South Africa’s G20 presidency has drawn to a close. Johannesburg will soon settle back into its normal rhythm. Many of the visitors are home, while others have stayed on to enjoy what else our country has to offer.
What will linger long is the story of a presidency that placed Africa’s voice and agency at the centre of the G20, along with the Declarations of the Summit.
We understood our presidency as an opportunity to amplify the AU’s Agenda 2063, particularly the aspiration to build a thriving, peaceful and integrated Africa that stands as an influential global player and partner.
We placed unsustainable debt at the heart of the agenda. More than half the continent, 750-million Africans, live in countries where debt service claims the lion’s share of public spending, squeezing out investment in teachers, nurses, medicines and textbooks.
This is what the Africa Expert Panel means when it describes not only a debt crisis but a development crisis that puts African governments at loggerheads with their citizens.
The Leaders’ Declaration acknowledged this reality. It reaffirmed the commitment to support measures that ease debt vulnerabilities for low- and middle-income countries in a more effective, comprehensive and systematic manner. It also reiterated the commitment to improve debt transparency from all creditors, public and private.
Another area where African concerns moved to the forefront was the debate on critical minerals. In Johannesburg, the G20 conversation shifted from a narrow focus on securing supply chains to one centred on the long-term developmental interests of resource-rich states such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, the DRC, Mozambique and Gabon. That shift signalled a determination to prevent a new era of plunder, in which African economies are once again reduced to exporters of unprocessed raw materials.
In Johannesburg, the G20 conversation shifted from a narrow focus on securing supply chains to one centred on the long-term developmental interests of resource-rich states such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, the DRC, Mozambique and Gabon. That shift signalled a determination to prevent a new era of plunder, in which African economies are once again reduced to exporters of unprocessed raw materials.
African people, under whose soil about 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves lie, must share fairly in these benefits.
Echoing the warning of UN secretary-general António Guterres, our presidency argued that without beneficiation at source, inclusive and sustainable governance and real transfers of skills and technology, the race for critical minerals could again trample the poor.
Under this presidency, we launched the AI for Africa Initiative, a joint effort by the G20 and the AU to make new technologies work for our continent. For Africa’s young people, this is a chance to help shape the future of AI and to share in its opportunities.
Alongside these wins, our presidency made a bold proposal to establish an international panel on inequality. We also made a political and moral case for a global climate finance architecture that centres on the most vulnerable countries.
Some of the big wins owe much to the fact that our agenda had popular purchase. A chorus of civil society voices sounded the alarm about development models that reproduce neocolonial dependency.
Feminists reminded us that the debt crisis is not gender neutral. When indebted states retreat from public provision, it is women who are expected to plug the gaps. Faith leaders I met along this year-long journey likened the debt crisis to a prison where African children are incarcerated before they draw their first breath. The image is jarring considering that by 2030, four in 10 of the world’s young people will be African. SA’s G20 presidency agenda reflected the wider public imagination of a world and a continent desperate for transformation.
South Africans are asking: what does this story mean for us at home? And they are right to pose this question.
Our foreign policy is an extension of our domestic commitment to resolve the challenges of inequality, poverty and unemployment.
Our presidency’s agenda reflected this by centring the concerns of ordinary South Africans, such as the frequency of climate disasters and the need for early warning systems. It also focused on post-disaster response and reconstruction support.
Our country has not been left unscathed by mounting debt and shrinking policy space to spend where it matters most.
In addition, the positive developments we have seen on the home front need to be deepened. There are reasons for optimism. The days of households plunged into long hours of darkness seem to be behind us.
Unemployment has dipped, with nearly 250,000 more people employed last quarter, and we have secured a first rating upgrade in almost two decades.
This G20 presidency will be remembered as a moment where world leaders rose in defence of multilateralism and co-operation, staying at the table even when a superpower threatened to bring the culmination of a year’s work to an unceremonious halt.
Was our G20 journey perfect? Far from it. But as the great African writer Ben Okri reminds us, where there is perfection, there is no story to tell.
The story doesn’t end in Johannesburg. Much work lies ahead.
- Lamola is the minister of international relations and co-operation
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