Conference Overview: G20 Summit Issues and Challenges

Amar Bhattacharya

Amar Bhattacharya (1952), an Indian national, is director for the G-24 since 2007. Before, he was senior advisor, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network at the World Bank. In this capacity, he was responsible for coordinating the Bank’s work on international financial architecture. Since joining the World Bank in 1979, he has had a long-standing involvement in East Asia, including as division chief for country operations in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific, and chief officer for creditworthiness. He was team leader of a special World Bank study that examined the policy implications of private capital flows and financial integration for developing countries, and was part of the Bank's senior team focusing on the East Asia crisis. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked as an international economist with the First National Bank of Chicago.

Colin Bradford

Colin Bradford is a senior fellow at CIGI and a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Institution. He is director of the Brookings-CIGI global governance reform project in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings.

Between 1998 and 2004, Bradford was a research professor of economics and international relations and distinguished economic in residence at American University. A presidential appointee in the Clinton administration from 1994 to 1998, Bradford served as chief economist of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and was the senior official in charge of US relations with other donors. From 1990 to 1994, Bradford was head of research at the Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. Prior to that, he was the senior staff member in charge of the international economic outlook work of the World Bank's Strategic Planning Division.

Bradford was associate director of the Yale Center for International Studies from 1978 to 1988. He was also associate professor in the practice of international economics. He spent 10 years in Washington: he was the first associate fellow at the Overseas Development Council; senior economist at the Inter-American Committee for the Alliance for Progress; legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles (D-Fla); and director of the Office of Multilateral Development Banks at the US Treasury Department in the Carter administration.

Bradford has authored numerous articles on international economic policy and development issues and is editor of 10 conference volumes on major international challenges. He recently published a paper, "World Energy Needs, Climate Change and Governance"; with Johannes Linn he edited "Global Governance Reform: Breaking the Stalemate" (Brookings Press 2007).

The Right Honourable Paul Martin

The Right Honourable Paul Martin was the twenty-first Prime Minister of Canada from 2003 to 2006 and its Minister of Finance from 1993 to 2002 and the Member of Parliament for LaSalle-Émard in Montreal, Quebec in the period 1988 to 2008. During his tenure as Minister of Finance, he erased a forty-two billion deficit in four years, subsequently recording five consecutive budget surpluses, while paying down the national debt and setting Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio on a steady downward track. He also introduced the largest tax cuts in Canadian history and the largest increases in the federal government’s support for education and research and development. In conjunction with his provincial counterparts, he restored the Canada Pension Plan, securing it for future generations. He also strengthened the regulations governing Canada’s financial institutions, with the result that Canada is now viewed as an international model for sound financial regulation. In September 1999, Mr. Martin was named the inaugural chair of the Finance Ministers’ G-20, an international group of finance ministers and central bank governors, composed of the G-7 and emerging market nations. He is respected internationally in large part for his innovative leadership in working to forge a new global financial order. During his tenure as Prime Minister, Mr. Martin’s many achievements include setting in place a ten year, forty-one billion dollar plan to improve health care and reduce wait times; signing agreements with the provinces and territories to establish a national early learning and child care program and creating a new financial deal for Canada’s municipalities. Under Mr. Martin’s leadership in November 2005, the Canadian Government reached an historic consensus with Canada's provinces, territories, First Nations, Métis and Inuit leaders that would eliminate the gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians in the areas of health, education, housing and economic opportunity. This agreement became known as the Kelowna Accord. Further, he introduced the Civil Marriage Act, which redefined the traditional definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. Since leaving office, Mr. Martin co-chaired a high level panel, responsible for submitting a report on a new strategic vision for the African Development Bank, following upon an earlier United Nations panel report on private sector investment in the Third World which he had co-chaired. Currently Mr. Martin, along with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, co-chairs a two hundred million dollar British-Norwegian poverty alleviation and sustainable development fund for the ten-nation Congo Basin Rainforest. He also sits on the advisory council of the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa, an initiative that examines the critical issues facing the continent. It is sponsored by the African Union, the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank. He is also a member of the International Monetary Fund’s Western Hemisphere Regional Advisory Group. Domestically, he is leading two new initiatives. The Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative which aims at reducing the Aboriginal youth dropout rate and at increasing the number of Aboriginal students attending post-secondary institutions. He also founded, along with his son David, the Capital for Aboriginal Prosperity and Entrepreneurship Fund, whose investments seek to further a culture of economic independence, ownership and entrepreneurship amongst both on and off reserve Aboriginal peoples, through the creation and growth of successful businesses. Prior to entering politics, he had a distinguished career in the private sector as a business executive at Power Corporation of Canada in Montreal and as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The CSL Group Inc, which manages one of the world’s most important fleets of self-unloading vessels, offshore transshippers and handy-size bulk carriers. Its acquisition by Mr. Martin in 1981 represented the largest leveraged buyout in Canada at that time. Mr. Martin studied philosophy and history at St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto before obtaining his LL.B. from the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. He was called to the Ontario Bar in 1966. He married Sheila Ann Cowan in 1965. They have three sons: Paul, Jamie and David and they are the proud grandparents of Ethan and Liam, children of David and his wife Laurence.

Avinash Persaud

Avinash Persaud is the founder and Chairman of Intelligence Capital. Prior to founding Intelligence Capital and the GAM Persaud Investment Funds, he was Head of Global Research at State Street Corporation. Previously, he was Global Head of Currency and Commodity Research at JP Morgan. He holds the Mercer Memorial Chair in Commerce at Gresham College, is a Governor of the London School of Economics and a Trustee, a member of the Board of the Global Association of Risk Professionals and the Chair of the CBC Working Group on investment flows. He is the winner of the Institute of International Finance's Jacques de Larosiere Award in Global Finance and an Amex Bank Award as well as a prolific author.

Gordon Smith

Gordon Smith is a Distinguished Fellow at CIGI and the Executive Director of the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria. His research is currently focused on the future evolution of the G20 and global summitry. Throughout a long career in the public sector, Smith has also gained expertise on Canadian foreign and defence policy, specifically on the Afghanistan file. He was the recent recipient of the 2009 Vanier Award, granted by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada in recognition of "exceptional achievement to a person who has shown distinctive leadership in public administration and public service in Canada." Smith's involvement in Government of Canada began in the 1960s with a focus on security issues and national defence. He quickly advanced to become the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Canadian Ambassador to the European Union, Ambassador to the Canadian Delegation to NATO and Secretary to Cabinet for Federal-Provincial Relations. Upon retirement from Government, Smith has continued his public service, writing prolifically on diplomacy, international summitry and climate change policy. His leadership helped to form the "L-20" a a collaborative project between CIGI and the Centre for Global Studies that "paved the way for the recent meeting of heads of government in Washington and the London meeting that focused on solutions to the financial crisis."