ICC G20 Business Scorecard 2nd Edition (April 2013)

The purpose of the ICC G20 Business Scorecard is to provide a detailed analysis of the G20’s recognition of, action on and response to recommendations put forward by the international business community. It is the ICC’s view that the Scorecard and its results deliver value to both government and business leaders by providing:

• Government authorities with better information on how their actions are interpreted by the business community so that they are better able to establish priorities, honour commitments, gauge their own progress over time and identify areas that deserve greater attention.
• Business leaders with better information on whether the G20 has recognized business input and how it has carried through on specific business recommendations are better able to tailor forthcoming recommendations and engagement with the G20 – and with national governments and intergovernmental organizations tasked with implementing G20 commitments.

With these objectives in mind, ICC published the first edition of the ICC G20 Business Scorecard in June 2012, which compared 54 global business recommendations with G20 commitments and directives conveyed in Summit Declarations since Washington. The overall assessment was “Incomplete”1 across the four policy areas evaluated: trade and investment, green growth, transparency and anti-corruption, and financing for growth and development. This suggested that the G20 was at least acknowledging business priorities, but that additional time, a broader and more comprehensive work programme, and greater global cooperation would be necessary for the G20 to address more adequately the considerable challenges that remained.

This 2nd edition of the Scorecard focuses on the 2012 Mexican G20 cycle and aims to generate an assessment of the G20’s performance during the Mexican presidency. The listing of recommendations and responses by category, along with the indicative scoring, is intended to improve transparency and accountability, concentrate attention on business priorities and monitor progress over time. The overall assessment for the 2nd edition of the ICC Scorecard is “Fair”. This marks a modest improvement over last year and illustrates the value of a business scorecard, as well as the need for continued monitoring efforts.

Development of business recommendations – Los Cabos

The “Business-20” (“B20”) Summit in Los Cabos Summit generated 80 business recommendations from 153 taskforce members from more than 25 countries and in 7 policy task forces. Of the recommendations for conveyance to G20 Leaders, some reiterated past priorities, some called on the G20 to take action in new areas and some have not been conveyed in a way that permit a fair evaluation of the G20, but nonetheless called for higher levels of engagement by all.

Given the breadth and complex nature of the G20’s policy work, the 2nd edition of the Scorecard does not attempt to assess progress on the G20’s entire agenda, nor does it attempt to assess all of the business recommendations put forward to G20 Leaders. Instead, the 2nd edition of the Scorecard focuses on four major groupings selected on the basis of a subset of issues that the ICC G20 Advisory Group considers priorities for G20 attention at this time. Notably, the major groupings also correspond to trends in recurring priorities put forward over time by the broader B20 participants. In the Scorecard, each major grouping is presented as a specific chapter that includes the treatment and assessment of between 4-6 aggregated business recommendations.

1. Trade and Investment
2. Financing for Growth and Development
3. Energy and Environment
4. Anti-Corruption

The Scorecard also includes “Other Priorities” in chapter 5, which addresses the topics of Food Security, Employment, ICT and Intellectual Property. While Food Security and Employment have been addressed in multiple instances by the G20, they cover complex realities and were phrased in broad terms and therefore provide little recourse for a fair evaluation. ICT and IP have been put forward by business for G20 consideration and inclusion, but have not so far been addressed in any official way by the G20. As such, the Other Priorities grouping highlights these subjects without commensurately evaluating performance at this stage.