Consolidate and Sustain: Think20 South Africa

From 14-15 November, the Think20 Summit took place in Johannesburg, presenting its Communiqué to the G20 Summit which followed the week after. It upholds the central positioning of the Agenda 2030 and sustainable development – an achievement of the four “Southern Presidencies” of Indonesia, India, Brazil and now South Africa during the last four years.

The Communiqué also advices around the core priorities of South Africa’s presidency on trade and investment, digital transformation, financing for sustainable development, solidarity for the achievement of the SDGs, and accelerating climate action and the just energy transition.

IDOS contributed to the T20 process this year in three main ways: Prof. Anna-Katharina Hornidge served as a member of the T20 Advisory Board and Dr Axel Berger acted as Co-Chair of the Task Force on Trade and Investment. Additionally, IDOS researchers collaborated with researchers across the globe and contributed policy briefs on Strategic Entry Points for the G20 in WTO Reform,  Innovative Reform of the Global Debt Architecture, Multilateral Collaboration for Bespoke Energy Transitions.

Anna-Katharina Hornidge also took part in the Summit itself, joining the plenary panel discussion on “Beyond Agenda 2030”, moderated by Nicolas Buchoud. Together with Efraim Gomez, Global Policy Lead of the World Wide Fund for Nature,  Shameela Soobramoney, CEO National Business Initiative, Navid Hanif, ASG UNDESA,  Stephen devereux, Director Centre for Social Protection, Institute of Development Studies, and Levi Singh, Sherpa Youth20 South Africa, she discussed critical drivers and constraints for a Beyond 2030 framework.

Anna-Katharina Hornidge then chaired deliberations on how the T20 should move forward, consolidating existing achievement and sustaining them for what is expected to be a challenging year under US presidency in 2026. She highlighted the importance of safeguarding the developmental focus as a political requirement, and proposed an approach of “ambitious compromises” to be found through close interlinkages and mutual reinforcement between the G20 and G7, with France holding presidency of the G7 next year and the UK holding the G20 presidency in 2027, when the G7 will in turn move to the US.