What are the key issues at stake at the G20 summit in South Africa?

For the first time in history, one of the world’s most influential events is taking place on African soil: the Group of 20 Leaders’ Summit. For decades, heads of the world’s largest economies have met to discuss international economic, financial, and development issues. It’s a year-long process that culminates in a two-day summit, where leaders are expected to deliver a formal statement of consensus — the G20 Leaders’ Declaration — by the time they part ways. This year, the G20’s agenda was set by South Africa. From day one, the country has emphasized three themes — solidarity, equality, and sustainability — which have meant focusing on debt burdens across the global south, addressing inequality gaps, and financing for a just energy transition, among other priorities tied to global economic cooperation. But despite that ambition, South Africa assumed the presidency in a year of deep uncertainty; 2025 has been marked by geopolitical fractures, strains on multilateralism, and doubts over whether the world’s biggest economies could still find common ground. Even so, experts told Devex that South Africa has tried its best to push ahead. And at the upcoming Leaders’ Summit, the test will be whether solidarity, equality, and sustainability — the three pillars of South Africa’s G20 presidency — can stand against the tides of division. “Many thought that South Africa would need to concede defeat, and we’re still fighting,” said Oxfam’s senior policy adviser, Isobel Frye, speaking of her home nation. “It’s like when you’re at the beach and the waves keep on coming. You can either dive under and be irrelevant, or you can stand and wait for the next one to come.” The G20 Leaders’ Summit will take place from Saturday, Nov. 22 to Sunday, Nov. 23, immediately following the G20 Social Summit, a three-day event that’s meant to bring the voices of civil society into the G20 conversation. Here’s what we’ll be watching, and why the G20 matters for the world of global development. What is the G20? The G20 exists to bring the world’s major economies together. Throughout the year, ministers meet to tackle global issues — from financial regulations to food insecurity — through discussion, negotiation, and consensus-building. The heavyweight group is made up of 19 countries — Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States — and two regional bodies, the African Union and the European Union. Representatives from the largest multilateral organizations — such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations — are also invited to attend. The main event will follow the second G20 Social Summit, a multiday convening for civil society organizations, think tanks, businesses, and others to discuss the main pillars of the G20. Unlike other international networks, the G20’s leadership rotates. Every year, a new country sets the group’s agenda, coordinates its work, and elevates regional issues to the world stage. Last year, the G20 president was Brazil; the year before that, it was India. At the end of this week, the presidency will be handed to the United States — a nation which, as of this publication, has said it will boycott South Africa’s G20 due to discredited claims that white people are being persecuted there. Still, with these countries responsible for more than 85% of the world’s economic output, three-quarters of international trade, and two-thirds of the population, what happens at the G20 matters. Throughout its existence, the G20 has shown its strength in tackling some crises — such as the 2008 financial meltdown — while falling short on others, like the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the G20 had its own array of challenges to deal with, from climbing debt burdens to weakening global cooperation. And as the fourth consecutive president from the global south, South Africa has continued bringing issues from the bloc to the table. “If it wasn’t for South Africa’s G20, I don’t know if Africa would have received the attention that it did,” said Daniel Bradlow, a professor and senior research fellow at South Africa’s University of Pretoria. “South Africa has been successful in getting [issues of debt and development finance] a higher profile, and moving it up on the global agenda.” Tackling debt — or failing to? From the first day of South Africa’s G20 presidency, debt has loomed large on the group’s agenda. Developing nations — many burdened by record-high borrowing levels — have long pressed for faster, fairer ways to restructure what they owe. But most agree: Progress has been painfully slow. Last year, global public debt surpassed $100 trillion for the first time, according to the U.N. Trade and Development agency, or UNCTAD. While debt in low- and middle-income countries accounted for less than one-third of that amount, their debt has grown twice as fast as in high-income countries since 2010, with many African nations facing more than triple the borrowing costs of the United States. On top of that, critics say the G20’s Common Framework for Debt Treatments — which was launched in 2020 to help the world’s lowest-income countries navigate mounting debt — has delivered few tangible results. Only a handful of nations have gone through the common framework process, and most have been met with delays, complexities, and a lack of transparency that’s eroded trust in the system. Despite that, G20 finance ministers recently published a declaration on debt — one that reaffirmed support for the common framework, and pushed to strengthen its implementation. For some, it was a success: The declaration is the first of its kind since the COVID-19 pandemic, and was the only topic on which finance ministers from all the G20 countries reached enough of a consensus for a communique. “We go into this G20 meeting knowing that, with all the challenges in the world, the only consensuses that the G20 currently has is on debt and economic growth. And I think that’s really important,” said Eric LeCompte, the executive director of the Jubilee USA Network, a coalition focused on debt reform. “I think we’re going to hear more about the need for faster and speedier debt restructuring and debt relief [at the Leaders’ Summit].” But even so, LeCompte added, the world is still moving slowly on implementation. He referred to the past year’s progress on debt as “bittersweet,” adding that while there’s been some movement — and importantly, stronger visibility on debt issues — implementation has continued to move slowly. Iolanda Fresnillo, policy and advocacy manager at Eurodad, a network of European nonprofits, had even sharper criticism: In a recent statement, Fresnillo said she saw “absolutely nothing new” in the declaration. The organization called it “inadequate and unambitious,” adding that it fell “far short of what is needed to tackle the worst debt crisis the world has ever seen.” Still, the G20’s work on debt isn’t over. Earlier this year, South Africa created an Africa Expert Panel to compile recommendations on debt relief, and a report on the topic is expected at the Leaders’ Summit. For Bradlow, that expert panel is key: It doesn’t end once South Africa’s G20 presidency does, and will continue to highlight policy, regulatory, and financial barriers on the continent for months to come. “This will have a life beyond the end of the G20 this year,” said Bradlow. “Because of that, they can take forward some of these issues, and do it in a way that is somewhat depoliticized even after South Africa’s presidency is over.” Solving an ‘inequality emergency’ It’s hard to talk about debt — especially on the African continent — without talking about inequality. It’s a theme that was also prioritized during Brazil’s G20 presidency, and one of three, alongside solidarity and sustainability, that South Africa centered on. “If the G20 is going to live up to its mission to tackle pressing global economic and financial issues, then it needs to significantly and urgently reduce inequality,” said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in a recent statement, adding that it was “critical that G20 leaders recognise the extent and urgency of the problem of inequality — and that they act accordingly.” In part, South Africa’s elevation of the issue was done through a newly established G20 taskforce, the illustratively named Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality. Earlier this month, that task force released a report on inequality, one that called for an independent panel to track trends on the topic, and support governments and multilateral agencies with analyses on inequality and its drivers. The panel could function as a “technical body centered on data and policy-relevant analysis,” the report explained, and be structured like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. “Like climate change, unrestrained and growing inequalities also represent a major threat to the global community,” the report reads. “It is imperative that we have better knowledge about its evolution and how proposed policy changes might alleviate it — or make it worse.” The authors recommended a series of policy changes, from reforming the governance of international financial institutions to making the international tax system more efficient. That included the mention of a global minimum tax on the ultrarich — an idea that was floated during Brazil’s G20 presidency, but fell flat as soon as U.S. President Donald Trump took office, explained Oxfam’s global tax lead, Susana Ruiz. “Since the beginning of the year, the U.S. has pulled out of almost all the international processes on international tax cooperation, from the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] to the U.N. tax convention,” Ruiz told Devex. “It’s very challenging to get consensus on anything that is on international tax when the U.S. is in the room.” Because of that, the future of international taxation — and on inequality deliberations as a whole — is up in the air. For many, taxation has been seen as a critical piece of the inequality puzzle. Over the last decade, the wealth of the world’s richest 1% has surged to $33.9 trillion, enough to end annual poverty 22 times over. But despite that wealth, billionaires paid only around 0.3% of real taxes, according to a study commissioned by Oxfam International. “Instead of progressing, what you have is much more tension, and pushback on even the most basic consensus,” said Ruiz, referring to both the tax on the superrich and deliberations at the OECD-level, which focused on corporation taxation. “It’s clear that the G20 this year and next year is not going to be a G20 where the consensus will help progress this agenda.” Are you in or are you out? That pullback will be felt in more than just the tax world. Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that no American officials would be attending the summit at all, stating that it was a “total disgrace” that the G20 was being held in South Africa. “Afrikaners (People who are descended from Dutch settlers and also French and German immigrants) are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Nov. 7. “No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue.” It’s a claim that has been repeatedly challenged by South African officials, including the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, along with a coalition of Afrikaners, who argued that they were “now pawns in America’s culture wars.” But the move is no surprise to those who have been watching the Trump administration’s engagement with not just the G20, but with South Africa as a whole. In February, the U.S. suspended all foreign aid to the nation, with the government accusing South Africa of “egregious actions” against Afrikaners. Soon after, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he would not be attending the G20 Summit in Johannesburg, accusing South Africa of “doing very bad things” in a post on the social media platform X. “Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change,” Rubio posted. “My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.” But the U.S. won’t be the only one abstaining from the G20 summit. Xi Jinping, the leader of the world’s second-largest economy, will also not attend. Argentinian president — and staunch Trump ally — Javier Milei will also be absent, as will Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum. Russian president Vladimir Putin is not attending the G20 either, at least in part because of the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in 2023. At this stage, though, it seems that the U.S. is the only country that won’t be sending a delegation at all. For Bradlow, the pullouts were something of a “mixed blessing” — unfortunate, because it means one of the world’s most powerful states would be skipping the event, but fortunate, because it could make reaching a consensus on other topics easier. But if the U.S. skips the summit, it’s unclear whether the G20 can still produce a communiqué — a document that is meant to be created through consensus with all G20 members. Earlier this week, Ramaphosa told reporters in South Africa that the U.S.’s absence at the summit was “their loss,” and that the leaders would still be making “fundamental decisions.” In theory, if the U.S. skips the summit, the G20 can produce a declaration without their signatures, but it will lack the force that a unanimous declaration would have. On the other hand, that document could have much stronger, more unified language without the U.S. involved, Bradlow explained. “This will, of course, depend on how other states respond to the absence of the U.S. and whether the U.S. decides to pressure states to avoid reaching consensus,” he added. What else is on the table? Regardless of who’s in the room, there will be plenty of other discussions at the G20. At the start of its presidency, South Africa identified four main priorities for its presidency, including disaster resilience and response, debt sustainability, financing a just energy transition, and harnessing critical minerals for inclusive growth. Throughout the year, work on those topics — and many others — has been pushed forward through dozens of working groups, with those on the “Sherpa track” focusing on socioeconomic issues such as agriculture, development, health, and energy transitions; and those on the “Finance track” centering on topics such as infrastructure and international taxation. Yet even in these technical discussions, divisions have surfaced. Earlier this month, local South African media reported that G20 health ministers concluded their deliberations with no declaration intact, largely due to disagreement from the U.S. There has also been conflict on climate, despite South Africa’s push to advance “just energy transitions” in the global south. If those disagreements carry through to the Leaders’ Summit, the G20 could end the year without a unified stance on the most urgent issue facing the world — even as global temperatures, debt burdens, and inequality continue to rise. Still, explained Oxfam’s Frye, South Africa is doing its best to push ahead. “Many thought South Africa would need to concede defeat — and we’re still fighting,” said Frye. “There has been no hasty retreat in the face of opposition.”