South African President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks alongside Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Chairperson of the African Union, João Lourenço at a plenary session on the opening day of the G20 Summit in Johannesburg, on 22 November 2025. (Photo: EPA/THOMAS MUKOYA / POOL) 
The declaration from South Africa’s G20 was adopted without objection by all the members except the absent US at the start of the body’s summit in Johannesburg on Saturday, 22 November.
President Cyril Ramaphosa departed from G20 custom by asking fellow G20 leaders to adopt the declaration from the summit at the start of the meeting on Saturday, rather than at the end of the summit on Sunday.
Ramaphosa did this without realising that he was live. He had delivered his opening address live before the cameras, as scheduled. But he then proceeded to business, which was supposed to be closed to the public off-camera.
The cameras continued to roll as he quoted from Pliny the Elder to his fellow leaders “Always something new out of Africa”, and asked them to adopt the outcome declaration by a show of hands.
At that point, Ronald Lamola, the minister of international relations and cooperation, tapped him on the shoulder, and the president said he didn’t realise the cameras were still running. The sound then went dead.
A source inside the summit said the declaration had been “adopted without objection”.
Read more: How South Africa used the ‘G20 megaphone’ to put critical issues on the global stage
SA has refused an option to have an observer team led by the US chargé d’affaires do a handover of the G20 presidency at the closing ceremony of the Johannesburg Summit on Sunday, 23 November.
Instead, sources who asked to remain anonymous have told Daily Maverick that a low-key, discreet, and non-televised handover to the US is likely to take place sometime next week.
Asked if the US will be sending someone to the G20, Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) spokesperson Chrispin Phiri said: “We have marked them absent.”
‘A good declaration’
The G20 declaration expresses strong support for South African priorities, though some compromises had to be made to get the agreement of countries such as Argentina, Saudi Arabia and Russia.
“It’s a good declaration for South Africa, for the G20 and the world,” said one of the negotiators from a Western country.
The sherpas who do the heavy lifting at such summits negotiated hard from Sunday until Thursday, and then through the night, to finally agree on a declaration at 8.30am on Friday. Achieving a declaration, by agreement of all G20 countries except the US, which is absent, is viewed as a considerable achievement for SA and for the G20.
“We would have hoped to have it a bit more ambitious to be honest,” one Western diplomat said. “But that’s a reflection of where the world is.”
Most G20 members and guests would have liked stronger language on climate change, but Saudi Arabia and Russia resisted.
“But there is language on the need for more renewable energy in developing countries, so that’s important, and also to mobilise more finance for renewable energy.”
They also would have liked stronger language on geopolitical issues such as Ukraine, but Russia and others prevented that.
Final 22 November 2025 G20 South Africa Summit 22-23 November
Gender empowerment support
The declaration also retains support for gender empowerment, though again, some would have liked it to be stronger. SA and its supporters fought tooth and nail to preserve the gender language. One negotiator said it came down to horse-trading about how many references to “gender” versus how many references to “all women” were acceptable in the text.
An official pointed out that the Argentines don’t like references to either “gender” or “all women” because both imply other categories of gender identity other than just “man” and woman”. But the Argentines seem to dislike the term “gender” more than “all women”.
One negotiator said that “on gender it was more about avoiding too many setbacks because we have a decent global gender strategy, but there are some around the table who would like to backtrack on that.
“So we spent too much time talking about avoiding backtracking instead of talking about more ambition moving forward.”
He added that the compromises were “ok”, saying: “We have avoided the worst things that were said during this discussion.”
He noted that SA and its supporters had also preserved the declaration from the G20 finance ministers earlier on the need for debt relief. This was strong language, though, some would have liked more concrete measures on how to relieve African debt.
Read more: G20 sherpas reach agreement on a Leaders’ Declaration ahead of Johannesburg Summit
The title and first line of the declaration have also been subtly altered from the usual format to reflect the absence of the US.
In draft form, it was called the “G20 Johannesburg Leaders’ Declaration”, but this version is to be called: “G20 South Africa Summit: Leaders’ Declaration.”
The negotiators “played around a bit with the wording to make it a bit different from the traditional leaders’ declaration”.
The first sentence will also be a bit different, stating: “We, the leaders of the G20 who gather in Johannesburg…” to indicate that it is an agreement of the G20 leaders actually present. He noted that the word “consensus” was not used, though it isn’t normally used anyway in declarations.
On geopolitical issues, the declaration reflects principles like respect for the US charter and international law, including humanitarian law, and then lists hotspots such as the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Sudan, the DRC and Ukraine.
“So it’s all thrown in together,” he said, adding that some countries would have liked stronger language on Ukraine, for instance, “but this is part of the geopolitical deal”.
In general, he said, “This is great for the South African Presidency, for the G20 and for the world, when multilateralism is challenged everywhere.” DM