International charities and aid agencies locked out of G20 summit

Non-government organizations and community groups fear their voices won’t be heard during next month’s G20 leaders summit in Brisbane because their access to the event will be much more restricted than previous meetings held in Russia and Mexico.

Only three or four accreditations will be allowed to the G20 media center. At last year’s G20 summit in St Petersburg, the C20 was given 75 media center accreditations, and at the 2012 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, 100 accreditations were granted.

Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia said he could not understand the decision to reduce the access of civil society groups to the Brisbane event. “We had very good access to the summit in St Petersburg and civil society is playing constructive role,” he said.

The prospect of a very small number of accreditations for the aid agencies has raised concern in the community sector that the Australian Government, which is president of the G20 this year, is attempting to shut down media scrutiny of the Brisbane summit.

[Sydney Morning Herald]

This entry was posted in Humanitarian Aid, International Cooperation by Grant Montgomery.