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Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/g20/Pittsburgh_Fact_Sheet_Most_Vulnerable.pdf

THE PITTSBURGH SUMMIT: SUPPORT FOR THE MOST VULNERABLE

Support for the world’s most vulnerable individuals and countries is a central aim of the G-20’s
aggressive recovery actions. The G-20 has pursued a strategy that is built around three critical
pillars:

The Expanded Engagement of Effective International and Regional Institutions: To
increase the capacity of emerging market and low-income countries to withstand and recover
from this and future external shocks, the G-20 has from the outset mobilized robust action on the
part of leading international and regional institutions.

• In London, the G-20 called for the multilateral development banks (MDBs), including the
World Bank and the African Development Bank, to expand lending by at least $100
billion above pre-crisis levels. This goal was met by the MDBs within months of the G-
20’s initial request. In addition, over the past year IDA committed $14 billion in
resources for the poorest, $2 billion of which was made available under emergency
procedures, and the African Development Fund (AfDF) front-loaded its financing, with
$4.2 billion in commitments expected in 2009, up from $2.4 billion in 2008.

• The G-20’s work has also led to a dramatic expansion of the IMF’s ability to provide
concessional loans to the world’s poorest nations to $8 billion over 2009–10 and $17
billion through 2014 and an increase in trade finance support for emerging market
countries. Over the past year, IMF financing under current programs to the poorest
countries has more than doubled and currently stands at $4.4 billion.

• Building on these important early successes, the G-20 Leaders in Pittsburgh committed to
support continued concessional lending, including through the IDA and Africa
Development Fund, and to review whether General Capital Increases are needed as the
MDBs enact reforms to meet their core missions.

• The G-20 also agreed to address a critical missing piece of the global economic structure
- a lack of a concessional lending facility for the world’s poorest countries in times of
crisis. The G-20 have asked their Finance Ministers to explore the creation of such a
crisis lending facility within IDA to provide support to the poor in future downturns.

Investments in the Foundations for Long-term, Sustainable Development: The G-20 has also
committed to new initiatives that will not only help the poor, but will also foster economic
growth opportunities for the world’s poorest countries by investing in the foundations of
development: sustained production, new infrastructure and financial access.

• Food Security: With over one billion of the world’s people facing chronic hunger and
the world’s poorest countries hit hard by the 2008 spike in world food prices, President
Obama joined with 34 world Leaders in L’Aquila, Italy to launch a comprehensive food
security initiative. The new initiative will align sustained donor resources in support of
country-led strategies, and has already generated over $20 billion (USD) in donor
pledges. At the Pittsburgh Summit, G-20 Leaders called on the World Bank to create a
Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, a multilateral trust fund to expand
agricultural assistance to low-income countries.

• Expanded Clean Energy Resources for Low-Income Countries: As the developing
world seeks to build out the energy infrastructure needed to support domestic
development and attract investment, the G-20 has also adopted a new series of measures
to help the poor access affordable and reliable clean energy. The Leaders agreed to
increase funding for the World Bank’s new Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program and
for other programs that support the deployment of clean energy resources in the
developing world.

• New Opportunities for Financial Access: In order to sustain recovery and reduce the
vulnerability of the world’s poor to future external shocks, the G-20 is also focused on
tackling the fact that half of the world’s people do not have access to financial services.
The G-20 Leaders have established a G-20 Financial Inclusion Experts Group to
recommend innovative approaches to providing financial services to the poor, including
through national regulatory and policy efforts. Underscoring the importance of small
business development to global economic growth, the G-20 has also launched a new
Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Finance Challenge which will partner with the
private sector to support entrepreneurs in poor countries.

Limiting illicit outflows: Those G-20 members who serve as traditional “donors” have
committed to maintaining their ODA levels, while other G-20 members have brought new
development resources to the table. But as the flow of funds to developing countries increases, it
is critical to also prevent its illegal outflow. Corruption and illicit financial flows cost
developing nations billions of dollars per year in public funds that could be used for domestic
investments. The G-20 Leaders recommitted themselves to fighting corruption and reclaiming
this uncounted capital for development by agreeing to increase the transparency of international
aid flows and to strengthen international efforts to recover stolen assets. They called for
ratification of the UN Convention Against Corruption and the adoption and enforcement of laws
against transnational bribery, laws like the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. These efforts will
also help prevent future use of public assets for personal gain.