World leaders from major economies will gather in Johannesburg on November 22–23 for the G20 summit, the first time the influential meeting will take place on African soil.
Founded in 1999, the G20 brings together 19 countries plus the European Union and the African Union— the latter admitted as a permanent member in 2023. Although South Africa remains the only African nation-state in the bloc, its assumption of the rotating presidency this year places the continent at the centre of global economic and political debates, even as tensions with Washington escalate.
G20 members collectively account for 85 percent of global GDP and about two-thirds of the world’s population. For its presidency, South Africa has identified four core priorities: strengthening global disaster resilience, advancing debt sustainability for low-income countries, securing finance for a just energy transition, and leveraging critical minerals for inclusive and sustainable development. The summit will be held under the theme “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability.”
To sharpen the summit’s focus on inequality, Pretoria commissioned an international expert panel led by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Their report warns of a growing “inequality emergency” that leaves 2.3 billion people hungry, calling for the creation of an intergovernmental body dedicated to tackling global wealth disparities.
Diplomatic strains, however, loom large. U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that no American officials will attend, dismissing South Africa’s G20 presidency as a “total disgrace” and repeating unfounded claims of a “white genocide.”
His administration has imposed sweeping 30 percent tariffs on South African goods, the highest levied on any sub-Saharan African nation. Argentina’s President Javier Milei, a close Trump ally, will also miss the summit, dispatching his foreign minister instead. Russian President Vladimir Putin will again be absent.
This year’s meeting will take place at Johannesburg’s Nasrec Expo Centre, the country’s largest purpose-built conference venue. Located on the edge of Soweto and chosen to symbolise post-apartheid spatial integration, Nasrec regularly hosts major events, including the African National Congress national conference. It sits adjacent to the stadium that hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup final.
The summit has also cast a spotlight on Johannesburg itself—a city born out of the 1880s gold rush and now home to nearly six million people. While it boasts Africa’s wealthiest square mile, it also suffers from collapsing infrastructure, inadequate services, and persistent governance failures. President Cyril Ramaphosa sharply criticised the city’s deterioration in March, and in July the African Development Bank approved a $139 million loan to support upgrades.
South Africa will hand over the G20 presidency to the United States next year, closing a run of Global South hostings that began with Indonesia and continued through India and Brazil. Trump has signalled plans to scale back the platform’s widening agenda and has openly questioned South Africa’s place in the grouping—comments that have intensified uncertainty over the future direction of the G20 itself.
Source: Punch Newspaper
