‘No show Sunak’ criticized for skipping Macron’s financing summit

Rishi Sunak has been accused of turning his back on efforts to reboot the global financial system for low- and middle-income countries by rejecting an invitation to attend next week’s Paris summit. The United Kingdom prime minister has opted not to join other heads of state and government at French President Emmanuel Macron’s hotly-anticipated gathering — leaving International Development Minister Andrew Mitchell to attend alone. In Paris, Mitchell will press other donors to match the U.K. offer to defer debt repayments by low-income countries hit by a climate shock or natural disaster, called climate-resilient debt clauses. But U.K. development campaigners said only Sunak’s presence would display genuine “commitment” to financing reform at a time when the global south is confronted by an “unprecedented” array of crises. Jamie Drummond, the strategist behind the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt campaign, called his absence “a total travesty,” telling Devex: “A no-show Sunak sadly demotes the U.K. “You can’t shape the future financial system of the world if you don’t turn up and engage in this huge opportunity. Andrew Mitchell is an excellent development leader, but we need PM Sunak as well.” The summit needs to achieve a “gear change” in finance, said Romilly Greenhill, U.K. director of the ONE Campaign, adding: “It is therefore alarming that Rishi Sunak will skip a vital meeting of global leaders to plot a path out of these crises. “With the attendance of world leaders including Chinese Premier Li Qiang, failing to attend implies the UK may go missing in action when most needed and is an increasingly unreliable partner on the world stage.” The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson, Layla Moran, told Devex: “Under Rishi Sunak's watch, the U.K.'s reputation as an international development superpower has been trashed. His absence from this summit speaks volumes and undermines our standing on the world stage.” Sunak faced similar criticism when he tried to duck out of last autumn’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt before he was forced into a late U-turn by pressure from members of Parliament and climate groups. The organizers of the “Summit for A New Global Financing Pact”, on June 22 and 23, say many world leaders will attend, but there is alarm that few will be from high-income Western nations. Of other Group of Seven members, only Germany’s Olaf Scholz has confirmed he will be there, although he will be joined by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and United States President Joe Biden is sending U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. China's Premier Li Qiang will attend — on his first overseas trip — as well as Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the leaders of Indonesia, Barbados, Gabon, Zambia, Senegal, Kenya, Sri Lanka, the Republic of Congo, Mauritania, and Comoros. A Downing Street spokesperson declined to say why Sunak is not going to Paris, but said: “This summit will be an opportunity to discuss key reforms to the financial system with our international partners and the U.K. government will be represented by the development minister.” Mitchell told lawmakers of his priority for the summit in the Commons on Tuesday when he said: “Britain will be driving forward the climate-resilient debt clauses, which our export credit agency, UK Export Finance, was the first to start to put into grants. That will make an enormous difference, and we are pressing for all creditors to offer such clauses in their loans.”