Articles

Rio for the World: City, culture and global economy at the G20's Rio de Janeiro

Marcos de Paula/ Beth Santos

23

February 2024

by

Pedro Vormittag

Rio for the World

City, culture, and global economy in Rio de Janeiro of the G20

I. Introduction

Between December 1, 2023, and November 30, 2024, Brazil will preside over the G20, a forum that brings together the world's major economies to discuss the most urgent solutions for the international economic order. The city of Rio de Janeiro has been chosen as the venue for most of the key meetings of the bloc during the Brazilian presidency. Between Sherpa Summits and Heads of State, meetings of engagement groups such as the T20, Y20, and W20, and countless parallel events, Rio de Janeiro will be at the center of international attention in 2024.

Rio de Janeiro symbolizes Brazil to the world, and this won't be the first time the city has played such a role. With the potential to attract tens of thousands of people to the cities hosting its meetings, in a way, the G20 resembles major events like the Olympic Games, World Expos, and the FIFA World Cup: a beacon that captures the world's attention. In the case of the G20, it is the largest international summit event in Brazil's history—even surpassing the historic Rio 92.

Mobilizations of this magnitude often transform the landscape of the geographical spaces they pass through, and their externalities can be positive or negative, lasting or ephemeral.

Just as they have changed the world and Brazil, the Rio de Janeiro hosting the G20 in 2024 is different from the city that hosted the Olympics in 2016 or the Earth Summit in 1992. Moreover, the G20 is far from being a mass event: its audience is specialized, forming international public opinion, mobilizing investments in various areas, and influencing political decisions—locally, regionally, and globally.

Among the resources drawn to the local economy through tourism, the attention of the national and international media to the city as the stage for political news, harnessing the positive externalities left by events of this magnitude is not an automatic phenomenon: rather, it requires political agency and coordination of efforts.

1. What is the image of Rio de Janeiro that the events of the G20 should contribute to constructing?

2. How can the G20 contribute to the development agenda and the international positioning of a city like Rio de Janeiro?

The answers to these questions are the result of strategic deliberation, conducted by a plurality of actors from the State and Brazilian civil society, as well as the Rio society itself.

It is this discussion that this document is dedicated to.

II. A step back: from the international conjuncture to the local

In 2021, historian Adam Tooze brought the concept of "policrisis" to the analysis of current events to account for the multiplicity of challenges facing humanity in our time. For the Columbia historian, we are living in an era of intertwined crises that mutually reinforce each other. Global crises of a new type, such as the ethical dimension of the digital revolution and the climate emergency, are mixed with traditional problems afflicting the world, such as wars and pandemics. In addition to the individual complexity of each of these challenges, in our time, crises are interconnected and cross borders between practically any jurisdictions.

In 2024, Rio de Janeiro and the G20 are not immune to contemporary policrisis.

1. The traumas of Rio de Janeiro

It is not an exaggeration to think that Rio de Janeiro has experienced some of the worst moments in its history in recent years. Afflicted by an impressive volume of negative news coverage, Rio has become a victim of a discourse that perceives it as a space lost to organized crime, violence, corruption, and underdevelopment.

The threads that wove the fabric are many. From the decline in the population's sense of security, especially due to the strengthening of organized crime, to the entanglement of numerous state leaders in corruption scandals—totaling six governors imprisoned—to the collateral effect of the economic crisis conditioned by Operation Car Wash on the oil and gas industry based in Rio, a policrisis hampers the future potential of Rio de Janeiro (the city and the state, often indistinguishable in the eyes of the non-specialized public).

The difficulties faced by Rio de Janeiro, however, precede its recent past. In the 1960s, the transfer of the federal capital to Brasília challenged Rio to reinvent itself. Already in 1975, in continuation of the same process of careless political reorganization of the national territory, the merger between the State of Guanabara (former Federal District of Rio de Janeiro) and the State of Rio de Janeiro imposed difficulties in synchronizing the strategic horizon of the City and State of Rio de Janeiro that persist to this day.

By the end of the 20th century, organized crime in Brazil matured in the prisons of its large cities, with Rio de Janeiro bearing the brunt of an urban violence crisis that has only grown in recent decades. In the 2000s, the City and State of Rio de Janeiro added to the fear of criminal organizations born in prisons the fear of militias—criminal organizations born of the promiscuity between police and politics.

Despite the hardships, as Gonzaguinha sang, knowing the suffocation of such a tough game, Rio de Janeiro moved forward and endured the ordeal.

Rio de Janeiro arrives in 2024 as a city that, despite unfavorable circumstances, has survived and is ready to take the next step in its reinvention for the future.

In this context, thinking about Rio de Janeiro's international insertion in general, and the carioca reception of the G20, in particular, is an opportunity to dispute the image of Rio de Janeiro built in recent years and to suggest to the world, Brazil—and to the cariocas themselves—new vectors of identity for Rio.

2. The traumas of Brazil

The spiral of crisis experienced by Rio de Janeiro in recent years is a metonymy for a national crisis. With a stagnant economy for approximately a decade and a political system in disruption since at least 2013, there is no shortage of observers of the national scene to consider the last 10 years a true lost decade for Brazil.

The storm had formed long before, however. Since the mid-1980s, globalization, democratization, economic stabilization, and new income classes would foster a new Brazilian sociability—increasingly contemporary, open, and connected in networks. The change, therefore challenging an old order, was neglected. As the Citizen Constitution approaches a quarter-century, the political-party elites that controlled the Brazilian state insisted on recognizing a society irretrievably "parental, clan-based, and authoritarian"—in the happy description of the instrumental authoritarianism of Oliveira Viana by Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos.

In 2013, the bubble burst. Millions of people took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Brasília to demand a better balance in the relationship between the state and society in Brazil. More than for 20 cents, the spirit of 2013 sharpened the electoral dispute of 2014—barely lost by the losers, and barely won by the winners. The following year, an economic crisis that had been brewing for years made its way to the markets, homes, and once again, the streets. Impeachment and Operation Car Wash convulsed an already putrid political system.

The exceptional nature of the Brazilian political conjuncture created a context in 2018 for a federal intervention

in public security in the State of Rio de Janeiro. In the same year, the murder of Councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes laid bare, for Brazil and the world, from Rio de Janeiro, a national policrisis.

At the end of the 2010s, four years of Jair Bolsonaro's government further damaged the fledgling state capacities of the Brazilian state. Thousands of kilometers from Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Amazon fell victim to a tightening of state capacity to prevent and combat socio-environmental organized crime—illegal mining, illegal deforestation, land grabbing, and general land theft. Between Rio and the Amazon, the new capital, Brasília, saw the constitutional scheme of checks and balances damaged by the scandal of the "Secret Budget."

In terms of foreign policy, Brazil's image in the world was vandalized. Threats to the country's democratic stability, climatic and environmental sadism as government policy, and a crusade against so-called "globalism" nearly consigned the country to a definitive position as a pariah among nations.

3. The traumas of the world

After about 30 years of relative geopolitical stability under the aegis of American unipolarity, the international order is in turmoil.

At the dawn of the 2000s, under the pretext of addressing the criminal terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, an American invasion of Iraq in defiance of the UN Security Council dealt a severe blow to the health of an international rules-based system. Despite a triumphant Washington Consensus, national interests seem incapable of coordinating a global free trade agenda. In 2008, the American financial market collapsed, taking the entire global economy with it. In the midst of a forming policrisis, Europe questions its own unity project. New and strong, the Euro weakens and ages. Old and strong, nationalism reappears as a response to hopelessness.

Before illiberal democracy thrived in Europe, the Arab World attempted a path to liberal democracy. In Syria and Venezuela, Sudan and Haiti, Myanmar and Palestine, human rights continued to be the first victims of war.

Against the Democratic and Republican parties, Donald Trump arrived at the White House to catalyze a world in turmoil in the same year that the United Kingdom divorced from the European Union. Multilateralism and international law faced their greatest challenge since the end of World War II—now at the hands of their own architects. The old inequality afflicting peoples, in the form of racism, religious intolerance, gender violence, and homophobia, persists as powerful enemies of human dignity enshrined in the UN Charter.

On the other side of the world, the "rise of the rest" positioned Asia—with China as the protagonist—as the new center of gravity of the global economy. Between 1980 and 2010, while the per capita income of the poorest half of the Chinese population only increased, the per capita income of the poorest half of the American population only decreased. Except for different national circumstances, similar processes of economic growth transformed India, Nigeria, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, South Africa, Chile, Colombia, Mexico—and yes, Brazil—into new geopolitical and economic actors with which the international order should—but does not know—how to deal.

As conclusive proof of the dysfunctionality of the contemporary international order, a COVID-19 pandemic claimed the lives of at least 3 million people worldwide, without facing any coordination of efforts between nations for vaccines or medical supplies in general.

In 2022, from Moscow, an imperial aggression against a sovereign nation, Ukraine, is configured as one of the bloodiest violations of international law in recent history. The indignation in the face of such injustice, in turn, agitates spirits and engenders propaganda that pits democracies and autocracies—dangerously calculating war and peace between nations in light of their respective domestic regimes.

While humanity fights, the planet suffers. Increasingly frequent extreme weather events denounce that the climate crisis is no longer a future fear but a threat of everyday life. The sustainable development agenda embodied by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations struggles to be financed, especially in poor and emerging countries—where its addressing is even more urgent.

4. Time for Reinvention

In light of recent history, the G20 emerges as an opportunity to recover precious lost time. It is in this context that Rio de Janeiro calls for reinvention.

On one hand, traditional vocations of the city—such as tourism and leisure—call for reaffirmation, while the need and opportunity are present for the articulation of new ideas about what sets Rio de Janeiro apart among its peers in Brazil and the world.

Knowledge, art, culture, intelligence, science, and technology can serve as metonymies to encapsulate a new Rio de Janeiro as a crucial decision-making center for economic and political decisions concerning a sustainable, secure, and developed tomorrow.

The opportunity is there, but not yet seized. It is not impossible for the city to miss the chance to show that it is heading in the right direction despite persistent structural problems. In truth, the safest path would likely involve mere reception of the events agenda, mere collection of foreign exchange, and movement of the local hotel industry. This arrangement, "more of the same," would squander the opportunity—unique from a historical standpoint—to capitalize on the vocations that Rio de Janeiro has proven, in other times, to be worthy of boasting about, such as the natural capital of Brazil, as the global center for the debate on sustainable development, as a geographical place of joy and symbiosis between nature and a modern human civilization in the same geographic space.

III. Rio de Janeiro and Creativity

What can culture do in the face of crisis?

Writing still in the early years of the 2000s, urbanist Richard Florida observed that the internet revolution, already notable at that time, was diluting the physical limitations of life in society—in cities, regions, and countries.

About 20 years later, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the trend observed by Florida. In the year 2020, we witnessed, simultaneously, the devaluation of large commercial slabs where millions of workers commuted daily in urban centers like Manhattan, São Paulo, Shanghai, and the City of London, and the valorization of real estate and urban spaces attentive to comfort and quality of life—in suburbs, rural regions, but also in major cities. Digital nomadism emerged as a phenomenon of our time and seems to be here to stay, with the adoption by countries such as Portugal, Bahamas, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, and Colombia of a specific visa modality aimed at professionals seeking to work—remotely—from their countries.

The pandemic showed that it is not necessary to keep one's feet on the ground where one earns a living. But if the work address no longer serves as before to understand our identity with the place where we live, how do people choose their cities?

If physical criteria were relegated to the background, the criterion of the creative potential of a geographical space assumed prominence in the decision-making of individuals and institutions when choosing where to settle. In truth, this is not a historical novelty: in the early 19th and 20th centuries, cities emerged as industrial centers where the jobs of that era of capitalism were concentrated. It was only much later, already in the 1970s, that in countries like Brazil and the United States, large industrial plants moved to suburbs (such as São Paulo's ABC region or the metropolitan area of New York), making way on Avenida Paulista or in Soho for art galleries, restaurants, museums, and theaters.

With the transformation of capitalism, the vocation of an urban area also changes. In the 2020s, the digital revolution gives cities like Rio de Janeiro, more than a traditionally industrial vocation, an opportunity for centrality for the creative class.

IV. Agenda for an Independent Expert Group

It is common, within the scope of multilateral summit meetings like the G20, to create Independent Expert Groups. These groups of independent experts, or IEGs, can be appointed or temporarily created to provide advice or conduct specific analyses on issues of interest to the G20. These groups may consist of renowned experts in areas such as economics, finance, food security, health, climate change, among others. The formation of such groups is a common practice in international organizations and forums to ensure the obtaining of impartial and specialized opinions on certain topics.

The Indian presidency of the G20 in 2023 established the creation of an Independent Expert Group to formulate recommendations on strengthening multilateral development banks (MDBs). In the Indian IEG experience, economists Larry Summers and NK Singh led the convening of a group—among which was Brazilian economist Armínio Fraga—that helped signal a forefront in the debate to be waged on the topic throughout the year in India.

Without prejudice to other strategic issues that may be privileged with the establishment of their own IEGs by government or civil society authorities, our proposal is to create an Independent Expert Group on Culture for the G20 in Rio de Janeiro, with the aim of formulating recommendations to government authorities (municipal, state, and federal), the business sector, and the Brazilian third sector aiming at strengthening Rio de Janeiro as an attractive city for the global creative class.

Our proposal is to create an Independent Expert Group on Culture for the G20 in Rio de Janeiro, with the aim of formulating recommendations to government authorities (municipal, state, and federal), the business sector, and the Brazilian third sector aiming at strengthening Rio de Janeiro as an attractive city for the global creative class.

Although the inevitable first task is to design its own agenda of topics, we take the liberty here to suggest two initial agendas, essentially pertinent to the creative potential of Rio de Janeiro, for the Culture IEG:

Agenda 1: The Cultural Trade Balance

Despite its opportunity to generate debates on various topics, the G20 is, ultimately, an international forum on economics.

What—and how much—does Brazilian culture export? What cultural products does Brazil import for its consumption? Anecdotally, we know the strength with which samba is associated with Brazil abroad, the strength of Brazilian football among European fans. At the same time, the gastronomic menus of cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are populated by typical foods from Mexico, Japan, China, and Italy.

It is not difficult to find an abundance of data and microdata on the size and shape of certain trade exchanges between the world's largest economies. A group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, developed the Observatory of Economic Complexity, an ambitious monitor of trade exchanges between virtually all countries in the world.

Primarily focused on the commodities market, however, an initiative similar to applied research still needs to be created for cultural products.

In an agenda of applied research, the Brazilian presidency of the G20 in Rio de Janeiro provides an opportunity for a look at the size and shape of trade exchanges between G20 members in the field of cultural industries. Armed with this knowledge, decision-makers at various levels of the Brazilian state would be equipped with arguments and evidence to prioritize certain creative vocations of their regions.

Agenda 2: The G20 as a Touristic-Cultural Experience

The Indian experience of the G20 gave centrality to cultural programming of official and parallel events as a tool of a narrative about the history and future of the country, carefully articulated by New Delhi's official strategic thinking. In the best Asian style, there were rare moments when delegates, journalists, and authorities were left to their own devices—or their own curiosity, critical or investigative spirit—to explore the country on their own hands and eyes.

While, on one hand, the prioritization of an artistic and cultural itinerary as part of the very essence of the G20's diplomatic objective can inspire a similar attitude among us, Brazilians, on the other hand, it seems difficult to envision a similar level of centralization of the cultural agenda as designed in India.

The question arises: how to balance a schedule that points to the Rio we want, without resorting to an excessive centralization of the G20's artistic and cultural agenda?

The city's routing has practical relevance. Rio de Janeiro, probably more than any other city in the world, has an asset of incalculable beauty in its nature. Even though exuberant, nature itself does not inspire or justify the Brazilian and Carioca aspiration for a place in the hearts and minds of the world. Among the hills and forests, a fascinating history of the relationship between culture and nature throughout history needs to be told.

At the same time, the exuberance of Brazilian art crystallized in the geography of Rio de Janeiro deserves to be highlighted—even by coinciding with strategic addresses for the G20 itself. After all, it was at MAM, now considered as the venue for the G20 Summit of Heads of State, that Helio Oiticica first presented his "Tropicália," still housing an important collection of Tarsila, Portinari, Di Cavalcanti, and Andy Warhol. Its own architectural project, signed by Affonso Eduardo Reidy, and the surroundings of the building with the signature of landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx are magnets for talented eyes from all over the world who come to Rio de Janeiro.

The port region, recently a place of the most serious crime and neglect in the city, is now revitalized and in a frank process of urban development and economic valorization. How to tell this story? To what profile of the G20 audience—journalists, investors—will this look at a recent past that explains the future dreamed by the people of Rio de Janeiro be of interest?