World-renowned expert on sustainable economic development, global macroeconomics and poverty reduction Jeffrey Sachs will be a member of the Advisory Council for the T20 Argentina, co-chaired by CARI (Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales) and CIPPEC (Centro de Implementación de Políticas Públicas para la Equidad y el Crecimiento). The US economist accepted an invitation to participate in the council at a breakfast held at CIPPEC on November 17th.

Sachs is Director of Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development and is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on the Sustainable Development Goals. He also leads the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

“The G20 was created in the context of a financial crisis and has therefore focused more on finance than development,” said Sachs. However, he also underscored that three quarters of the population of the G20 live in developing countries like China, India and Argentina.

Jorge Mandelbaum, president of the CIPPEC board, and Francisco de Santibañes, CARI treasurer, made the opening remarks at the breakfast. Jimena Zúñiga, general director for G20 content, Mercedes Méndez Ribas, director for institutional development at CIPPEC and Martín Rapetti, economic development program director addressed T20 Argentina.

The T20 is one of the groups associated with the G20, and is a forum for civil society organizations to bring forward their requests and proposals to G20 member countries. It acts as a network for the primary public policy centres and makes concrete policy recommendations. CARI and CIPPEC will co-chair the forum in 2018, during which proposals and recommendations will be made to the Argentine chair of the G20.