// JOHN KIRTON John Kirton is the director of the G20 Research Group, the G7 Research Group and the BRICS Research Group and co-director of the Global Health Diplomacy Program, under the umbrella of the Global Governance Program at the University of Toronto, where he is a professor emeritus of political science. He is author of G20 Governance for a Globalized World , co−author of Reconfiguring the Global Governance of Climate Change , and co-editor of G7 Canada: The 2025 Kananaskis Summit as well as a global health series, including the recent Health: A Political Choice – The Future of Health in a Fractured World. X-TWITTER @jjkirton www.g20.utoronto.ca
sustainable development. To build a broad foundation for leaders to produce these and other priorities, South Africa mounted 24 ministerial meetings, often alongside working groups on the same subjects. They covered 18 different ministerial portfolios, led by finance and central bank governors and foreign affairs. However, US foreign and finance ministers boycotted the opening meetings. On 5 September, President Donald Trump said he would not attend the Johannesburg Summit – the first US president to skip the summit. He could be joined by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, who have missed summits before. And Trump and other leaders in the Global North are already reducing their financial support for some of South Africa’s key priorities, and the wide gulf with Russia and China remains, joined by serious divisions among G7 members themselves. Still, the Johannesburg Summit is on track to produce a solid, worker-like performance, and could do more to confront new shared shocks that could arise. On the economy and finance, it is due to receive the report of the G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Wealth Inequality, and endorse the Financial Stability Board’s Implementation Monitoring Review and
its G20 Cross-Border Payments Roadmap, recommendations on leveraging non-bank financial institutions and new work on NBFI data challenges. On development and employment, it will likely endorse the Seville Commitment’s detailed blueprint to close the sustainable development financing gap and reshape the global financial system and its call to expand social protection coverage by at least 2% each year, made in July at the International Financing for Development Conference. It will also likely endorse the report of the African Panel of Experts to address impediments to growth and development in Africa, including the cost of capital and reform of international financial institutions, and the Nelson Mandela Bay Target to reduce the share of youth not in employment, education or training by a further 5% by 2030. On digital technologies, it is due to advance the G20’s AI for Africa Initiative to accelerate implementation of the AU’s Continental AI Strategy and endorse the work of the G20 Digital Economy Working Group, the AI Task Force, and the International Telecommunication Union’s AI Skills Coalition and AI Standards Exchange. On energy and the environment, it will likely launch the G20 Critical Minerals Framework on responsible business conduct, contract negotiations
and illicit trade, and endorse the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, the AU Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan, the work of the African Risk Capacity Group and the results of the UN Ocean Conference in Nice and the work of the International Ocean Panel. In addition, leaders will receive the G20@20 Report, which reflects on the G20’s achievements and working methods and recommends how to ensure that the G20 remains a key global forum for international economic cooperation for its second 20-summit cycle. It should thus provide a firm foundation on which G20 leaders can build when Donald Trump hosts the next G20 summit in Miami in December 2026.
39 globalgovernanceproject.org
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