G20 Finance Leaders Will Meet in Bali to Discuss Ukraine and Inflation

The Group of 20 leading rich and developing countries met on the Indonesian island of Bali on Friday to discuss strategies for dealing with the economic fallout from the Ukraine war, inflation, and other global crises. Indonesia's Finance Minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, opened the two-day meeting by urging fellow finance ministers, central bank chiefs, and other leaders to "build bridges, not walls." Failure, she claimed, would have "catastrophic" consequences, particularly for poorer countries.

"Millions and millions if not billions of people are depending on us," Indrawati said. The meetings in Nusa Dua, Bali, come after a meeting of foreign ministers there earlier this month that failed to find common ground on Russia's war in Ukraine and its global consequences.
In April, officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and Ukraine walked out of a G-20 finance meeting in Washington, D.C. to protest the presence of Russian envoys. The meeting ended without a joint statement being issued. Nonetheless, the G-20 financial meetings have the advantage of being less political in nature, according to Indrawati.

Indonesia, as host, has attempted to act as a "honest broker," she said, bringing together the G-20's divided East and West, a schism that has widened since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.