The G20 wields global influence, but does it have power?

This year’s G20 leaders’ summit takes place in South Africa on 22-23 November. Even before it begins, there is already tension since the American president has declined to attend and intends to send his vice president instead – this is over disagreement with the official goals of this year’s meeting. (If Donald Trump changes his mind at the last minute, that may well heat up the rhetoric at the conference’s venue.) For this meeting, South Africa hopes to include many more leaders than just the heads of government of the official members of the group.

Johannesburg will soon be inundated – with inevitable traffic jams – by a horde of global leaders, movers, shakers and wannabe masters of the universe, plus social, economic and political activists, when the G20 plenary leaders’ meeting convenes on 22-23 November at the Nasrec convention venue.

The G20 is now an annual global event, but how did it originate – and why does it now seem so consequential?

The G20 or Group of 20 is an intergovernmental forum of 19 sovereign countries, plus the European Union, the African Union, along with selected invitee leaders at the initiative of the year’s host nation. The core concept for the gathering is to address major issues of the global economy, such as global financial stability, climate change and sustainable development. 

In raw statistical measures, the participating nations represent around 85% of the gross world product, 75% of its international trade, and more than 50% of the planet’s population. The EU is represented by the European Commission and the European Central Bank, and the AU has been a full member since November 2024.

Add in the entire EU and the AU’s members and it would mean the G20 encompasses nearly 80% of the global population in its fold, as well as, more ominously, more than 80% of the total carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. 

The group was first convened in 1999, and it was born out of an older club, the G8 (now G7 with the exclusion of Russia in response to its assaults on Ukraine). 

Specifically, the G20 was founded in response to several world financial and economic crises, and, since 2008, it has come together at least once a year with these heads of government summits as well as other meetings of finance and foreign ministers.

Global impact

At its 2009 gathering, the group declared itself as a primary vehicle for international economic and financial cooperation. Given the group’s prominence by virtue of those annual meetings, some analysts point to the G20 now having significant global impact, albeit without the ability to enforce its choices and decisions. 

Still, the group has sometimes been criticised because of the limits of its membership, as well as that lack of enforcement mechanisms for its decisions. Some argue its existence undermines the impact of the already existing trio of post-World War 2 international economic and financial institutions – the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation (formerly the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade).

Historically, G20 meetings have often been a magnet attracting protests by groups opposed to the perceived processes and outcomes of globalisation.

The impetus for what became the G20 came at the G7’s Cologne meeting in 1999. The grouping was formally declared at a subsequent G7 finance ministers’ meeting that same year. According to a Brookings Institution study of the G20, then Canadian finance minister Paul Martin was “the crucial architect of the formation of the G20 at [the] finance minister level” and who later “proposed that the G20 countries move to leaders’ level summits”.The G20 leaders’ first gathering took place in Berlin on 15-16 December 1999. 

Collection of crises

Observers also give then US treasury secretary Larry Summers credit for promoting the G20. Martin and Summers saw the G20 as a response to the major debt crises that had arisen in emerging market nations in the late 1990s – first the Mexican peso crisis, then the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the Russian financial crisis the following year and finally the global challenges extending from the collapse of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund.

This collection of crises seemed to make it clear that in a globalising world economy, existing international financial mechanisms were insufficient for the creation of financial stability. Accordingly, a broader, more clearly defined group of major world economies was needed to provide a major unified voice and to propose new ways of addressing such challenges. 

In determining membership, German financial official Caio Koch-Weser and Larry Summers’ deputy Tim Geithner effectively made the selection of which nations were to be included. According to political economist Robert Wade, “Geithner and Koch-Weser went down the list of countries saying, Canada in, Portugal out, South Africa in, Nigeria and Egypt out, and so on; they sent their list to the other G7 finance ministries; and the invitations to the first meeting went out.”

Over time, it has become the prerogative of the host nation’s government to determine the specific thematic focuses of each year’s session, as with the 2006 meeting’s “Building and Sustaining Prosperity”. These encompassed discussions on domestic reforms needed to achieve “sustained growth”, global energy and resource commodity markets, reforms of the World Bank and IMF, and the impact of demographic changes. Unsurprisingly, the 2009 meeting focused on the growing economic crisis of 2008.

Inclusion

Beyond the leaders’ meetings, the events of 2008 drove a realisation that G20 finance ministers and central bank governors’ summits were useful in response to that year’s financial crisis and a growing sense that key emerging powers also needed to be included in these core discussions. 

For several years, the leaders’ meetings took place twice a year, although the yearly format has held since 2011. By the 2016 summit, the G20 themes had become a commitment to the UN’s 2030 agenda of sustainable development goals: the promotion of strong, sustainable and balanced growth; protection of the planet from environmental degradation; and furthering co-operation with low-income and developing nations. 

Similarly high-toned but often abstract goals have continued to be at the core of G20 discussions and the contents of each year’s joint communique issued at the end of the meeting. (Unlike some other global meetings, such as the Apec (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meetings, there is no emblematic shirt issued to each leader-participant. G20 is serious business, and business attire is called for.)

The yearly chairing of the G20 is based on the rotation among regional groupings of participating nations, as those various groups decide among themselves whose turn it will be next to host the gathering once the role of chair moves to their group. A troika of nations – the immediate past, the current, and the upcoming chairing nation – is supposed to provide continuity for the G20. 

However, the G20 has no permanent secretariat or staff. As a result, each year’s host country is primarily responsible for coordination of the meetings and working groups, often drawing on the subject expertise of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). This lack of a core administrative structure can be seen as an organisational weakness of the G20 process. 

Current members include: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and the African Union. Guest invitees include, among others, Spain, the United Nations, the World Bank and Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations).

 In addition to members, the heads of other international forums and institutions also participate in meetings at the G20 events. These include the managing director and chair of the International Monetary Fund and the president of the World Bank, along with others. (See the full list of invitees below.)

The G20 has no formal criteria for membership and the grouping’s official members have remained unchanged since its establishment. Because of the objectives of the G20, in forming the membership, it was considered important that countries and regions of significance in the international financial system should be included, although geographical balance and population representation mattered as well to the original organisers. 

Global financial stability

The initial G20 agenda, as conceived by US, Canadian, and German policymakers, focused closely on the sustainability of sovereign debt and global financial stability and, in 2008, the group pledged to contribute trillions of dollars to international financial organisations to reestablish the stability of the global financial system. Over the years, recurring themes for the leaders’ meetings have inevitably focused on global economic growth, international trade and financial market regulation.

Following the adoption of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Accord a decade ago, additional issues of global significance have been added to the G20’s plate, including migration, digitisation, employment, healthcare, the economic empowerment of women, development aid and stopping climate change. Despite repeated pledges of phasing out subsidies on fossil fuels, such supports continue at national levels for many member nations. 

Its supporters argue the G20’s prominent membership gives it real weight on global policy, despite the lack of formal enforcement mechanisms. However, disputes over its legitimacy, criticisms of its organisation and the efficacy of its declarations remain. 

Critics question the group’s transparency and accountability, and note the absence of a formal charter. In addition, beyond the opening and closing sessions, the G20 meetings are closed-door ones, as will be the case this year. 

Over the years, some have suggested reconfiguring the G20 into a kind of council under the UN, as an economic version of the security council, although given that body’s difficulties, it is unclear how the proposed council would work more effectively than the less formal G20. Others question the cost and associated security concerns of the G20 meetings, and the disruptions related to protests that occur, such as the Toronto meeting in 2010, with its major protests and rioting and the largest mass arrest in Canada’s history. 

Membership

On the composition of membership, some critics, such as in a 2011 report of the Danish Institute for International Studies, pointed out the underrepresentation of African countries and called the invitation of observers a “concession at the margins”. Former US President Barack Obama commented ruefully, “Everybody wants the smallest possible group that includes them. So, if they’re the 21st largest nation in the world, they want the G-21, and think it’s highly unfair if they have been cut out.”

As a response to some of these critiques, in 2010, Singapore led the convening of the Global Governance Group (3G), bringing together some thirty non-G20 nations (including microstates and various third-world nations) to insert their views into the G20 process more effectively. Singapore’s convening role of the 3G seems to have been the reason it has been invited to G20 summits.

Soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine (beyond Crimea) in 2022, the American president, Joe Biden had called for the removal of Russia from the group. This was in addition to its earlier banishment from the G8, turning it into the G7. At subsequent G20 meetings, Vladimir Putin has not attended due to an International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant related to war crimes in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

African development

In this upcoming meeting, this year’s chair, South Africa’s President has said, “We will put Africa’s development at the top of the agenda when we host the G20 in 2025.”

The country plans to advocate and mobilise support for developing economies in Africa and the Global South, building on the efforts and successes of the three prior Indonesian, Indian and Brazilian group presidencies championing a development agenda. 

Another key element will be South Africa’s intentions to promote global debt reform. Its leading priorities will be to further inclusive economic growth, industrialisation, employment and reducing inequality. Additionally, it will push for greater food security and the employment of artificial intelligence and innovation for sustainable development.

According to published figures, the South African government has budgeted some R691-million in preparation for the G20 events. Individual participating nations obviously will be spending their own resources in bringing leaders and support teams to the meetings.

Leaders expected in Johannesburg

As things stand now, Argentina’s president Javier Milei, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Chinese President Xi Jinping, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, American Vice President JD Vance and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will complete the national leader cohort. 

Additionally, the European Union will be represented by Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, plus Antonio Costa, President of the European Council. The African Union will be represented by an Angolan, João Lourenço, as its chairperson and as president of Angola. 

Other invited leaders include Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as the current chair of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia (as current chair of Asean), the new Dutch Prime Minister, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter, United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. Other invitees include leaders from various multilateral African associations, as well as the UN Secretary-General and the heads of various UN bodies. 

If every one of these people actually attends, brings along aides, and if they all try to attend the meetings, dinners, cocktail parties and media briefings, traffic between Nasrec and Sandton will be beyond imagining. 

In addition to the actual G20 meetings, a social – read NGO – summit is planned for a venue on the East Rand, as well as a newly announced people’s summit on Constitution Hill. This writer remembers the traffic at the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development that took place at Nasrec, while the main leaders’ meeting was in Sandton, and he hopes this time around, things will be much smoother. Much smoother. DM