A policy dialogue was convened by South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) at the foreign ministry in July 2024, in collaboration with the University of Pretoria’s (UP) Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship (CAS). The meeting brought together policymakers in DIRCO, South Africa’s National Treasury, and its Department of Trade and Industry (the dti), G20 diplomats, civil society actors, trade unions, as well as private sector actors, to craft concrete recommendations for South Africa’s then forthcoming presidency.

UP’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship convened two further policy dialogues in August and September 2025 with the Heinrich Böll Foundation (on which this policy brief is based) to assess progress under South Africa’s G20 presidency, inform the policy and academic communities, as well as civil society and the private sector, about Pretoria’s priorities, and recommend ways to strengthen and shape the key outcomes of South Africa’s G20 chair. The fi rst meeting took place in Pretoria in August 2025, followed by a second in Cape Town in September 2025. Speakers in the two dialogues included: Masotsha Mnguni, G20 Overall Project Coordinator at South Africa’s DIRCO; Kamal Ramburuth, G20 Project Lead at the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) in Johannesburg; Elin Lorimer, G20 Coordinator for the International Climate Politics Hub (ICPH); Paula Assubuji, Director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Cape Town; and Adekeye Adebajo, Senior Research Fellow at UP’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship.

Both policy dialogues were attended by diplomats, policymakers, scholars, students, and civil society activists. They reviewed the progress, problems, and prospects for South Africa’s G20 presidency two months before its Leaders’ and Social summits in Nasrec in November 2025. Both meetings also had three key goals: fi rst, to craft concrete recommendations to strengthen South Africa’s G20 presidency in shaping global economic governance and pursuing the socio-economic development goals of the global South; second, to build on the lessons that South Africa has learned from its 26-year membership of the G20; and third, to enable civil society and academia to engage constructively with South Africa’s plans for achieving the objectives of its G20 presidency.

You can read the full policy brief here: 

Professor Adekeye Adebajo is a professor and senior research fellow at the Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Pretoria.