Two women (Merkel of Germany and Kirchner of Argentina) and their 18 male colleagues from the other G20 countries are meeting in London tomorrow to try and lay out a roadmap for addressing the global financial crisis. The London Summit is supposed to focus on stabilising the world economy and laying the foundation to restore growth and jobs. Stimulus packages, global financial regulation, trade financing as well as trade protectionism are all on the table. Because countries like China, India and Brazil are in the group the G20 boasts of not only representing more than 85% of the world’s GDP but also about two thirds of the world population.

There are significant expectations regarding the summit’s outcome. A key test of the outcome will be the extend to which the solutions proposed address the root causes of the problem and take into account the needs of the more than 170 other countries