Unpacking G20 — SA experts explore summit’s key topics in Daily Maverick series

On 1 December 2024, South Africa assumed the presidency of the G20, a global forum of the largest economies in the world that first came together in November 2008 to address the global financial crisis that emerged in the US. This is the first G20 presidency to be held on African soil and the first time that Africa will be represented in the G20 by the African Union, just as the European countries are represented by the European Union.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has committed South Africa’s G20 presidency to strive to build consensus on the many challenging global issues the G20 is addressing, including climate change, African debt, food security, digital governance and growing inequality, based on the principles of multilateralism, equity, social justice, respect for diversity and development. 

South Africa’s G20 presidency has thus adopted the motto, “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainable Development”. 

The impact of the new Trump administration since his inauguration at the end of January 2025 has caused a major disruption in the system of multilateral global governance and cooperation that the US took the lead in shaping since the end of World War 2 in 1945. 

In this series of articles by experts at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town we will provide an overview of the key themes and issues that will be discussed in more than 140 major official meetings of the G20 to be held this year in South Africa until the summit, scheduled for November 2025. 

In the first OP-ED on Tuesday, Professor Faizel Ismail set out the main issues that South Africa has proposed for its G20 presidency and argues that the interests and concerns of the African continent should be prioritised. 

In the second, Professor Carlos Lopes will on Wednesday set out the progress made in the 1990s and early 2000s at the United Nations in building consensus and cooperation on a range of social, environmental, development and human rights issues, and traces the erosion of the consensus principle and approach to global governance in the past decade. 

Former South African trade minister Dr Rob Davies argues on Thursday in the third OP-ED that the current protectionist approach to trade and climate change being adopted by the major northern economies must be leveraged by African countries to carve out their policy space to adopt ambitious “green industrialisation” programmes that add value to their raw materials and “critical minerals”. 

Finally on Friday, Dr Noncedo Vutula makes the case for the G20 to support the African Union’s Kampala Declaration that has highlighted the interconnectedness of agriculture, nutrition, economic development and sustainable development and the need to support Africa’s smallholder farmers. DM