The G-20 is a group of developing countries established on 20 August 2003, in the final stages of the preparations for the V Ministerial Conference of the WTO, held in Cancun, from 10 to 14 September 2003. Its focus is on agriculture, the central issue of the Doha Development Agenda.

The Group has a wide and balanced geographical representation, being currently integrated by 23 members countries: 5 from Africa (Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe), 6 from Asia (China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines and Thailand) and 12 from Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela).

Since its establishment, the G-20 has generated great interest, raised expectations and also criticism from different quarters.

The Group was born to try, as it did, to avoid a predetermined result at Cancun and to open up a space for negotiations in agriculture. In that occasion, the Group’s main objective was to defend an outcome in the agricultural negotiations which would reflect the level of ambition of the Doha mandate and the interests of the developing countries. For this purpose, the Group adopted a common position that was circulated as an official document of the WTO, prior to and during Cancun (WT/MIN(03)/W/6). This position remains the central platform of the Group.

After the lack of concrete results in the Cancun meeting, the G-20 embarked in technical and political consultations with a view to injecting momentum in the negotiations. The Group has held several Ministerial Meetings (Cancun, September/2003; Brasilia, December/ 2003; São Paulo, June/2004; New Delhi, March/2005; Bhurban, September/2005; and Geneva, October and November/2005), and met frequently at the level of Heads of Delegation and Senior Officials in Geneva. The Group also met at technical level to discuss specific proposals in the context of the WTO agriculture negotiations and to prepare technical papers in support of the adopted common platform of the Group.

The G-20 has consolidated as an essential and recognized interlocutor in the agricultural negotiations. The Group’s legitimacy is due to the following reasons:
a) the importance of its constituency in the agricultural production and trade, as it represents almost 60% of the world population, 70% of world’s rural population and 26% of world’s agricultural exports;
b) its capacity to translate a vast range of developing countries’ interests into concrete and consistent proposals; and
c) its ability to coordinate its members and to interact with other grouping in the WTO.
The leverage of the G-20 was confirmed in the final phase of the negotiations that led to the framework agreed upon last July. Thanks to the efforts of the G-20, the adopted framework meets all its negotiating objectives for the initial phase of the Doha Round: (i) it respects the Doha mandate and its level of ambition; (ii) it points the way towards positive outcomes of the negotiations in the modalities phase; and, (iii) it represents, furthermore, a substantial improvement in relation to the text submitted to Cancun in all aspects of the agriculture negotiations.

In the upcoming negotiations on modalities, the G-20 will maintain its engagement in the negotiations, its internal coordination and its efforts to interact with other groups with a view to promoting developing countries interests in agricultural negotiations.