in debt distress, has fallen short of the mark. Only four countries – all in Africa – have applied to it, but the process has been slow. Creditors are the Paris Club and also private creditors and emerg- ing economies such as China, which adds further complexity. In May 2025, the African Union Declaration on Debt highlighted that a more comprehensive approach to sovereign debt restructur- ing was necessary in the long term. However, a major overhaul of the Common Framework will not be the outcome this year. Rather there will be an incremental effort to improve the existing framework. Related to Africa’s debt sustainabil- ity is the high cost of capital. South Africa has raised the tenor of the debate on this issue, through its initial proposal to estab- lish a cost of capital commission, which became part of the African Expert Panel chaired by South Africa’s former finance minister Trevor Manuel. Second, climate and energy tran- sitions are another key focus, with South Africa amplifying calls for a just energy transition and related financ- ing through country platforms. South Africa has sought to emphasise that the quality of climate finance is as impor- tant as the quantity. Yet this priority has been especially challenging. Both ministerial meetings on the energy transitions and on environment and cli- mate sustainability ended with only chair’s summaries, as ministers were unable to reach consensus. Conversely, South Africa’s third prior- ity on disaster resilience and response and scaling up post-disaster reconstruc- tion has met with some success, insofar as there was a ministerial declaration. This emphasised the need to mobilise resources from a variety of financing sources as well as financing that enabled ex ante disaster risk reduction. South Africa’s fourth priority is har- nessing critical minerals for inclusive growth and sustainable development. This is being tackled through the Task Force on Inclusive Economic Growth, Industrialisation, Employment and Reduced Inequality, one of three task forces established by the presidency. Africa is blessed with many critical minerals that are essential for green industrialisation and the energy transi- tion. However, the growing geopolitical contestation over critical minerals could see external actors repeat the
cycle of exploitation and resource extraction in Africa. Putting this issue on the G20 agenda reflects Africa’s concern and intention to amplify the continent’s efforts at a coor- dinated strategy to ensure value addition and industrialisation through these minerals. This is crucial to the African agenda, as is support for the African Con- tinental Free Trade Area, which includes creating regional value chains to shift from raw resource extraction to value- added production. The presidency aims to adopt a voluntary G20 Critical Minerals Framework. The presidency’s two other task forces focus on food security, also a major con- cern of African countries, and on artificial intelligence, data governance and inno- vation. The presidency has championed digital inclusion, fostering international partnerships to bridge the digital divide through investment in infrastructure, data governance and skills development. These efforts were highlighted at the AI for Africa Conference. The priorities that South Africa put on the G20 table this year are both bold and embedded in real African challenges. Neither debt and the cost of capital nor climate finance and critical minerals are easy topics to tackle at the global level in an increasingly fraught geopolitical context. Many foundational norms and international agreements of the last three decades are being tested and questioned. Solidarity with the more vulnerable and international cooperation to advance public goods would ordinarily have received global support, even if the imple- mentation of the ensuing commitments was lukewarm. The Johannesburg Summit will prob- ably produce a declaration, but the presidency’s ambition, reflected in its agenda, is unlikely to be realised in practice. The challenge of realising an ambitious agenda is not new to the G20. Summit declarations brim with commit- ments. But consensus will be even more difficult this year, with some members disputing climate change or the validity of the Sustainable Development Goals. However, the presidency and the summit will raise the awareness and global discourse on matters that are crucial to Africa’s development, helping to shape the narrative and laying the foundation for future presidencies, and other global policy processes, to take issues forward.
// ELIZABETH SIDIROPOULOS
Elizabeth Sidiropoulos has been chief executive of the South African Insti- tute of International Affairs since 2005. She is co-convenor, together with the Institute for Development and Sustainability, of the Think 20 Africa Standing Group, established in 2017 during the German presi- dency of the G20. She has served as co-chair of various taskforces in the T20 engagement group and in 2024 was coordinator of the General Sec- retariat of the T20 Brazil International Advisory Council. She has served on the United Nations Under- Secretary-General’s High-Level Advi- sory Board on Economic and Social Affairs since 2020.
X-TWITTER @siderop
// KRISSMONNE OLWAGEN Krissmonne Olwagen is a G20 research fellow in the Climate and Natural Resources Programme at the South African Institute of Interna- tional Affairs. She has undergraduate and honours degrees in politics and international relations from the Uni- versity of Johannesburg and is a master’s candidate in international relations at the University of Witwatersrand.
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