The idea of democratizing the G-20 goes back several years. At the more official level, three studies have been done, two of them by former UNDP administrators, on how to go about structuring such a body. More recently, another was done by the UN Commission of Experts. It was chaired by Joseph Stiglitz, a former World Bank economist, and made up of central bank governors and finance ministers. They came up with the idea of a global economic coordinating council, which would be situated within the framework of the UN. It would operate on a constituency basis.
So there has been some work done on what this would look like. The three studies I referred to talk about including on the council representatives from the World Bank, the IMF, the World Trade Organization, the ILO, representatives from the UN system, and regional bodies that would nominate individuals on an annual basis.
On the civil society level, we have started a process. There have been meetings all of this week with 80 organizations from around the world. Over the next few months, Canadian civil society is going to start elaborating on these principles and forming a conception of the framework that should guide a G-20. We're hoping to do a number of regional consultations with groups that would inform the process. So we're hoping to have more.