By Redge Nkosi and Phapano Phasha
THE eyes of the global community will be on the upcoming Global South Summit that will be hosted by India on August 17, and the attitude and deliberations of the Summit as the African Union (AU) prepares for its inaugural G20 Summit as a permanent member in Rio de Janeiro in November 2024.
The summit will surely be an important catalyst for the AU as it prepares for Rio G20 on behalf of the 1.3 billion Africans it represents.
From November 18-19, 2024, Brazil will host the G20 summit. This follows India’s successful presidency of the summit in 2023, and before it, Indonesia. South Africa will preside over the summit in 2025.
For the first time in the history of both the AU and G20, the AU on behalf of its 55 member states, will participate as a fully fledged member of G20 in Rio de Janeiro. This comes after the intervention of Prime Minister Niyendra Modi of India who presided over the exclusive and elite body in 2023 to include the AU.
Prior to the announcement of PM Modi of the inclusion of AU as a permanent member of G20, African member states were merely observers and receivers of decisions taken by the “most advanced” and developed economies in the world and expected to comply.
The August 2024 New Delhi Global South Summit will take place when geo-political and geo-economic tensions are at their highest among major powers, and despondence over the role of multilateral institutions and multilateralism is at its highest.
However, the summit comes at a more opportune moment; not only to shape the agenda in favour of AU member states and the Global South, but also to insert calm in the belligerently hyperpolarised discourse on global governance while simultaneously advancing multipolarity.
The inclusion of the AU as a permanent member of the G20 is also a welcome development and the hallmark of India’s G20 2023 presidency, it has also transformed the G20 from an elite club to a more inclusive platform, representative of the emerging global order.
It remains to be seen, however, how the improved legitimacy of the G20 would translate it into a more effective instrument of multilateralism. And it will also be interesting to observe how the Global South Summit responds to this development.
As Pretoria awaits its turn to host the G20 summit next year, deliberations are underway, just as lessons are being carefully sifted from the past and present.
If advancing the cause of the developing economies was and remains the primary objective at the G20 for the Global South nations on that table, what institutional mechanism would be utilised to distil the Global South issues and maintain solidarity?
Will Africa, as a bloc, work with Brazil, India, China, and other developing regions to advance the voice of the Global South?
Having observed the past two G20 presidencies, perhaps the most interesting perspective on how the Global South agenda would be advanced is that shown by New Delhi.
This may be instructive for South Africa and other developing countries in the G20 to follow on how it puts the interest of the Global South in the G20 agenda.
Upon assuming the presidency of G20 in December 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi immediately convened what he called “Voice of the Global South Summit” (VOGS) on January 12 and 13.
This was a virtual summit attended by 125 countries whose input would mould India’s G20 agenda to include it as a permanent member of G20. It was also purposed to garner key concerns or issues from Global South countries so they can be taken up during New Delhi’s presidency – December 2022 to November 2023.
Capitalising on the success of the inaugural virtual summit of January themed “Unity of Voice, Unity of Purpose”, Prime Minister Modi convened yet another virtual summit immediately after his G20 summit presidency.
The purpose of this Global South summit of November 17, 2023 was to apprise the Global South of the deliberations and outcomes of the G20 summit. India also sought to sustain the momentum of the initiative with a view to seeing the implementation of the G20 decisions.
The theme of the second summit was “Together, for Everyone’s Growth, with Everyone’s Trust”.
It is reported that as a result of this India initiative, over 50% of the G20 New Delhi Declaration was related exclusively to the needs of the Global South. For the Global South as a whole, this should be a very welcome development, and one worth sustaining.
This institutional mechanism initiated by Modi challenges other developing nations to either use this platform to marshal their efforts and direct them towards a more united Global South voice in international front.
At the same time, India, Brazil, and South Africa are in a shifting G20 Troika (past, present, and next presidency) that collaborates on the continuity of issues.
With the future of multilateralism in dire need of repair or reorganisation, these three economies present the most potent force to help reshape the fraying global governance architecture.
Indeed, as South Africa prepares to host the 2025 G20, the need for a retooled global financial and monetary architecture is not only real, but very urgent.
However, the inertia in the G20, in the form of the Global North interests, casts a dark and long shadow of doubt that this reform will be possible and that the issues raised by the India presidency of the G20 will be implemented.
On the other hand, this inertia is the impetus that the Global South in particular the AU needs to forge ahead with a new world order based on respect and multipolarity.
* Redge Nkosi and Phapano Phasha – Centre for Alternative Political and Economic Thought with focus on Global South and BRICS Plus Countries. The views expressed here are their own.