{"id":2848446,"date":"2024-10-04T14:37:34","date_gmt":"2024-10-04T19:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/?p=2848446"},"modified":"2025-08-25T16:04:53","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T21:04:53","slug":"the-origins-of-the-t20-interview-with-andres-rozental-comexi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/the-origins-of-the-t20-interview-with-andres-rozental-comexi\/","title":{"rendered":"The Origins of the T20 – Interview with Andr\u00e9s Rozental (COMEXI)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine the G20 Summit, where the governments of the world’s largest countries come together to tackle complex challenges that affect countries and populations across borders. It provides an open space for them to discuss global economic growth, international financial stability, trade and investment, climate change, development, and, most recently, health and education.<\/p>\n

In 2012, a new chapter for global cooperation began when Mexico held the G20 Presidency. Think tanks and policy research organisations aimed to create a space where experts and researchers could influence the world’s most prominent leaders through fresh ideas and independent perspectives. The goal was to offer profound, evidence-based knowledge and insights for creative solutions to shared problems. This initiative was called the Think20, or T20 for short.<\/p>\n

For this article, the OTT team met with Andr\u00e9s Rozental, a Mexican diplomat and one of the key figures behind the T20’s origins, who played a central role in this initiative. +<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This article draws on documents from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) regarding the summit and a second interview with Ambassadors Lourdes Aranda and Berenice D\u00edaz. +<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The origins<\/h4>\n

The T20 emerged from the same objective that all think tanks share: to influence public policy through the generation and use of evidence. In 2012, COMEXI and the SRE saw the potential for think tanks to bring their work and ideas to the table of major global players. The goal was simple yet powerful: to help shape the decisions made by the G20 leaders by ensuring that the voices of experts and researchers were heard, directly impacting global policies.<\/p>\n

At the time, the G20 was already attended by heads of state of the world’s largest economies, in addition to Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (as had been the original format). Furthermore, some initiatives emerged to consolidate parallel engagement groups so the G20 leaders could meet with the business community, young leaders, and workers’ unions. In this sense, the G20 became a more “open” space for new stakeholders to engage with.\u00a0+<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

The first T20 meeting was a pilot initiative that seized a window of opportunity in the G20’s overall structure and the political will of the Mexican Presidency of the G20, spearheaded by Sherpa Lourdes Aranda and Sous-Sherpa Berenice D\u00edaz. Through both informal and formal engagements, Andr\u00e9s Rozental discussed opportunities to involve think tanks and policy research organisations in the G20 process with key stakeholders in Mexico and the Canadian think tank Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)<\/a>. At the time, neither Andr\u00e9s Rozental nor his colleagues knew that the T20 would ‘take on a life of its own’ and become a regular G20 engagement group.<\/p>\n

The decision to engage think tanks in the G20 process was grounded in their critical role as contributors to transparency, public policy analysis, and the evaluation of governmental commitments. With their independent and evidence-based insights, think tanks were crucial for addressing priority issues for Mexico’s G20 presidency \u2014such as green growth\u2014 and providing broader recommendations on improving the G20’s credibility and effectiveness. It was expected that think tanks would ensure the G20’s work remained relevant to both public opinion and civil society within the member countries.<\/p>\n

In this context, the T20 was organised as part of the broader G20 outreach process, running parallel to other engagement groups designed to provide outside perspectives to shape the G20 Summit’s agenda. For Mexico’s presidency, it was important that these parallel events, including the T20, were meaningful and relevant to the summit’s agenda.<\/p>\n

Under the original initiative, COMEXI invited 21 think tanks from G20 and non-member countries to open the floor to a more inclusive discussion. The group held working meetings before the G20 Los Cabos Summit in June 2012. These sessions aimed to draft recommendations for presentation to the G20 leaders. Unlike later T20 iterations, where separate groups or task forces prepare multiple recommendation sets within a defined governance structure, the initial approach was more straightforward and dynamic.<\/p>\n

COMEXI and the SRE organised the first T20 summit in Mexico City on February 27 and 28, 2012, bringing together think tank representatives \u2014either leaders (executive directors or founders) or critical experts\u2014. Their participation was possible because the think tanks were already connected with COMEXI through the “Council of Councils,” an initiative from the Council on Foreign Relations, and prior engagements with CIGI.<\/p>\n

Mexican government officials involved in organising the G20 were present during the sessions to ensure alignment with the G20 agenda. According to Rozental, their presence was essential but manageable; the think tanks led the discussions in a collaborative spirit.<\/p>\n

As a result of the February sessions, COMEXI and the participating think tanks drafted a consolidated document that included policy recommendations for the G20 members (the first version of the well-known T20 Communiqu\u00e9). Lourdes Aranda and Andr\u00e9s Rozental later presented the document to the rest of the Sherpas during a working session in Mexico City in March 2012.<\/p>\n

This initial effort’s exploratory and proactive approach was primarily based on COMEXI’s close relationship with the Mexican government and the Mexican authorities’ political will to bring the first “communiqu\u00e9” into the G20 discussions because they deemed it valuable. The collaborative model allowed think tanks to present recommendations effectively, demonstrating the value of their contributions to global policy discussions.<\/p>\n

In subsequent years, the T20 became more structured, with more precise governance bodies, the formation of task forces focusing on specific issues and producing multiple detailed reports, and the organisation of international conferences and engagement events. This evolution reflects a broader trend in which the T20’s role has expanded, incorporating more diverse voices and complex issues into the policy discourse. However, this growth also posed challenges, including the need for more extensive coordination, higher participation costs, and the weakening of the T20’s core network.<\/p>\n

Despite these hurdles, the T20 continued to grow. More think tanks joined the conversation, bringing diverse perspectives to the table. Nevertheless, there are concerns about the future. The T20’s influence depends heavily on support from governments. Without that backing, it risks losing its relevance.<\/p>\n

The T20’s story is one of innovation, collaboration, and the ongoing effort to make global policymaking more inclusive and evidence-based. As the world faces new and complex challenges, independent research and expert analysis will become more critical than ever. Therefore, the T20’s journey is far from over.<\/p>\n

Explore and contribute to the rest of this knowledge hub to see the 13<\/em>+ year<\/em> evolution of this exciting initiative.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine the G20 Summit, where the governments of the world’s largest countries come together to tackle complex challenges that affect countries and populations across borders. It provides an open space for them to discuss global economic growth, international financial stability, trade and investment, climate change, development, and, most recently, health and education. In 2012, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[256,1089],"class_list":["post-2848446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-mexico","tag-t20","article-types-interview","people-enrique-mendizabal","people-paula-martinez","series-t20-knowledge-hub"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2848446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2848446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2848446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2852111,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2848446\/revisions\/2852111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2848446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2848446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}