Assessing the G20’s Mutual Assessment Process: A MAP but Little Direction

After the global economic and financial crisis, the G20 has tried to orchestrate an internationally coordinated approach to economic recovery. In late 2009, the Mutual Assessment Process (MAP) was introduced to minimize risk by reducing global economic imbalances and encouraging economic growth. To implement MAP, the G20 attempted to oversee macro-economic policy at the global level with the International Monetary Fund collecting data and providing technical assistance. Later experience suggests that, in the absence of a global economic crisis, the MAP will continue to lose direction and relevance and is unlikely to become a modality for close international macro-economic coordination.