President Cyril Ramaphosa told delegates that all G20 members except the US had signed the declaration.
South Africa’s presidency of the G20 reached its defining moment on Saturday when world leaders meeting at Nasrec agreed to adopt the Johannesburg Declaration at the start of their summit.
The move broke with G20 custom and confirmed that despite weeks of tense negotiation and the absence of the United States, Pretoria had managed to secure consensus on its own terms.
President Cyril Ramaphosa told delegates that all G20 members except the US had signed the declaration. Washington stayed away from the meeting after weeks of disagreement over the forum’s agenda and South Africa’s positions on global conflicts.
Ramaphosa said the decision to adopt the declaration early sent a clear message that cooperation was still possible.
“The adoption of the declaration from this summit sends an important signal to the world that multilateralism can and does deliver,” he said.
Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said the decision was deliberate.
“Normally, the adoption of the declaration happens right at the end,” he said. “But there was a sense that we should move to have the summit declaration adopted first as the first order of the day.”
The summit has brought together heads of government and senior officials from the world’s largest economies. It is the first time the G20 has convened in Africa, and South Africa’s approach to the presidency shaped both the tone and substance of the meeting.
Over the past year, Pretoria has pressed for greater representation of the Global South and placed Africa’s development priorities at the centre of the group’s work.
The US, which takes over the G20 presidency next year, had demanded that no formal declaration should be issued. It also requested that its acting ambassador, Marc Dillard, be allowed to participate in the handover ceremony at the end of the summit.
South Africa has rejected that request.
“It has never been done before, and it is not going to start now with South Africa,” presidency spokesperson Magwenya elaborated. “The president will not hand over to a junior embassy official. It is a breach of protocol that will not be accommodated.”
In his address, Ramaphosa said South Africa had worked to preserve the G20’s integrity while ensuring Africa’s voice was fully represented.
“We gather here at the Cradle of Humankind to affirm our common humanity,” he said. “Through solidarity, we can create an inclusive future that advances the interests of people around the world who are at the greatest risk of being left behind.”
The Johannesburg Declaration reflects those priorities. It focuses on four themes that South Africa set out for its presidency: disaster resilience, debt sustainability, a just energy transition and the use of critical minerals for inclusive growth.
The declaration calls for tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency improvements by 2030. It also urges wealthier nations to increase funding for climate resilience in developing countries.
The document acknowledges that climate-driven disasters deepen poverty and inequality and that mounting debt remains one of the biggest obstacles to development. It commits members to strengthening the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments in a predictable and coordinated way.
It also calls for new approaches to critical minerals, urging that they become catalysts for value addition and broad-based development rather than simply raw-material exports.
The declaration’s language carries the imprint of hard negotiation. South Africa fought to keep references to gender equality and renewable energy in the final text after opposition from Argentina, Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Some climate language was softened to accommodate major oil producers, but the commitment to renewable energy finance remained intact, a significant outcome given earlier threats to remove it entirely.
On geopolitical issues, the wording is cautious. References to the conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the occupied Palestinian territory are framed through the United Nations Charter and international law, avoiding direct condemnation of any state. The balanced phrasing reflects South Africa’s effort to maintain neutrality amid shifting global alliances.
By insisting on a declaration rather than a chair’s statement, Pretoria achieved both a procedural and political win. The text confirms that even without the United States, consensus among the world’s major economies can still be reached. Yet the compromises also show the limits of that consensus. Climate ambition and gender equity had to be moderated to keep all members on board.
For South Africa, the symbolism of that balance may matter more than the language itself. The declaration projects a vision of cooperation rooted in solidarity and positions the country as a credible bridge between developed and developing economies ahead of next year’s G20 presidency handover to the US.
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres praised South Africa’s leadership and said the country had done its part to focus the forum on long-standing inequalities. He cautioned that wealthier nations still struggle to make the concessions needed to turn words into action.
International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola said the outcome showed that African leadership could unite a divided world.
“This is what global cooperation can look like when it begins from a place of equality,” he said.
For South Africa, the adoption of the declaration at the start of the summit carried both practical and symbolic weight. It showed that even as the global order remains fractured, consensus can still be built around inclusion and fairness.
At Nasrec, once a venue for South Africa’s own democratic transitions, the symbolism was unmistakable. The country that fought to claim its place in the world is now helping to hold that world together. For one weekend in Johannesburg, the G20 represented more than the sum of its members. It reflected a quiet rebalancing of who gets to shape the global agenda.
If the G20 found agreement in Johannesburg, it was because South Africa insisted that the world listen.