News Briefs 11 July 2025
South Africa’s G20 Presidency
US Treasury’s Bessent to skip South Africa G20 meeting, heading to Japan
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will skip a Group of 20 finance officials meeting in South Africa next week, sources familiar with his plans told Reuters. Still, they will attend the World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, according to a Treasury spokesperson.
Bessent’s decision to miss the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting marks the second time this year he has opted against attending a G20 meeting in South Africa, which is serving as the group’s president this year.
A Treasury official confirmed that Michael Kaplan, acting undersecretary for international affairs, will represent the department at the July 17-18 meeting near Durban, South Africa, instead of Bessent. The United States is due to head the G20 group, which it helped found in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, next year.
Bessent, a key figure in President Donald Trump’s trade negotiations, will represent the United States at the U.S. national day at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, a Treasury spokesperson said. The national day will be marked on July 19.
It was not immediately clear if he would engage in bilateral meetings during the visit.
Reuters 8 July 2025
The Department of Employment and Labour of South Africa successfully convened the third meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) Employment Working Group (EWG) from 29 to 30 May 2025 at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting marked a significant step forward in advancing key priorities on youth employment, gender equality, and labour market inclusion, with strong collaboration among member states.
Key Outcomes of the Meeting
- Renewal of the Antalya Goals and Adoption of the G20 Nelson Mandela Bay Youth Goal
- Member states expressed broad support for South Africa’s proposal to renew the Antalya Goals, reinforcing commitments to decent work and inclusive growth.
- The G20 Nelson Mandela Bay Youth Employment Goal was formally adopted, setting a target to reduce the share of youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET) by 5% by 2030.
- Progress on the Brisbane-eThekwini Target on Gender Equality
- The meeting endorsed South Africa’s proposed target to reduce the gender labour force participation gap by 25% by 2030.
- Discussions continued on a new ambition to reduce the gender wage gap by 15% by 2035, with a potential review after five years to consider increasing this target to 35% by 2035. Negotiations on this proposal remain ongoing.
- Preparations for the Ministerial Declaration
- The South African presidency will consolidate feedback from all member states and present a draft Ministerial Declaration at the next EWG meeting for further deliberation.
G20.org 01 June 2025
Food trade regimes harm people and the planet: how the G20 can drive improvements
African food systems face daunting challenges in the face of climate change. They must ensure fair access to food for residents of Africa’s growing cities and create decent jobs where workers and small businesses get a fair share of earnings. Food systems must also mitigate the environmental problems they cause, such as biodiversity loss, soil degradation and greenhouse gas emissions.
The G20 is one forum that is looking into policies that could ensure that food systems provide good food for all, are less destructive to the environment and are resilient to climate change.
The G20 is a group of 19 of the world’s largest economies, the European Union and the African Union. South Africa is the president of the grouping in 2025 and is currently researching the impact of global trade on food prices and how to prevent food price spikes.
In an early concept note, the G20 expressed support for “agroecology”. This is a movement, science and way to provide food fairly and in a manner that works with nature.
Many people think agroecology is only about small farmers growing food for local sale and consumption. Advocates of mechanised, highly commercial farming even frame agroecology as backwards, unsophisticated, and unable to produce the large amounts of food needed to feed the world.
The Conversation 08 July 2025
Ramaphosa reflects on development financing conference and S Africa’s G20 Presidency focus areas
President Cyril Ramaphosa has expressed South Africa’s commitment to working with countries to confront the debt challenge in a manner that is “effective, sustainable and just”.
Ramaphosa wrote in his weekly letter to the nation that countries face more daunting challenges than at any other time, from the growing devastation caused by climate change to persistent levels of poverty in many parts of the world.
He explained that to confront these challenges, countries need to mobilise funding to tackle climate change, reduce poverty and build infrastructure that enables sustainable and inclusive economic growth.
The world needs an estimated $4 trillion a year to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, a gap which he said can only be closed through more affordable, long-term, sustainable financing.
Polity.org 08 July 2025
South Africa’s G20 Presidency: Placing African Concerns on the Global Table
South Africa’s G20 presidency comes at a pivotal moment for rethinking the forum’s role in a shifting global order.
South Africa took over the presidency of the G20 at a moment when the tensions and contradictions that had been evident in the global political, economic and financial systems for some time all came to a head. The underpinnings of the post-Cold War global order are unravelling. Wars continue to rage in Europe and the Middle East, United States-China tensions are redefining global trade, and climate disasters are escalating. At the end of its first full cycle of G20 presidencies, the G20 now faces an existential challenge: Can it maintain relevance in an era of fragmentation?
The G20’s agenda has grown over the years, but at its core, it is a grouping focused on coordination in the interests of global economic and financial stability. However, soon after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), it recognised that this priority needed to encompass a developmental purpose. South Africa is the fourth in a line of developing-country presidencies, starting with Indonesia in 2022, that have pushed to bring development to the heart of the G20. This is important because the growing disillusionment with accepted political and economic orthodoxies since the financial crisis can be attributed in large measure to the inability of the system to deliver for societies. Many argue that societies have been at the service of the global financial system rather than the other way around.
For many years, South Africa has advocated for reforming the international financial architecture to make it more responsive to the needs of developing countries, particularly in Africa. The continent has not fully recovered from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, although the outlook is improving. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) April 2025 economic outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa estimated 2025 growth to reach 4%, up from 3.8% in 2024. Inflation has halved, and public-debt ratios have stabilised. However, high borrowing costs and debt servicing in an environment of constrained fiscal space remain sources of great concern. These challenges are compounded by the region’s increasing vulnerabilities related to climate change. The IMF’s outlook adds that additional support from the international community will be required to “develop a more inclusive, sustainable and prosperous future”.
SAIIA 27 June 2025