Every July, eight countries come together to talk about the world’s problems: Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the USA. This Group of Eight (G8) has been meeting together for about a decade, but a smaller version of the club goes back to the 1970s.

The G8 isn’t very representative. Given the importance of the issues they will discuss to all of humanity, it is shocking that developing countries aren’t part of the group.  The G8 is slowly starting to become more inclusive. China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa are now regularly invited to bits of the G8 summits, and a few other countries will also get to attend one or two discussions. But even so, the world’s poorest have no voice at a meeting that can have a huge impact on their lives.