> Global recession is likely to damage our health as well as our wealth, but it also offers an opportunity to build a more equitable economic model as [[Michael Marmot]] and [[Ruth Bell]] explain in light of the G20 summit The [[social determinants of health]] are the circumstances of daily life—the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age—and the structural drivers of those conditions (unfair distribution of power, money, and resources). Both the conditions of daily life and the structural drivers will be influenced by the financial crisis ## Effects of economic decline Take trade, for example. The intellectual troops are lined up on both sides of this issue. The way global trade arrangements have been organised has adversely affected poor and vulnerable people.[15](https://www-bmj-com.ez.lshtm.ac.uk/content/338/bmj.b1314#ref-15) But the global decline in trade has also had disastrous effects on those dependent on trade.[7](https://www-bmj-com.ez.lshtm.ac.uk/content/338/bmj.b1314#ref-7) [[The solution to the problems of unfairness caused by trading arrangements is not protectionism]], with each country going its own way. It is a set of trading arrangements that take all countries’ interests into account—that have [[health equity impact assessments]]. As a starting point [[G20]] looks a better bet than G8 as a global forum, but that still leaves more than 170 countries not represented. The financial crisis gives us the opportunity to bring social justice and environmental concerns to bear on the kind of new global economic order that must be put in place. [[G20 leaders communique in 2009 marked a turning point where the global plan for recovery does not rest its value in deregulation, liberalisation, and privatisation but to fairness, esp in power, money, and resources]] In its communique, released after the London 2 April meeting, the G20 said that “major failures in the financial sector and in financial regulation and supervision were fundamental causes of the crisis”. This is a direct repudiation of the Washington Consensus foisted on the world in the 1980s and 90s by the rich countries and the International Monetary Fund—deregulation, and liberalisation, as well as privatisation, were at the heart of economic and financial policy. This recanting is welcome. Importantly, the G20 leaders say that they start from the belief that the global plan for recovery must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hard working families in emerging markets and the poorest countries. If true, this is a radical break with the past, and would be a step towards the new economic order that is necessary to achieve the fair distribution of power, money, and resources.