A quick round-up of some of the interesting statements we've spotted ahead of tomorrow's G20 London summit. Focussing in particular on developing country activists.

Rajesh Tandon, leader of Participatory Research in Asia, warmed up a DFID conference in London last month saying that world leaders preparing the G20 were "like a religious sect, continuously offering more of the same",despite the change in circumstances. He said that activists felt "little enthusiasm to fix the current system or the institutions that represent it" and urged bringing "questions of consumption and lifestyle" into the discussion of what needs to change. 

In an article written today on the PRIA site he spells out his arguments further: Pious appeals for more aid as a cushion for poor people against the impact of financial meltdown "lack the understanding of the shifting nature of global economic power from the west to the east; it also ignored the reality that the Americans and Europeans are suffering most, while Asians (Chinese in particular) are expected to 'save' them. The traditional Aid paradigm, and Bretton Woods Institutions associated with it, have all but lost their relevance today".

Colleagues in Zambia at the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, which has long studied poverty and the impacts of the World Bank and IMF in that country have produced their own 20 points for the G-20. Sadly this is not yet on their website. But some highlights ... Their diagnosis is similar to Tandon's (though lighter on the ideology=religion metaphors, for obvious reasons). JCTR says the situation of developing countries has been made possible "through the aggressive enforcement of an ideologically driven economic paradigm that minimizes the role of government, institutes asymmetrical global governance and critically weakens regulation". They point out that: "the majority of developing countries are engulfed in the brutal cycle of selling low value products and buying products of high value. Trade measures should be adopted to address this imbalance". On aid: "aid should not be conditional to liberal[isation] reforms" and should be predictable.  They also echo the approach of the Eurodad Responsible Finance Charter, saying that "responsible lending and responsible borrowing is a pertinent issue for the international lending institutions as this is a time when developing countries could all too easily fall into a debt trap".

Third World Network has also produced several articles and positions ahead of the G20. They have consistently championed a stronger role for the UN, rather than the G-20 or other more limited approaches. They also cite UNCTAD's new report The Global Economic Crisis: Systemic Failures and Multilateral Remedies which argues that "some financial instruments can generate high private returns but have no social utility whatsoever".

In another recent article (subs) TWN quotes Father Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua, current head of the UN General Assembly. D'Escoto said the United Nations is not being marginalised by the G20 process but argued that he is "absolutely convinced that the only credible enabled group to bring about the necessary reforms for the 21st century is the G192, that is to say, the entire membership of the United Nations."

For more web tips see also our 20 recommended websites and blogs on the G20, posted yesterday.