23 September 2020 – A diverse group of organizations and experts from around the world have come together to establish Values 20 (V20) as a new unofficial engagement group to support G20 with insight, helping to develop policiesbased on values• V20 brings together interested organizations, experts, practitioners and individuals• Ongoing network for knowledge sharing and global crowdsourcing campaign to discover
relevant values policies and best practice
Riyadh, 23 September 2020 – A diverse group of organizations and experts from around theworld have come together to establish Values 20 (V20) as an unofficial engagement groupamong the G20 ecosystem, with a mission to demonstrate to the G20 and the wider world the‘value of values’.Having identified a lack of insight on how values can impact our lives and inform regional,national, and global policy-making, the V20 members aim to advocate to the G20 and widerworld the positive impact possible in finding people-centered public policy solutions based onvalues which help to improve societal outcomes and contribute to overcoming global challenges.The V20 aims to leverage the huge potential of its community of specialists and practitionersthrough a network hub that will enable continuous knowledge sharing and become an innovationlab for impactful policy designs.The V20 has formed three task forces:
• Global values addresses how values can contribute to achieving societal and economic
objectives;
• Leadership Values is assessing how values can improve organizational outcomes;
• Quality of Life Values is focusing on how to enhance people’s wellbeing.They will work collectively to consult their networks, carry out research, develop policy briefs and
present their findings at an annual V20 Summit.
In 2020 and subsequent years, a global crowdsourcing campaign will be launched to encouragepeople around the world to share ‘what works’ to promote values in their individual lives,communities, countries and beyond. The insights harvested about practical values in action willbe made available to the public on a knowledge-sharing platform.Dimah Al-Sheikh, Chair of Values 20 and Executive Manager of Misk Values, said: “In keepingwith the G20’s ethos of international cooperation, which celebrates and bridges differencestowards achieving shared human goals, we’re glad to be helping launch Values 20 as anunofficial engagement group during the year when Saudi Arabia is chairing the G20. The V20 willmirror the collaborative, bottom-up approach of the other G20 engagement groups to facilitatedebate, and communicate findings to the leaders.”She continued: “The V20 members believe in the pivotal role of values in shaping people’sbehaviour, improving societal outcomes and even helping to overcome global challenges. Bybringing together thinkers and doers, the V20 demonstrates the value of values to decisionmakers, in government, business and beyond, but equally importantly to people. The V20 willshow that values-based policies can improve people’s lives around the world.”Richard Barrett, Managing Director of the Barrett Academy for the Advancement of HumanValues and Founder of the Barrett Values Centre said: “We at the Barrett Values Centre aredelighted to be involved in Values 20, because what we are doing fills the vacuum of knowledgeabout how to ensure that values properly inform public policy decisions. That’s why the V20 has
developed dynamic mechanisms to engage as many experts and organizations as possible,
through three task forces and a network hub. The Values 20 crowdsourcing campaign will alsoharvest best practice about what works on the ground in values-centered policy and activity ofany kind. V20 will help discover, demonstrate and help deliver practical values in action.”The network hub, the continuous crowdsourcing of best practice and the work of the task forceswill contribute towards a V20 Communiqué to be passed to the G20 leaders.In time, V20 hopes to be adopted by the G20 as an official engagement group. The G20encourages bottom-up policy-making through its eight existing independent engagement groups.Each is led by organizations from the host country, which engage with a wide range ofstakeholders from all the G20 countries and beyond, carrying out research, discussion andoutreach in order to develop policy recommendations to be considered by the G20 leaders fortheir annual Leaders’ Summit.The organizational capacities of V20 are being built up throughout 2020 to facilitate continuityinto the future. Hosted by an organizing body each year, ongoing facilities and institutionalknowledge will be carried over to support and manage communications and encourage further
growth.
ENDS
Notes to editors:• For media enquiries, please contact media_v20@misk.org.sa.• For more information about Values 20 (V20), please visit https://values20.com.• The official engagement groups of the G20 are groups – Business (B20), Civil Society (C20),Labour (L20), Science (S20), Think Tanks (T20), Urban (U20), Women (W20) and Youth
(Y20).