policy,” Eisha Khan, “G20 Performance on Labour and Employment,” Ella Kokotsis, “G20 Performance on Energy,” Julia Kulik, “G20 Performance on Gender Equality,” Natasha Pirzada, “G20 Performance on Health,” Julia Tops, “G20 Performance on Infrastructure,” Brittaney Warren, “G20 Performance on Climate Change,” Mary Zelenova, “G20 Performance on Digitalization,” in John Kirton and Madeline Koch, eds. (2025), G20 South Africa: The 2025 Johannesburg Summit (GT Media), https://bit.ly/G20SA.

b Average is calculated on the total number of compliance assessments.

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