Marcos Peña, the Argentine Chief of Staff, attended the second day of the Think 20’s (T20) event on Friday 2 February. In a space coordinated by Julia Pomares, executive director of CIPPEC, Peña responded to questions from the 149 think tanks from 45 countries around the world which are part of the T20 process.

“We are asking the T20 for help to resolve global challenges. Help us think and to see what we agree on and what we don’t, in the countries that make up the G20,” said the Chief of Staff. When speaking about the Argentine G20 presidency, Peña said: “We want to show the latin american perspective in this G20. We want to show who we are.”

Peña responded to questions for an hour from international experts such as Jeffrey Sachs (University of Columbia), Margo Thomas (Gender and Growth Initiative Fellow, Chatham House), Claudia Costin (Fundación Gertulio Vargas) and Colin Bradford (Brookings Institute). They asked him about a variety of topics including gender equality, commerce, multilateralism, education, governance and others.

Marcos Peña also announced that Argentine president Mauricio Macri will attend the T20 Summit which will take place on 16 to 18 September in Buenos Aires. The president will receive, in person, the recommendations on public policies formed by the Task Forces which they will start working on soon.

The Inception Workshop’s main objective was for the Task Forces to have their first formal meetings to define their priorities and agenda. The program included welcome speeches from CARI and CIPPEC officials, the organizations that are presiding the engagement group. It also included a speech from Nicolás Dujovne, the Treasury Minister, and Laura Jaitman, the G20 Finance Deputy. There were also keynote sessions from Jeffrey Sachs and Alfonso Vegara, plenary session and a roundtable which argued about what the G20 can achieve in 2018.