World leaders met Saturday to discuss the state of the global economy at the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment meeting, a side event at the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan.
Watch the meeting in the video player above.
In a joint statement issued Saturday, G7 leaders reiterated their aim to pull together up to $600 billion in financing for projects to develop infrastructure such as railways, clean energy and telecommunications in developing nations.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida convened the session that included executives from Citigroup and other private partners to discuss how to get more done — and offer an alternative to financing from China with investments in a “transparent and fair manner.”
“We’re just getting started. Together we have a lot to do to close the infrastructure gap,” President Joe Biden told the gathering, pointing to a railway project in West Africa that he said would improve food security and supply chains.
“Let’s commit to showing that democracies can deliver,” Biden said. “We have to deliver.”
Kishida said Japan will invest in infrastructure in countries like Vietnam, Egypt, and India and continue to support vulnerable countries.
“A new line of credit totaling $4 billion will be provided by JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) to support countries vulnerable to climate change, for food security and to support SMCs, and women,” he said.
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Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said the effort might raise the amount of investment from “billions to trillions.”
“We want to put a better offer on the table,” she said.
A key aim of including a broader set of countries in the annual G7 summit is to help build agreement ahead of the annual summit of the broader Group of 20 major economies in India later this year.
“Important global issues cannot be solved” without the other countries, Hosoya said. “Without the support coming from the countries in the Global South, the G7 cannot, unlike before, effectively respond to the most pressing issues in the world.”
The effort in Hiroshima underwhelmed some observers.
“If the G7 really want closer ties to the developing countries and greater backing for the war in Ukraine, then asking Global South leaders to fly across the world for a couple hours is not going to cut it,” Max Lawson, head of inequality policy for anti-poverty group Oxfam, said in a statement.
“They need to cancel debts and do what it takes to end hunger,” he said.
