Deputy president Paul Mashatile has called for a reimagined global order that places Africa at its centre.
He was delivering his keynote address at the G20 Social Summit held at the Birchwood Hotel in Ekurhuleni yesterday.
SA, as the 2025 G20 president, is positioning Africa’s priorities at the heart of the world’s most influential economic forum.
Our goal is to integrate African voices into global governance, striving for a more equitable and sustainable future
— Paul Mashatile, deputy president
He said SA’s G20 presidency’s theme – Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability – reflects the country’s commitment to inclusive global development and the reform of institutions that have historically sidelined African interests.
“Our goal is to integrate African voices into global governance, striving for a more equitable and sustainable future, consistent with the vision of the AU’s Agenda 2063,” Mashatile told delegates.
He reaffirmed SA’s belief in an Afrocentric leadership model built on consultation, harmony, and communal responsibility. This same spirit, he said, underpins the ongoing National Dialogue, a countrywide conversation aimed at confronting poverty, inequality, and social division.
The dialogue will culminate in a second national convention in June 2026 to craft a long-term social compact guiding the next three decades.
Mashatile also urged the world to recognise Africa’s youth as agents of development, praising the Y20’s youth-led recommendations.
“Young people must not only be heard but must co-design the future,” he said.
The deputy president also raised concern over Africa’s persistent gender-based violence (GBV) crisis, emphasising that the G20 platform must strengthen global accountability and accelerate actions that protect women and children.
Mashatile argued that Africa’s development hinges on peace and political stability. Without negotiated political settlements, he said, the continent cannot fully access fair financing, trade opportunities, or global economic influence.
Despite being rich in resources, minerals, arable land, and a rapidly growing young population, Africa remains constrained by global inequalities. To address this, SA has tabled three cross-cutting G20 task forces on inclusive growth and industrialisation, food security, and artificial intelligence (AI) and data governance.
Ambassador William Carew, Head of the Secretariat for the AU’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council, delivered a powerful address on behalf of African civil society, declaring that the era of Africa as a passive recipient of global policy must end.
“Africa’s G20 Summit is a statement that we are no longer content to be observers of our destiny but builders of a new global order,” he said.
Carew highlighted contradictions in the international system: Africa holds 30% of the world’s mineral reserves and 60% of global arable land but remains on the margins of global decision-making. Despite producing minimal greenhouse emissions, the continent suffers the harshest climate effects.
The Social Summit’s declaration will be formally presented to President Cyril Ramaphosa tomorrow before being fed into the G20 Leaders’ Summit this weekend.
Sowetan
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