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The Substantial Performance of the G20’s 2025 Johannesburg Summit

John Kirton, G20 Research Group, November 23, 2025, 17h00 SAST

Introduction

The G20’s 20th regular summit, held in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 22–23 November 2025, produced a substantial performance. Despite the early and increasing opposition of US president Donald Trump, and the ultimate boycott of his government, all the other 20 leaders or the governments of the G20 members attended, participated, and issued their consensus declaration at the very start of the summit and its first session on the opening day. To be sure, only 67% of G20 members sent their leaders, the lowest portion ever. But the 20 member governments present and participating produced the declaration of almost 11,000 words, which was close to the average of all the 19 previous summits of just over 12,000 words. The G20 South Africa Summit: Leaders’ Declaration contained 195 collective, precise, future-oriented politically binding commitments, above the G20 summit’s overall average of 171. And the US government ended its complete boycott by agreeing to have the presidency handover ceremony from South Africa for 2025 to the US for 2026, if at the junior foreign ministry level and in the week after the summit ended. Moreover, the G20’s future was agreed by all and its presidency publicly declared for the further two years, and the final two years of the Trump presidency – the United Kingdom in 2027 and Korea in 2028. Thus, for the Johannesburg Summit, the G20 faced its most severe stress test from within or without and both survived and thrived.

Dimensions of Performance

The substantial performance of the Johannesburg Summit is further seen in a more detailed look at the six major dimensions of such summit’s performance.

Domestic Political Management

On the first dimension of domestic political management, performance on the first indicator of leaders’ attendance was very and unprecedentedly low. It was the first full boycott by a member and its entire government, by the United States – the most powerful member and a member of the G20’s governing troika, because it will hold the presidency of the G20 the following year. Indeed, US plans for its 2027 summit have already been made public very early and in unusual detail. The US boycott led directly to the absence of Argentina’s president for the first time, because the current incumbent, Javier Milei, is highly ideologically aligned with Trump. Also missing were Russian president Vladimir Putin, Chinese president Xi Jinping, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and, at the very last minute, Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto.

However. on the second indicator, domestic political approval in the media, performance was very strong.

Deliberation

In the summit’s most memorable moment, the South African presidency issued the attending members’ consensus declaration at the very start of the first session on the opening day of the Johannesburg Summit. Given Trump’s opposition, this made the summit’s public deliberation, recorded in the outcome documents, performance very strong. The declaration’s content was solid. The 20 member governments produced a declaration of 10,940 words, which was close to the 19 previous summits’ overall average of just over 12,000 words. It was also a significant expansion of the second draft of the Johannesburg Declaration produced after October 16, which had only 7,770 words. This performance could be stronger if additional outcome documents, on specific subjects such as critical minerals are produced.

However, in the private deliberation among leaders, performance was small. For the first time, the first of the three sessions of the summit was livestreamed, often including the audio of the leaders’ speeches. And since so many non-leaders of the many members and the many guests gave such speeches, the session resembled the opening of the United Nations General Assembly far more than the normal G7 summit.

Direction Setting

Performance on the third dimension, principled and normative direction setting, was significant. On the G20’s distinctive foundational missions of preserving financial stability and making globalization work for all, performance through affirmations of the latter was very strong. This was due to the emphasis on development, equality and inclusiveness throughout the text.

Decision Making

On the fourth dimension of decision making, through public, collective, precise, future-oriented, politically binding commitments, performance was significant. The declaration’s 195 commitments were well above the G20 summit’s overall average of 171, and the second version of the draft declaration, which had 136. However, most of the Johannesburg commitments were weak rather than strong. They largely promised to continue doing what had been done before, and as much as before, rather than doing new things and more than they had before.

Delivery

On the fifth dimension – the delivery of these decisions before the next summit – performance is likely to be small. The United States had historically low compliance of only 27% with the priority commitments assessed from the G20’s 2024 Rio Summit, with Trump as president for most of the compliance monitoring period. Very few 2025 commitments contain obligations to monitor and report on implementation, and very few are on subjects that Trump prefers. However, the overall compliance with the Rio commitments averaged 70%, close to the G20’s overall average of 71%, so all the other members could again do more to compensate for a US doing far less.

Development of Global Governance

On the sixth dimension – the institutional development of global governance inside and outside the G20 – performance was substantial, despite Trump’s dislike of South Africa’s membership in the G20 and of most multilateral organizations.

Inside the G20, performance was strong. By identifying the presidency for the next three years, the Johannesburg leaders ensured that the G20 and its summits would continue until Trump was no longer US president. The declaration also made several approving references to – and commitments on – other G20 institutions, platforms and principles.

Outside the G20, performance was small. The leaders’ declaration contained some references to supporting bodies such as the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization, but very few commitments and none to increase funding to them to replace the money that Trump has cut.

However, the Johannesburg Summit inspired the replenishment summit of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to be held the day before in the same city. It sought to raise $14 billion and raised over $11 billion. Donald Trump’s US contributed $4.6 billion, the largest sum by far of any member. As the Global Fund is dedicated first to ending HIV/AIDs, and as this infectious disease is the largest killer of South Africans, Donald Trump’s US money did much for South Africa, even if his presence and his words did not.

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