Can Turkey steer the G-20 supertanker to safer waters?

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So it's time to talk Turkey. Two months into its Presidency of the G-20 and the roadshow has its first big pow-wow of 2015 with finance ministers and central bank governors in Istanbul. After the mighty big promises of Brisbane -- where Prime Minister Tony Abbott bragged that the global superpowers had reached agreement on hundreds of measures to save the world economy -- it's Turkey's turn to keep the momentum going.

But has Turkey been handed a baton or a poisoned chalice? Ostensibly Turkey will have inherited a firm set of commitments from the leaders of countries representing 85 percent of world economic output that can now be implemented. Yet, is that set of solid commitments more akin to a snapchat photo that is fast disappearing from reality?

I get the impression that the Turkish Government is fully aware of the hand it's been dealt and as such has gone big on implementation of previous promises from Brisbane and before. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's message speaks of the need for 2015 to be a year of "deeds" rather than making even bigger promises of the sort we heard in Brisbane.

So what are the chances of delivery on the $2 trillion worth of promises outlined by Abbott? On the commitments to: create millions of jobs, add 2 percent to global GDP, eradicate poverty and finally reduce inequality?

Sounds a tall order when you take a step back, but it's even more of a stretch on the imagination when you look at the details for achieving this. There is no massive coordinated plan, no central body pulling the strings, and incidentally no punishment for the countries who fail to pull their weight.

The whole implementation requires countries to keep an eye on each and then report to the G-20, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development and anyone else who'll listen if they spot something amiss. The IMF principal, I mean Managing Director, Christine Lagarde will do her own monitoring too. However, every country is allowed to choose its own route to get to the desired goal -- which many observers see as a short-hand for "carry on as you were regardless of the promises".

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Even back in November Lagarde noted how tough it would be to quantify the action from individual countries when she talked of the high degree of uncertainty in quantifying tangible achievements.

Fast forward to Istanbul this week and the IMF is already worried before we get going. The managing director pointed out in her blog last week that it was time for the G-20 to keep its promises. A mighty order given that she is now also worried that divergence over monetary policy, risks associated with a strong dollar and European and Japanese twilight zones of low growth could keep, in her words, " the global economic supertanker... stuck in the shallow waters."

All in all, a tall order for Turkey to keep the momentum going for the G20 -- especially when you add in those other long-term worries over Greece and Russia-Ukraine. As if that were not enough, the G20 has also set itself the task of putting some firm member commitments on climate change on the table ahead of the big COP21 meeting in Paris for December.

No-one could ever accuse the G-20 of low aspirations, it's just the action plan that could needs work on.