The G8 summit is an opportunity for the heads of state to develop personal relations, identify and define the world's biggest problems, set priorities, and forward recommendations to a myriad of established international organizations.  The earliest summits in the 1970s focused on macroeconomic policy coordination and the stabilization of exchange rates to promote global economic growth and international trade.  Over the years the summits have become increasingly more ambitious, adding more ministries to the G8 organization and placing more issues on the agendas.  [See table on Summit History at the end of this article].

In one sense, the summits can be seen as the first steps in global planning for a better world.  Ideally, the plan would promote more balanced and synchronized economic growth, price stability,  full employment, a more equitable distribution of income in the world, and an improved quality of life for the people living on planet earth.  It would also develop a system to anticipate, prevent, and resolve international crises.  It would be fundamentally altruistic and yet practical and effective in its implementation.
 

The 1999 G8 SUMMIT PARTICIPANTS

Country	Head of State
Canada	Prime Minister Jean Chretien
Germany	Chancellor Gehard Schroeder
France	President Jacques Chirac
Italy	Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema
Japan	Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi
Russia	President Boris Yeltsin
United Kingdom	Prime Minister Tony Blair
United States	President Bill Clinton

On the last day of this year's gathering, the eight heads of state issued their joint final communiqué.  It summarizes and highlights the major issues, positions, and proposals that were discussed and agreed upon at this year's summit.  A review of this document gives one a sense of what's happening in the world, what problems are considered to be the most urgent, and what steps are being taken to make the world a better place as we approach the 21st century.

The table below identifies and summarizes the main topics contained in this year's final communiqué.  It likens resolving the issues identified in the document to shooting a game of pool.  Each time you sink a ball, you solve one of the world's problems:
 

The 1999 G8 SUMMIT: SUMMARY OF FINAL COMMUNIQUÉ

Issue #	Description
	Renew commitment to the pursuit of appropriate macroeconomic policies and structural reforms to promote more balanced and parallel growth in the global economy.
	Get the ailing Russian economy on a positive track by negotiating a debt rescheduling agreement and intensifying the dialogue within the G8 structures for longer term social and economic reforms in Russia.
	Renew strong support for the World Trade Organization (WTO); continue commitment to open trade and call on all nations to resist protectionist policy measures.
	Design policies to reduce cyclical and structural unemployment in the world by promoting job creation activities, eliminating structural rigidities, improving labor mobility, and facilitating job search information.
	Invest in people.  Provide for basic education, vocational training, and encourage lifelong upgrading of skills for the knowledge based labor market in the 21st century.
	Strengthen the social safeguards for those dislocated by rapid change and global integration.  Give globalization a "human face" and ensure increasing, widely shared prosperity.
	Deepen the development partnership between the rich and poor countries in the world by providing assistance to developing and transition economies in support of their own efforts to open, diversify, and democratize.
	Launch the Koln Debt Initiative to provide deeper, broader, and faster debt relief for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) so that they can begin to embark upon sustained economic development.
	Redouble efforts to protect the environment.  Expedite international cooperation on the establishment and continual improvement of environmental standards and norms.  Reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
	Promote non-proliferation, arms control, and disarmament.  Build a broad international partnership to protect and manage weapons-grade materials, especially plutonium.
	Diminish the incidence of violent conflicts and civil wars. Implement effective crisis prevention and address the root causes of these conflicts, including ethnic tensions, economic inequality, and extreme poverty.
	Pledge to continue  international efforts in the fight against infectious disease, especially AIDS, malaria, polio and tuberculosis, and their drug-resistant forms.
	Reduce crime and corruption in the world.  Urge that acts of corruption involving public officials be made criminal offenses.  Combat transnational organized crime and the threat it represents to stability worldwide.
	Improve safeguards related to nuclear power.  Renew commitment made at the 1996 Moscow Summit to safety first in the use of nuclear power and the achievement of high safety standards worldwide.
	Deal with the Y2K "Millennium  Bug" to minimize its potential impact on the world, particularly in the key areas of energy, telecommunications, financial services, transportation, health, and defense.

In reality, of course, solving the world's problems is only remotely similar to shooting a game of pool.  In rotation pool, it's hard at first because there are so many balls on the table and they get in the way of a clear shot.  Similarly in solving global issues, to the extent that you can solve one problem, it's easier to solve some of the others.  Attaining more balanced and synchronized global growth (#1) would go a long way toward solving the problem of high unemployment (#4), reducing the need for safeguarding the dislocated (#6), and diminishing international conflicts rooted in inequality and poverty (#11).  However, like all analogies, at some point the comparison begins to break down.

Developing a plan to solve the world's problems is not nearly as simple as shooting a game of pool.  For one thing, the game never really ends.  Economics 101 students are taught the first week of classes that the economic problem of resource scarcity relative to individual and collective wants is perpetual and is never abated.  Yet, that is the source of just about every frustration, disagreement, and conflict within all economic systems no matter how narrowly (individual and family) or broadly (country and region) defined.  Secondly, just about the time that you resolve one crisis, another springs up to take its place.  Thirdly, it borders on the ridiculous to limit the world's problems to fifteen or any finite number.  Each of the problems has component parts which are even more specific and detailed and a matter of urgency to the principals.

In a world of independent, sovereign nation states the analogy of "herding cats" would probably be more appropriate.  The G8 Summit is represented by only eight countries in a world of over 150 nations.  When the G8 forwards initiatives designed to deal with global issues, it must strike a delicate balance between global objectives and national sovereignty.  Each country has its own unique structural framework, problems, and priorities within the context of its economic, political, and cultural values.  Some countries have a higher tolerance for inflation than others.  Some practice "bribery" as a daily routine.  Others place a high value on growth and development and assign a lower value to the environment.  Rich countries can afford expensive regulations to preserve and protect wildlife, while poor countries are struggling to feed their growing populations.  When considering the structural differences among countries and the vast disparity of living standards around the world, the difficulty of  reaching consensus expands exponentially and seems almost impossible.

Conspicuously absent from this year's summit was any significant dialogue regarding China, a nation with over 1 billion people.  One wonders for how long the G8 can ignore that country and deny its participation.  The questions regarding reforms in South Eastern Europe and the post-bombing reconstruction of Serbia were left unresolved and subject to continued negotiations.  The Koln Debt Initiative to provide faster relief for the HIPCs is probably the most positive and provocative aspect of this year's G8 Summit.  Rich nations can afford to help poor ones, but those countries must take steps to help themselves, as well.  Generally, most observers will probably give this year's summit an above-average review when compared to previous summits in terms of overall breadth of coverage and depth of proposals.
 
 

HISTORY OF PREVIOUS SUMMITS: 1975 - 1998

Year	Place	Main Topic(s)
1975	Rambouillet	balanced growth of the world economy
1976	Puerto Rico	balanced growth of the world economy
1977	London	balanced growth of the world economy
1978	Bonn	measures to foster cyclical convergence; decisions to stop air piracy
1979	Tokyo	strategies for reducing energy (oil) consumption without stalling economic growth
1980	Venice	general policy coordination plus reactions to rising tension between the East and the West
1981	Ottawa	general policy coordination plus reactions to continuing tension between the East and the West
1982	Versailles	general policy coordination plus reactions to continuing tension between the East and the West
1983	Williamsburg	general policy coordination plus reactions to continuing tension between the East and the West
1984	London	international terrorism
1985	Bonn	paved the way for the Plaza agreement to collectively depreciate the US dollar
1986	Tokyo	the fight against terrorism
1987	Venice	the fight against drugs
1988	Toronto	focussed on the coordination of currency and macroeconomic policies
1989	Paris	focussed on the coordination of currency and macroeconomic policies
1990	Houston	explored appropriate reactions to the disintegration of the Soviet Union
1991	London	initiated assistance to balance the transformation process in the USSR; invited Gorbachev to summit
1992	Munich	foreign policy regarding conflict in Yugoslavia; non-proliferation of nuclear weapons; unemployment
1993	Tokyo	global growth strategy to promote employment
1994	Naples	improved funding instruments for financial institutions and dealing with crises in global financial markets
1995	Halifax	continued focus on global financial markets
1996	Lyon	fight against organized crime and terrorism
1997	Denver	called upon a new partnership for Africa and pursued common policies to prevent climate change
1998	Birmingham	Asian financial crisis, policies to create employment, and preventing social exclusion from globalization