In the last stretch of South Africa’s Group of Twenty (G20) presidency, question marks over the participation of the US are looming large. This was evident from a public dialogue held at the University of Pretoria (UP) titled, ‘South Africa and the G20: Progress, problems and prospects’.

Hosted as a collaboration between UP’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship (CAS) and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the aim of the dialogue was to look back at the first eight months of South Africa’s G20 presidency, look ahead to the next four months and produce a policy brief with recommendations from civil society to strengthen South Africa’s G20 presidency.

In his opening remarks, Professor Adekeye Adebajo, senior research fellow at the CAS, spoke about the “giant elephant in the room” in reference to the US’s low profile in G20 proceedings thus far in 2025. He noted that the US had “boycotted the G20 foreign and finance ministers meetings, sending low-level officials” to attend these events in South Africa.

Speaker Kamal Ramburuth, G20 project lead for the Institute for Economic Justice, used the term “G minus one” – the G20 minus one big player, the US – in reference to the absence of the US from recent major international events or agreements. These include the Global Ocean Treaty, the United Nations Convention on Tax, the Financing for Development Conference and, having earlier withdrawn from the World Health Organisation, the global Pandemic Treaty.

“Is it still consensus when the United States doesn’t pitch up?” Ramburuth asked – an important question in the context of the G20, where any recommendations made are adopted by consensus.

Dynamic engagement continues

The task of commenting on the participation of the US during and after South Africa’s G20 presidency, which culminates with the G20 Summit in November 2025, fell to Masotsha Mnguni, G20 overall project coordinator at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO).

He said that the US, as incoming president of the G20, is part of the G20 troika, which consists of the previous, present and next G20 presidents, who are responsible for managing the work of the grouping.

Acknowledging the headlines and speculation on the US’s position on the G20, Mnguni said this did “not take away the fact that there is dynamic engagement” among the parties in the troika. When the troika had last met, about two weeks previously, questions around the participation of the US had been on the table. 

“They assured us that they are still very much committed to being part of the presidency,” Mnguni said.

“When we engage in the diplomatic space, it is very important not to downplay the importance of continuous engagement,” he added, referring to the question of the US’s participation in the G20 Summit in South Africa in November. “We continue to engage.”

Progress and prospects

Earlier, Mnguni outlined the progress South Africa had made during the first eight months of its G20 presidency. This included convening 86 meetings – out of a total of 132 meetings planned – to discuss the most urgent and important challenges, especially those stifling the ability of Africa to achieve desired levels of growth. 

He said South Africa was calling on G20 leaders to urge the international community to scale up post-natural disaster reconstruction in response to climate change, take action to secure the debt sustainability of African countries, and mobilise increased financing for a just energy transition.

“We also seek to have a framework document on critical minerals adopted by the G20 for shared prosperity and sustainable development,” Mnguni said. “Most of the priorities have been welcomed by the broader G20 membership. There have been some divergences, but in the past two weeks, we have been able to adopt a number of important outcome documents.” 

These include the adoption of the G20 Labour and Employment Ministers Meeting declaration at the end of July, and the Finance Ministers Communique earlier in July.

Asked what recommendations should come from civil society, Ramburuth said the G20 could advocate for accelerated reform of the World Trade Organisation, whose current system is at odds with the needs of the Global South. 

“There are huge issues around intellectual property and the distortion of global supply chains,” he said, adding that hunger and malnutrition in developing nations resulted from people in London and New York “gambling on food prices”. 

The G20 could help to speed up reform by calling for more closed-door, in-depth and frank discussions at higher political levels.

This public dialogue is not the end of the CAS’s efforts to support South Africa’s G20 presidency. Prof Adebajo noted that a second public dialogue is planned for Cape Town in September. 

“Civil society voices are needed,” he said. “We seek to make concrete policy recommendations to strengthen South Africa’s presidency.”