South Africa’s presidency of the bloc placed the development needs of the continent, small island states and other vulnerable regions firmly at the centre of the G20 declaration. (GCIS)
The G20 Leaders Summit, hosted in Johannesburg this weekend, endorsed a suite of major global frameworks aimed at strengthening climate resilience, accelerating clean energy transitions, reshaping the governance of critical minerals and supporting more resilient food systems.
The South Africa–led agenda puts the development needs of Africa, small island states and other vulnerable regions firmly at the centre of the development-oriented declaration.
It confronts four of the defining global challenges of the decade: intensifying climate shocks, widening energy inequality and the scramble for the minerals that underpin the clean energy and digital revolutions.
The 30-page declaration opens with a stark recognition: disasters and shocks are increasing in frequency, intensity and geographic extent and increasingly outpace national capacities to respond, “whether the risks are induced by natural hazards, human-made or exacerbated by climate change”.
From extreme heat to floods, droughts, wildfires and desertification, these shocks are undermining development and worsening inequalities, particularly for Small Island Developing States, Least Developed Countries and lower-income communities.
In their declaration, the G20 leaders commit to shifting from reactive crisis response to prevention-first, people-centred disaster risk management, underpinned by evidence-based planning and anticipatory action.
This includes scaling up pre-arranged disaster finance such as parametric insurance, risk pools, contingent credit and catastrophe bonds. These mechanisms release funds instantly after a disaster, reducing the human and economic costs of delayed response.
The declaration calls on donors, development banks and the private sector to dramatically expand investment in adaptation, preparedness and recovery, “in ways that promote sustainable resilience, particularly for developing countries and those most vulnerable”, while respecting countries’ national circumstances and priorities.
South Africa secured strong support for two new global tools cited in the declaration: the G20 High-Level Principles for Investing in Disaster Risk Reduction and the Recovery Readiness Assessment Framework, a voluntary instrument developed under the country’s presidency to help governments plan for inclusive, resilient rebuilding.
The G20 leaders reiterated support for the United Nations Early Warnings for All initiative, aiming for global implementation by 2027. South Africa, as the host presidency, is singled out in the declaration as the first country to launch a national roadmap under the initiative.
The G20 also emphasised the need to accelerate alignment between the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 and acknowledge the strong synergies between it, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, stressing that progress remains too slow, especially in Africa, where climate impacts are escalating faster than finance to adapt.
Energy access and the global transition
The declaration placed Africa’s energy crisis firmly in the spotlight. More than 600 million Africans still lack access to electricity, and one billion people on the continent rely on unsafe cooking fuels, a crisis associated with two million premature deaths every year.
These inequalities threaten economic progress and reinforce global instability, it warns. The G20 reaffirmed that energy security is fundamental to national sovereignty and development and endorsed tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030.
The G20 leaders also backed the deployment of zero and low-emission technologies tailored to national contexts, underscoring that transitions must be technologically neutral, equitable and inclusive.
The declaration commended a significant South African contribution – the Voluntary Energy Security Toolkit as a practical guide for developing countries. It offers strategies for integrated energy planning, infrastructure resilience, regional power interconnections, emergency preparedness, energy efficiency and workforce development.
To accelerate transitions, the declaration calls for a significant scale-up of concessional finance, blended finance and de-risking instruments, along with voluntary technology transfer on mutually agreed terms.
Domestic planning and capacity-building are highlighted as essential foundations for attracting investment.
On energy access, leaders backed the launch of Mission 300, an effort by the World Bank and African Development Bank to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030.
A Voluntary Action Plan for Clean Cooking supports the expansion of clean cooking technologies, LPG access where appropriate, decentralised energy systems and supportive policy reforms.
Critical minerals
With demand for critical minerals such as cobalt, lithium, rare earths and other strategic metals surging globally, the G20 acknowledged that producer countries, especially in the Global South, remain locked into raw-material extraction with limited value capture.
This model not only undermines development but also creates brittle supply chains vulnerable to geopolitical and market shocks.
In one of the summit’s most consequential outcomes, leaders welcomed the G20 Critical Minerals Framework, a voluntary but comprehensive blueprint for building sustainable, transparent and resilient mineral value chains.
It seeks to move producer countries up the value curve through expanded exploration and investment; diversification of mineral sources, processing hubs, and supply routes; stronger governance and environmental standards; local beneficiation and value addition at source; and community participation and social safeguards.
The framework affirms the sovereign right of mineral-rich countries to harness their resources for inclusive development. If implemented, it could shift global market dynamics by helping more producer countries retain value, reduce export dependency and build the industrial capacity needed for energy transitions and digital transformation.
Food security
The declaration flags food insecurity as one of the world’s most urgent and destabilising challenges, noting “alarm that up to 720 million people continued to experience hunger in 2024 and that 2.6 billion people were unable to afford healthy diets.
With wars, climate shocks and volatile food prices pushing millions into hunger, leaders say the global community must act faster to protect vulnerable populations.
“We recognise the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger and we affirm that political will to create the conditions to expand access and affordability to safe, healthy and nutritious food is needed,” it said.
“We reaffirm our commitment to uphold international law, in particular international humanitarian law, and reiterate that intentional starvation of civilians should not be used as a method of warfare.
Long-term food security will depend on transforming agriculture itself, making it more climate-resilient, less carbon-intensive and better able to support small-scale farmers who produce a large share of the world’s food.
Highlighting Africa’s agricultural potential, the declaration calls for expanded capacity building and technical support for smallholder farmers and fishers, particularly women and youth.
It advocates for improved access to finance, markets, digital tools and climate-resilient infrastructure. It supports the implementation of the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme Strategy and Action Plan and the African Continental Free Trade Area.
The document also encourages investments in local production, storage, distribution, seed banks, fertiliser production and intra-African trade to reduce dependence on volatile global supply chains.