“Sustainable commodities for climate, nature and people: Learning from the past, investing in the future” (G20, TF04, Subtopic 2)

This policy brief recognizes a shift in world order toward multipolarity and, particularly, toward increasingly influential financial and trade partnerships between China with emerging powers in South America and Africa. We argue that this epochal shift opens spaces for launching urgently needed changes to paradigms of resource extraction and commodity export, food security and climate action. Our diagnosis, focused on South America and Africa, discusses how current trade practices have exacerbated conditions of extreme inequality and primary commodity dependency, displaced communities, and triggered community fragmentation and social conflict with serious environmental and social effects. We draw upon this diagnosis to generate the following recommendations: It is urgent that all G20 countries (1) ratify and vigorously implement ILO convention 169 for monitoring extraction with zero tolerance for eviction of communities or unfair land purchases and promote benefit sharing at all levels; (2) restrict mining in areas of ecological and cultural sensitivity; (3) ensure transparency at all stages of investments in extractive sectors with public access to information on contracts, taxes and revenue distribution; (4) foster collaboration between producer and consumer countries of agricultural commodities for Integrated Land Use Planning, and high standards of compliance including by indirect suppliers; (5) adopt eco-efficient technologies, particularly for degraded lands and small farms; (6) build capacity for and transparency between local agencies monitoring compliance; and (7) foster municipal-level technical and institutional innovation. We advise all recommendations should be implemented through mechanisms of South-South cooperation through G20 and BRICS venues, with strong civil society and local community participation. Key words: commodities, deforestation, land use, biodiversity, FPIC, mining, collaboration, consultation, monitoring, compliance, civil society.