Q & A: Your guide to the Gs

The "Group of Eight leading industrialised Nations" is about to meet again in Birmingham. With the help of G8 expert Professor John Kirton of the University of Toronto, BBC News Online provides a comprehensive G Guide:

What is G8? Any relation to the G7 I've heard about?
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States formed the G6 in 1975. Canada joined in 1977, making it the G7. Since 1994, Russia has been allowed to sit at the table for political discussions.

This year's summit in Birmingham is the first summit where Russia will be a full member. The G7 leaders still plan to meet alone just before the G8 starts to deal with issues that can best be addressed without the Russians present.

But why Birmingham?
Because the G8 started as a low-profile forum for the world's leading industrial democracies to discuss major economic issues, it does not have a constitution, a founding charter or treaty or even a headquarters.

That means that each member state takes a turn to host the meetings. This time it is Britain's turn. For several years the meetings have been held outside national capitals. This year's summit Website characterises Birmingham as "one of Europe's most vibrant, go-ahead cities."

If Russia is in, why not China, Brazil or other large economies?
The G8 is more of a private member's club than other international bodies. You can't get in just because you have a big economy. Members must be a democracy and a reliable major power with a global perspective.

What will they be talking about?
Whatever the members want. Though economics was the main focus of early meetings, recently a wide range of political and transnational global issues have also been added to the agenda.

The top-three subjects for this summit will be the ongoing Asian economic crisis, reducing unemployment and tackling international crime and drugs. Third world poverty, nuclear safety, climate change and pressing security issues could also come up.

Have the G7/G8 actually achieved anything concrete?
During the past decade the G7 led the transformation of Russia into a market oriented democracy, pushed to complete the Uruguay round of multilateral trade liberalisation and create the World Trade Organization. It also made proposals to alleviate the debt of the poorest and has helped broker the major international conventions on climate change, biodiversity and high seas overfishing.

Don't we already have international groups to cover all these issues?
Of course there's a veritable alphabet soup of different organizations. the UN, NATO, the EU, the OECD, the World Bank, the IMF, the Trilateral Commission, not to mention the G15 and G22, all share responsibility for running the world in one way or another.

What's that about the G15 and G22?
The G22 is a new summit of finance ministers of the G7 plus 15 other Asian, African, Eastern European and Latin American nations. It met for the first time in April.

The G15 is the Group of 15 developing countries that was set up in 1990 to build stronger links between developing countries and to address imbalances in international trade. (Actually, there are now 16 members; Kenya joined at the end of 1997.)

So what makes the G8 so special?
The key difference between the G8 and other international bodies is that it is relatively small and informal. Together the G8 countries make up more than half of the world's economy, but the group is still small enough to make quick decisions.

It can also act quickly to deal with new issues, such as transnational crime or nuclear safety, that overwhelm the limited capacities of established international organizations.