The first G20 summit to be held in Africa opened yesterday with an ambitious agenda to make progress on solving some of the long-standing problems that have afflicted the world’s poorest nations.
Leaders and top government officials from the richest and leading emerging economies came together at an exhibition center near Soweto in South Africa — once home to Nelson Mandela — to try and find some consensus on the priorities set out by the host country.
They include more help for poor countries to recover from climate-related disasters, reduce their foreign debt burdens, transition to green energy sources and harness their own critical mineral wealth — all in an attempt to counter widening global inequality.
Photo: REUTERS
“We’ll see,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on if the G20 could prioritize developing world countries and make meaningful reforms. “But I think South Africa has done its part in putting those things clearly upon the table.”
The two-day summit takes place without the world’s biggest economy after US President Donald Trump ordered a US boycott of the summit over his claims that South Africa is pursuing racist anti-white policies and persecuting its white Afrikaner minority.
A months-long diplomatic rift between the US and South Africa deepened in the buildup, but while Trump’s boycott dominated the pre-talks talk in Johannesburg and threatened to undercut the agenda, some of the leaders were eager to move on.
“I do regret it,” French President Emmanuel Macron said of Trump’s absence. “But it should not block us. Our duty is to be present, engage and work all together because we have so many challenges.”
The G20 is a group of 21 members that includes 19 nations, the EU and the African Union.
The bloc was formed in 1999 as a bridge between rich and poor nations to confront global financial crises.
While it often operates in the shadow of the G7 made up of the richest democracies, G20 members together represent about 85 percent of the world’s economy, 75 percent of international trade and more than half the global population.
However, it works on consensus rather than any binding resolutions, and that is often hard to come by with the different interests of its members.
Guterres cautioned that rich nations have often failed to make the concessions required to strike effective climate or global financial reform agreements.
G20 summits traditionally end with a leaders’ declaration — which details any broad agreement reached by the members — but even that was proving hard to come by in Johannesburg.
South Africa said the US was exerting pressure on it not to issue any leaders’ declaration in the absence of the US and instead tone down the final document to a unilateral statement from the host country.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa responded to that by saying “we will not be bullied” and has promised a declaration from all members present at the close of the summit today.
Even so, the direction of the G20 bloc is likely to change sharply, as the US takes over the rotating presidency from South Africa at the end of this summit and the Trump administration has derided the focus on climate change and inequality.
The only role the US would play at this summit would be when a representative from the US embassy in South Africa attends the formal handover ceremony at the end to accept the G20 presidency, the White House said.
South Africa said it is an insult for Ramaphosa to hand over to what it considers to be a junior diplomatic official.
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