PRESS RELEASE C20 (Civil 20) KICK OFF MEETING
Nusa Dua Bali Indonesia, March 7-8, 2022
The Civil 20 (C20) under the G20 Presidency of Indonesia had its official kick-off on 7-8 March 2022 with a public event hosted in a hybrid format in person and virtually from Nusa Dua Bali, Indonesia. “The theme of the kick-off meeting is C20 Indonesia: Listening to the World” which aimed to emphasize the C20 demands to the G20 leaders in listening to the needs of civil society across the world and developing more inclusive and adaptive policies post the COVID-19 pandemic”, said Ah Maftuchan, Sherpa of C20 Presidency of Indonesia.
The C20 represents not only the voices of civil societies in G20 countries, but also globally, including those in the global south. “Recalling Indonesia’s commitment on this year’s G20 on collaboration and cooperation as the key to producing solutions to combat many world issues, the C20 believes that the goal of “Recover Stronger, Recover Together” can only be achieved if this collaboration involves participation of countries who have the same vision of bouncing back from the pandemic era equitably together, and jointly with the inputs and collaboration of civil society”, said Sugeng Bahagijo, Chair of C20 Presidency of Indonesia.
The event brought together more than 100 civil society organizations (CSOs) across the globe and introduced its seven thematic groups namely (i) Vaccine Access and Global Health, (ii) Gender Equality, (iii) Taxation and Sustainable Finance, (iv) Environment, Climate Justice and Energy Transition, (v) SDGs and Humanitarian, (vi) Education, Digitalization, and Civic Space, and (vii) Anti-Corruption. The pandemic Covid-19 has disrupted global development and affected millions of people, especially those in developing countries. With variants of the virus continuing to mutate, as of 3 February 2022 only 11% of the population in the African continent has been fully vaccinated, while half of the countries in Europe have reached more than 85% vaccination rate and have already initiated booster shots. “With the fact that there is still inequality in access to vaccines between countries, the C20 asks the G20 to ensure equal distribution of vaccinations throughout the world. The C20 calls on G20 countries to distribute vaccines to developing and poor countries and encourage vaccine production in developing and poor countries and to commit to targeting vaccination of at least 90% of the world’s citizens by the end of 2022,” added Sugeng Bahagijo.
The World Bank states that economic growth was recovering in rich nations where the majority of the top 20% live, while the same was not true in low- and middle-income countries, where most of the bottom 20% live. The international organization also noted that unless action is taken to reduce this inequality, poverty levels will not return to their pre-crisis levels even by 2030. “The C20 calls on the G20 to push for a change in the world’s tax architecture that is more equitable. At the first day of the Kick-Off meeting, the C20 asked the G20 to push for a consensus on the minimum corporate tax rate of 25% and apply globally. The C20 also asks the G20 to encourage the realization of the commitment of developed countries to share 0.7% of their Gross National Income for funding international development cooperation so as to help developing and poor countries during the difficult time of the Covid-19 pandemic,” added Ah Maftuchan, Sherpa C20 Presidency of Indonesia.
This obvious snapshot of inequality should be a sufficient trigger for the people in power to start listening to the world and projecting its post-pandemic recovery plan to the “real” predicament, which is the life of the people and planet. The perspectives of communities and civil society are essential in examining this challenging period, as they not only play a critical role in the mitigation and dissipation of societal troubles associated with the pandemic, but also act as key actors in supporting the G20’s agenda to overcome this catastrophic era.
The C20 asserted that while the G20 can be a useful place to discuss issues and act upon them, legitimate global governance, and norms-setting, must involve all people and nations equally. It must remain anchored in multilateral bodies involving all nations, including and primarily the UN based ones.
On Humanitarian Crisis Mid-Pandemic:
In this difficult time of conflicts and COVID-19 pandemic affecting civilians and innocent people, the C20 expressed its solidarity with the people impacted, including children, women, elder, disabilities and vulnerable people who are impacted by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and called on all G20 and the European Union members to facilitate peaceful settlement between the neighboring countries in accordance with Chapter VI of The UN Charter, and to be more active and strive to encourage and invite all members to discuss conflict resolution at the G20 sessions. C20 also invited CSOs around the world to speak up to stop war and show solidarity with the people who are victims of war or conflict around the world.
The C20 also demanded the governments and authorities in conflict areas such as Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Palestine to adhere with Article 3 of the Geneva Convention 1949 and ensure that all individuals seeking protection, regardless of their nationality, identity and gender, have access to fair, effective, and urgent humanitarian assistance. Crisis will derail the economic recovery worldwide.
On Celebrating International Women Day:
Crisis impact is never gender-neutral, likewise the impacts of COVID-19 and conflicts across the globe. During these situations, women and girls are usually the most socially and economically affected parties. Joining the bandwagon of the International Women’s Day campaign, on 8 March 2022 at the Side Events of Gender Equality Working Group the members highlighted the pivotal role of breaking the bias in the gender sphere.
Obsolete norms and bias such as the concept where a woman must be the one who does most of the care work in one household can create a butterfly effect such as the significance of unemployment rate between women and men. “Gender equality underscores the importance of accelerating efforts in endorsing gender and social inclusion mainstreaming both in national and international context and several recommendations on women and marginalized group economic empowerment. C20 demands the G20 to establish a strong Policy and Services Mechanism for gender-based violence, particularly sexual violence, including the provision of quality, affordable and comprehensive reproductive health facilities, and services”, added Mike Verawati, the Coordinator of Gender Equality Working Group of C20 Presidency of Indonesia.
Education, Digitalization and Civic Space Working Group also highlighted the importance of mainstreaming children and youth rights into G20 priorities. Gender based violence issue related to child marriage, and child protection issue as millions of schools are closed, thus impacted to online learning needs that are vulnerable to cyber bullying, online pornography, prostitution or trafficking for sexual purpose, were all discussed during the side event. Children and youth voices, including girls and female youth, also those with disabilities and in marginalized groups, should be well-heard, and the side event facilitated a female youth to speak up. With prolonged pandemic, conflicts and war, and climate crisis, we should ensure children and youth rights are mainstreamed into G20 priorities. They are our future.
As stated in the C20 Principle, the C20 will be the watchdog and supporter of the process of G20 advocacy. The C20 Presidency of Indonesia will continue to echo and project the voices of the societies around the world, demanding the promise of “leaving no one behind” in order to recover together stronger, stated at the beginning of the Indonesian G20 presidency. Recovering from the pandemic and crisis needs integration and approach to every policy that affects the society. The society including marginalized and vulnerable people should be the architects of development and, at the same time, the beneficiaries of every initiative to rebuild a “recover together and recover stronger” for a better world.*
Contact Person:
Intan Bedisa (C20 Communication) +62 811-1231-332 or intanbedisa@infid.org
C20 Secretariat c20.secretariat@g20-indonesia.id
Appendix
Key Messages and Recommendation from C20 Working Groups
1. Vaccine Access and Global Health
This Working Group highlights the need for a commitment to global cooperation and solidarity as well as support for the TRIPS waiver proposal to accelerate access to COVID-19 vaccines worldwide. The group also recommends the G20 leaders to optimize state funding during the pandemic for health services for key and vulnerable populations and high-risk groups (people with comorbidities). In addition, the Working Group will be focusing on sustainable financing for health – including the financing of global health institutions, the global health architecture, universal health coverage – including one health and digitalization of health – all through human rights and gender transformative approaches.
2. Gender Equality
C20 Working Group on gender equality underscores the importance of accelerating efforts in endorsing gender and social inclusion mainstreaming both in national and international context and recommendations on women and marginalized group economic empowerment. The Group also demands the government to establish a strong Policy and Services Mechanism for gender-based violence, particularly sexual violence, including the provision of quality, affordable and comprehensive reproductive health facilities, and services.
3. Taxation and Sustainable Finance
This Working Group focuses on recommendation to implement large-scale investment in developing countries to finance COVID-19 programs and meeting the goals of climate mitigation under SDGs 2030 and Paris Agreement 2050 through increased tax revenues, particularly those related to digital economy which contributes to 4,5%-15,5% of world GDP and international cooperation in a more inclusive international tax commission. The Covid-19 pancemic also presents a momentum to accelerate a global tax reform. Deal of the G7 countries on a global minimum corporate tax of 15% is “deal of the rich countries” and does not effectively tackle profit shifting and tax dodging practices by multinational companies. C20 calls on the G20 to push a global minimum corporate tax of 25%.
4. Environment, Climate Justice and Energy Transition
This Working Group highlights strong climate ambition and energy transition that will expedite the process of achieving the Indonesia Vision and greening the economic recovery. Several key actions should be taken into consideration such as fostering green economy and sustainable financing in post covid-19 recovery; halting use of coal for its adverse impacts towards environmental and economic development; enforcing carbon tax regulations that clearly support emission reduction; and accelerating gender and social inclusion as a way to support just transition in achieving climate resilience.
5. SDGs and Humanitarian
This Working Group notes the pivotal role of G20 countries in strengthening the humanitarian development nexus by shaping targeting strategies that address both immediate needs and the long-term development goals of the population affected by the crisis, by implementing an inclusive and adaptive social protection approach that is responsive to the world’s vulnerable citizens. G20 members are also encouraged to revise global economic architecture with remittance cost reduction which can contribute to poverty eradication and enhance the quality of human development.
6. Education, Digitalization, Civic Space
This working group highlights the importance of access to quality of inclusive and safe education, where information and knowledge must be guaranteed, in line with strengthening infrastructure including digital technologies and its other alternatives, ensuring data security and protection, that all should be inclusive and safe, including for marginalized groups of children and youth. The governments also need to strengthen global citizenship education by prioritizing the values of empathy for others to eliminate discrimination, intolerance, violence and abuse that happen in schools and at home. Thus, protecting civic space, for better education and digitalization fairness is a must. The working group will deal also with all the roles played by digitalization processes and their consquences, from just transition to e-commerce and new economic monopolies, from fake news to the impact on citizenship and politics, with a special care on the responsibilities of the politics in providing rules for these processes.
7. Anti-Corruption
This working group foregrounds the negative impact of corruption on economic growth and development, the integrity of the private sector, business competition climate, distortion of resource allocation, and disruptions of public trust and the rule of law. One of the main issues highlighted is the importance of Beneficial Ownership Transparency to prevent and detect various kinds of criminal acts, such as corruption, money laundering and terrorism financing, and tax crimes.