The G20 Leaders’ Summit Declaration in Johannesburg stressed Africa’s interests – but will it survive Trump?

On paper, South Africa’s G20, which climaxed with the Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg on 22 and 23 November, was a triumph for Africa.

This was the first G20 held on African soil, and Africa’s interests dominated the 30-page Leaders’ Declaration adopted at the summit. Until the last moment it was doubtful that President Cyril Ramaphosa and his team would pull off any declaration at all. It looked more likely that they would have to settle for a weaker ‘Chair’s Statement’ in which South Africa would merely describe what had been agreed and what had not.

The main threat to a full and more powerful declaration adopted by consensus was United States (US) President Donald Trump’s extraordinary hostility towards South Africa’s G20 developmental themes of solidarity, equality and sustainability – and towards the country itself.

Trump had earlier announced that he would not attend the summit, and would instead send Vice President JD Vance, because South Africa was massacring white Afrikaners and other fictions. Then before the event he went further and declared that no US official would attend.

In the absence of the US, though, the right-wing Argentine government acted as its proxy and tried to block consensus on important issues like gender equality and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Meanwhile Saudi Arabia did its best to frustrate agreement on renewable energy.

Ramaphosa salvaged his declaration by some deft – some might say crafty – diplomacy. The highlight was getting the Leaders’ Declaration adopted at the start rather than the more logical end of the event, thereby pre-empting an expected Argentine rejection of the declaration. (Which in fact came, but only after it had been adopted without objection.)

So the Leaders’ Declaration remains on the scoreboard as it were, including South Africa’s four G20 priorities – strengthening disaster resilience and response; taking action to ensure debt sustainability for low-income countries; mobilising finance for a Just Energy Transition; and harnessing critical minerals for inclusive growth and sustainable development.

All of these are important for Africa in particular – even though some diplomats told ISS Today that the two African nations invited to the G20 as guests, Nigeria and Egypt, did not play a great role. Perhaps the most important priority of the four for Africa was ensuring debt sustainability, since the African Union (AU) says 21 of its members are in debt distress or at risk of it. Other estimates run higher.

Among other measures, the leaders agreed to further strengthen implementation of the G20 Common Framework for debt treatments which was first launched during the Covid-19 crisis to forgive and restructure the debts of countries overwhelmed by debt servicing costs.

The summit leaders also received a report on African debt by an expert panel chaired by South Africa’s former finance minister Trevor Manuel. Its many recommendations included launching a new G20 debt refinancing initiative and increasing the regulation of credit rating agencies, which many Africans criticise for unfairly pushing up the cost of capital to Africa by overrating the credit risks of its countries.

South Africa’s other G20 priorities also focused on Africa. For instance, the proposed measures to finance Just Energy Transitions noted that over 600-million Africans lacked access to electricity.

And the leaders endorsed several existing international measures to finance disaster prevention and response, underscoring the need to accelerate progress in the implementation of these frameworks, ‘particularly in Africa.’

Likewise measures proposed to ensure that countries benefitted from domestic processing of their own critical minerals stressed the importance of Africa, which perhaps owns more critical minerals than any other continent.

The declaration also reiterated strong support for the G20 Partnership for Africa, with the G20 Compact with Africa as its core. Launched by Germany during its G20 presidency in 2017, the compact focuses on business-led development for the continent, by helping its countries create investor-friendly environments.

The second phase of the compact, for 2025-2033, supported by the establishment of a World Bank Group multi-donor fund, was launched at the Johannesburg summit by Ramaphosa and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Focusing on boosting economic growth through investment rather than development aid was certainly in tune with the zeitgeist, when foreign aid budgets are shrinking and being diverted to defence, and when the ideological compass needle is swinging against development aid anyway.

But a big question remained: would this promising rhetorical emphasis on Africa translate into action? This is of course a perennial question of all G20 summits, as the G20 makes no binding decisions. It’s a ‘ginger group’ as one diplomat put it, intended to energise the adoption of actionable decisions at other fora such as the United Nations, World Trade Organization, etc.

Trump’s hostility, however, aggravated the usual problem of implementation; compounded by the unfortunate coincidence of the US taking over as the next presidency of the forum in 2026. And it didn’t help that Trump announced after the Johannesburg event that he would not invite South Africa to his G20 Summit in Miami next December.

This is an unprecedented breach of G20 protocol as membership should be decided by consensus. In 2022, for example, Western members were unable to expel Russia for its invasion of Ukraine precisely because some other G20 members were opposed.

All this meant Trump was even more likely to trash South Africa’s hard-fought and comprehensive development-oriented agenda. And indeed this week the Trump administration announced it would focus its G20 very differently, on ‘unleashing economic prosperity by limiting regulatory burdens, unlocking affordable and secure energy supply chains and pioneering new technologies and innovations.’

That all sounded ominously like open season for business, without regard for climate change or any other restraint.

South Africa appears to have resigned itself to sitting out the 2026 G20 season and returning to the club in 2027 when the United Kingdom takes over the presidency and welcomes it back, hopefully reviving at least the high points of South Africa’s agenda.

Written by Peter Fabricius, Consultant, ISS Pretoria