Johannesburg has, and the South African presidency in office has taken advantage of the occasion to amplify the continent’s will to achieve a new place in the world, a new order that redresses abuses and inequalities.
“As this is the first G-20 summit to be held in Africa, it carries with it the hopes and must reflect the aspirations of the people of this continent and the world,” Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa, said in Johannesburg. His Government, he assured, has “sought to ensure that the development priorities of the Global South and the African continent are firmly and permanently expressed in the G-20 agenda. This is important not only for the population of Africa and the Global South; it is vital for global stability and security, to relieve pressure on resources, manage population movements and reduce the risk of conflict,” the president said.
Of course, Africa is a huge and diverse continent, which includes disparate situations and strong internal divergences. However, this does not mean that there are not clear common denominators, which consist of the desire to obtain a different treatment – away from extractive, condescending logic – that recognizes the new damage of the domination of the northern hemisphere – once colonialism, now the disastrous effects of climate change generated by others – and the need to reformulate certain balances and structures of the world order.
Reading it represents an eloquent compendium of those aspirations. The order of the points made, with all those that matter to Africa and the Global South placed studiously at the beginning with an uncompromising pace, sounds almost like a shout. Although it does not contain political commitments with true potential for change, politics is also made by consolidating narratives.
The sequence of the sections is crystal clear: strengthening resilience and response to climate disasters, which hit less prosperous nations with special intensity; take measures to ensure debt sustainability for low-income countries; mobilize financing for just energy transitions; take advantage of critical minerals for inclusive growth and sustainable development, avoiding abusive, asymmetric and polluting extractivist logic; inclusive economic growth, industrialization, employment and inequality reduction; food security; Partnership plan for Africa; strengthening the Financial Track approach in Africa and improving its effectiveness.
These are the demands of Africa as pushed by the South African presidency in a summit in which the African Union – a full member of the G-20 since last year – also participated and to which countries such as Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone and several pan-African institutions were invited.
Africa continues to remain in the news and in the collective imagination due to persistent crises. Violence – now unleashed in the Sahel due to the terrorist surge -, coups d’état – there have been a disturbing series in the last decade -, the scourge of corruption, epidemics, famines, painful inequality.
Another Africa
But there is another Africa. Beatrice Grace Alouch Obado, associate professor in the area of International Relations and Sustainable Development at IE University and Schiller International University, reveals some features of that other Africa. “There is a dynamic innovative Africa that deserves much more visibility. It is the Africa that developed mobile money, decentralized solar systems and digital identities, references that are now studied around the world,” says Alouch Obado, who participated in Johannesburg at T20 (Think 20, a forum of ideas that is part of the G-20).
“It is also the Africa of the Continental Free Trade Area, which is laying the foundations for a more integrated and competitive regional market. In a world where we see growing fragmentation, we see how Africa is uniting. And in parallel we also see the growing civic involvement of youth, which is becoming a positive force in many countries, contributing to stronger institutions and more responsive governance,” continues the professor, who was previously international coordinator of ENIASA, the European Information and Action Network for Africa. Austral, a grouping of more than 100 NGOs within the European Union that works to promote peace, democracy and sustainable development in southern Africa.
“The greatest opportunity for prosperity for the 21st century lies in Africa,” Ramaphosa said in his closing remarks at the summit. “Making it a reality will require strong cooperation between Africa and the G-20, and certainly between Africa and the rest of the world,” he added. It is the opportunity that lies, above all, in the extraordinary demographic potential of the continent, a fountain of youth – with all the perspective of innovation and creativity that it entails – in a world in which many regions are aging.
between the Government of Congo and the M23 rebel group – backed by Rwanda – projects new hopes for the pacification of a terribly bloody and prolonged conflict. Likewise, , whose GDP growth is forecast at 4.1% this year and 4.4% next year, despite several global turbulences, and which show appreciable symptoms of macroeconomic stabilization and reforms.
However, the IMF warns of persistent, serious fragilities. Likewise, if there is hope in the Congo, the fear of violence and new conflicts cannot be underestimated. Not only the Sahel is a nest of terrorists. raises deep concern. Great scourges persist and, in a world in which transactionalism based on force prevails, African States, which do not have it, have much to lose. The G-20 in South Africa, however, could be an episode that underpins a process of convergence and union that would put African states in a better position to resist the waves of contemporary times.
Internal discrepancies are great, but history shows that Africans can cooperate very well, as happened in the period of decolonization. And the current free trade zone is an excellent viaduct to progress along that path.
