SA’s G20 agenda draws broad support — but it could be undone by Trump’s opposition

Has South Africa boosted Africa’s prospects by pursuing a worthy development-oriented agenda for its G20 presidency this year? Or has it bitten off more than it can chew with over-ambitious targets that were always doomed to be scuppered by the US and other like-minded nations?

This key question remains after about 120 of 133 scheduled G20 meetings have been completed, and the summit in Johannesburg on 22-23 November looms large.

G20 members contacted by Daily Maverick were divided on this question.

“I think it’s been a really difficult year and they’ve done a good job,” said one diplomat. However, another said SA’s agenda was “probably too ambitious and it was ambitious for another time”.

South African officials insist their agenda remains on track. SA’s G20 “sous-sherpa” (deputy head) Xolisa Mabhongo recently gave journalists a positive progress report on SA’s key priorities, including:

• Measures for disaster risk reduction “in a context where the world is facing big challenges and climate change is becoming existential for many countries, especially of the Global South”.
• Debt sustainability — how to relieve the huge and rising debt burden of many African countries, including by lowering the cost of capital, which is disproportionately high for developing countries.
• Putting global wealth inequality on the G20’s long-term agenda, with a report to the summit by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and his panel.
• Mobilising finances for a just energy transition.
• Harnessing critical minerals in a way that ensures beneficiation at source.

Strong support

Except for the United States — which has publicly dismissed SA’s G20 themes of solidarity, equality and sustainability as an echo of the DEI  (diversity, equality and inclusivity) agenda in the US which the Trump administer despises — and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia, opposing renewable energy; and right-wing Argentina, opposing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals; G20 members have been generally supportive of SA’s agenda.

Turkey’s ambassador to South Africa, Nilvana Darama Yıldırımgeç, said: “The G20 Summit will be held in Africa for the first time. This is an opportunity to take the African agenda forward.

“It is crucial to take developing countries’ needs into consideration. The global economy must work for all. The G20 is a major platform to collaborate, innovate and build a better future for all.

“Strong, sustainable and balanced growth will continue to be Turkey’s priority.”

Germany’s ambassador to SA, Andreas Peschke, said: “For Germany, the first G20 Summit in Africa is a historic moment. We strongly support the South African presidency to make it a success. We would like to see clear messages by world leaders for climate action, fair trade and the development agenda.

“It should also be an opportunity to give a fresh impetus to the Compact with Africa, the G20 initiative to boost private investment on the continent.”

The British high commissioner to SA, Antony Phillipson, said: “This has been a historic year for the G20, and in November, G20 leaders will meet on African soil for the first time. The UK has strongly supported South Africa’s focus on economic growth and stability as the core drivers of development and security, as well as joint action to address global health, trade, and climate challenges.

“We have worked closely with the presidency and other partners to support discussions on debt and financial system reforms, and how to exploit the power of AI and the digital economy to enhance inclusion and prosperity for all.”

Read more: G20 Johannesburg Summit set to address crucial global challenges

‘Europe is behind you’

When she met President Cyril Ramaphosa at the UN in September, European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “Europe is fully behind you to make your G20 presidency a success.”

At the SA-EU Summit in Cape Town in March, she said: “Of course, we are working closely with you on your presidency of the G20. I look forward to returning to Johannesburg in November for the leaders’ summit.

“In a moment of increased global confrontation and competition, we must strengthen our partnership further. We must work closely together to ensure the future is built on our shared belief in cooperation and human dignity.”

A French diplomat said: “France supports the priorities of the South African presidency of the G20 aimed at strengthening solidarity and equality among its members and fostering sustainable growth.

“The efforts undertaken by the South African presidency since December 2024 have fed the dialogue between the world’s top 20 economies to better face current challenges: attacks against international law and the return of conflicts, climate change, energy transition, and technological changes, starting with artificial intelligence.

“France thanks South Africa, the first African country to hold the presidency of the G20, at the end of the first full cycle of presidencies, for having put forward courageous priorities that are fit for today’s world and reasserted the importance of multilateralism.”

Norway is not a member of the G20, but SA invited it to participate fully in this year’s G20, attending all of the meetings.

Its sherpa, Henrik Harboe, said: “The fact that the AU [African Union] became a G20 member in 2023, plus South Africa’s hosting of the G20, illustrates that this continent is claiming more of its rightful place in global affairs. This is in itself an important outcome.

“I would also highlight the launch of the G20 Africa Engagement Framework as a key deliverable from the South African presidency. This initiative will ensure that the G20 continues to engage with the challenges on the continent over time.

“Furthermore, we live in shifting geopolitical times. Norway and South Africa, as well as the huge majority of other countries in the G20, share the view that the world needs multilateral cooperation more than ever.

“We expect this broad support for multilateralism from so many countries will manifest itself in strong support for South Africa’s priorities as chair of the G20.”

Strong progress in a tough year

Some G20 member states have privately expressed reservations, mostly voicing concerns that the Trump administration’s hostility to SA and its G20 agenda could either compel SA to dilute its agenda or bypass the US.

“Actually, I’m quite positive about it,” one ambassador told Daily Maverick.

“This has been quite a decent G20. There’s been quite a lot of criticism about a lack of ambition. But I challenge anyone to name any G20 in recent years that has delivered something groundbreaking.”

On top of the usual challenges, SA has had to manage the US disengagement from the G20, but soldiered on. Not all of the working groups or ministerial tracks have reached agreed conclusions.

The ambassador said South Africa had faced criticism after taking on the G20 presidency in a difficult year, “including with the uncertainty about what happens next year”, when the US takes over the presidency, “which, again, I don’t think we can lay at South Africa's door.

“So I give them pretty high marks. I think it’s been a really difficult year, and they’ve done a good job.”

He added that the Stiglitz report on inequality, former finance minister Trevor Manuel’s report on how to reduce the debt burden of developing countries, and the task forces that South Africans had added on AI and inclusive growth, were “the topics the G20 ought to be discussing”.

However, a diplomat from another G20 country thought SA’s agenda had been too ambitious. The four priorities which Ramaphosa had tabled at the beginning of the year — climate change and better climate funding; disaster risk reduction; funding on critical minerals and green industrialisation in Africa; and debt relief — were all important, said the diplomat.

“And we would certainly share them as objectives, but they were never going to be something that we were able to get agreement on this year. So it was an ambitious agenda and an agenda for a different time.”

Opposition to SA’s agenda

That’s because some G20 members strongly object to SA’s agenda. The main detractor has been the US, which has participated only intermittently in the G20 meetings, mainly in the finance track, and very little, if at all, in the sherpa track, which deals with all the non-finance issues, many of them to do with issues like development and climate.

Argentina, under its ultra-right president, Javier Milei, has also consistently opposed some of SA’s agenda, particularly its efforts to accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are supposed to be met by 2030 but are way off track.

Saudi Arabia has opposed SA’s G20 agenda on renewables, no doubt in an effort to protect its massive oil industry.

How to accommodate the US has been a huge dilemma for SA and will possibly be even more of a dilemma at the summit. Trump is expected to be represented by Vice-President JD Vance, but will he try to wreck the summit?

SA’s US dilemma has essentially been whether to accommodate the US, which would mean diluting its developmental agenda, or just ignore it and forge ahead with what would essentially be a “G19 versus one” agenda.

One diplomat gave an example of the US approach — showing up to a meeting about the “energy transition” and then objecting to the word “transition”.

He noted that in some ways it was easier when the US was absent.

“Although we then get a bit wary about any sense that the G20 is agreeing things by consensus when there isn’t a key player there. We don’t want to find ourselves down the track and they’re agreeing [on] things without [the US].”

Read more: SA pushes debt sustainability, green financing and disaster response before G20 summit

A diplomat from another G20 member was adamant that it was “important that America is at the table”. He noted that there had been declarations from some of the ministerial meetings where the Americans were not present, and some G20 members were happy about that.

“But for the G20 to be effective as an institution, its work needs to flow across years, and having the Americans at the table agreeing to things, I think, is really important. As the incoming host, it’s important that the Americans have buy-in to an agenda.”

He thought it unsatisfactory that South Africa had, in some of the working groups, allowed individual countries to associate themselves with a statement, while others just recorded that they disagreed.

He thought that SA should rather concentrate more “on the things that we can agree on … put to one side the things that we might disagree on.

“We don’t want the Americans to drop things next year,” he warned.

His country and South Africa were very closely aligned on climate, on the sustainability agenda, the UN SDGs, and on inequality, “but to get consensus, we need to focus on the things that we can agree on”.

He noted that in any case that the agenda had become too broad. The Rio declaration from Brazil’s presidency last year was 37 pages, compared to three or four pages for previous G20s.

“Getting consensus and having a constructive conversation when you’re trying to be so broad is really, really hard. There’s an argument for rationalisation of the G20’s agenda,” he said, noting that several G20 members had queried whether it was necessary for the G20 to discuss culture and tourism.

Some G20 members expect that when the US takes over the presidency for next year, it will drastically prune the agenda, reverting to the G20’s original, core agenda of maintaining the stability of the global economy. DM