The November 2025 G20 summit in South Africa was the first where global leaders agreed on a declaration without the USA, as Donald Trump boycotted the meeting. Despite pressure from Trump, 17 countries and two regional organisations signed the 122-point declaration, with only Argentina refusing, while China seized the opportunity to position itself as a reliable partner. Although the summit demonstrated multilateralism could survive US withdrawal, the fact the declaration lacks tangible commitments raises questions about whether it can drive any real change.

For the first time since the G20 – a forum of many of the world’s major economies – started holding its annual global summits in 2008, world leaders agreed on a final declaration without the USA at the table. Donald Trump’s boycott of the November 2025 meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, was supposed to derail global cooperation, but may have instead shown that some kind of multilateralism can survive US withdrawal and given China an opportunity to position itself as the more reliable partner.

Trump’s absence wasn’t quiet. As well as sending no representatives, his government launched a campaign of vilification towards South Africa, centring on false claims of discrimination against the white Afrikaner minority stoked by South African-born Elon Musk, who accuses South Africa of having ‘racist ownership laws’ and allowing a ‘genocide’ against white farmers. Shortly after the summit concluded, Trump announced South Africa wouldn’t be invited to next year’s G20, hosted by the USA at his Miami golf resort.

But Trump’s pressure on other states to try to stop them agreeing the Leaders’ Declaration failed: 17 states and two regional organisations – the African Union and the European Union – signed the 122-point declaration. Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei was the only leader who refused to sign, claiming concerns about the way the document addressed the Middle East conflict, which it only mentioned once, referring to ‘the Occupied Palestinian Territory’.

The broader consensus held, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called it a demonstration that ‘multilateralism can and does deliver’. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that the world can move on without the USA, emphasising the participation of states representing three-quarters of the world’s population, two-thirds of global GDP and three-quarters of world trade. Despite Trump’s pressure tactics, the summit ultimately rallied support around South Africa’s global south priorities – climate finance for just energy transitions, debt relief, disaster resilience – and received extensive international media coverage, with outlets across the world reporting on the first G20 meeting on African soil.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa attends a plenary session on the opening day of the G20 Leaders' Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, 22 November 2025. Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters via Gallo Images.

Principles rather than commitments

The Leaders’ Declaration was comprehensive, covering the grand themes of South Africa’s presidency – equality, solidarity and sustainability – and addressing climate finance, critical mineral supply chains, debt relief, illicit financial flows, inclusive growth, inequality and just energy transitions. South Africa championed the African Engagement Framework within the G20’s finance track and launched the Ubuntu Legacy Initiative to fund cross-border infrastructure in Africa.

Yet while it was impressive that any agreement could be reached amid conflicts in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and elsewhere and Trump’s trade wars and attacks on climate action, the declaration has the same critical weakness as all G20 agreements: there’s no way of holding leaders to account for what they signed. It’s an aspirational document rather than a set of obligations. The G20 is a voluntary association with no binding authority, and it can only exercise influence when there’s enough political will – something that ran particularly low this year as geopolitical tensions rose and the forum’s most powerful member refused to participate.

Civil society gets involved

Beyond its high-level agreement and the headlines around Trump, there were some opportunities for civil society to get involved. The G20 has an array of engagement groups: the B20 for business, C20 for civil society, T20 for think tanks and Y20 for young people, among others. Since 2013, the C20 has provided the official forum for civil society organisations to share expertise, advocate for environmental sustainability, gender equality, human rights and justice and push for decisions to reflect people’s interests rather than business priorities.

The C20, which represents over 3,000 civil society organisations, held its summit from 12 to 14 November, bringing together 500 participants from across Africa and beyond. The C20 worked through 14 working groups shaped by disability, feminist, Indigenous, LGBTQI+ and youth perspectives to develop a comprehensive policy pack addressing civic participation, climate action, economic justice, food security and technology. The C20 political declaration called for sweeping reforms including democratic governance of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, comprehensive debt cancellation, United Nations (UN)-led debt management mechanisms and a time-bound transition away from fossil fuels.

This fed into the G20 Social Summit held between 18 and 20 November, which drew lessons from Brazil’s inaugural Social Summit held in 2024 and discussed reforms with the spirit of ubuntu – a worldview originating in Southern Africa that emphasises shared humanity, interconnectedness and community. The Social Summit’s declaration, representing outcomes of over 230 community dialogues held nationwide as part of South Africa’s ‘People’s G20’, was handed over to Ramaphosa on 20 November. The T20, along with 21 other formal and informal engagement groups, was involved in moderating the negotiation of this declaration, which aligned with recommendations on climate action, digital transformation, sustainable finance and accountability for the Sustainable Development Goals.

A T20 side event on 19 November highlighted civil society’s contributions: providing knowledge for evidence-based policy, building trust between states and society, expanding networks for cross-pollination of ideas and ensuring continuity between C20 presidencies. The Y20 summit addressed AI, climate transitions, economic inclusion and youth participation in global governance. Youth leaders proposed establishing a Sherpas Council to oversee implementation and a Y20 Alumni Association for long-term connections.

But these engagement methods have limited impact. Sound proposals generated by civil society often remain excluded from official G20 documents, which are instead drafted by external international organisations and tend to lack local context. Even when civil society directly contributes to early drafts, the most ambitious policy points are stripped out or watered down during negotiations.

Women’s rights to the fore

Although the G20 includes a W20 engagement group dedicated to gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, the key moment for women’s rights during the summit happened not in negotiating rooms but on the streets. While the W20 delegates presented policy recommendations through official channels, it was direct action that captured attention and forced a government response.

The most significant moment came on the eve of the Leaders’ Summit. In a nationwide event, hundreds of women gathered in 15 locations across South Africa for a 15-minute silent lie-down protest, symbolising the 15 female lives lost daily to gender-based violence. Activists also organised a shutdown, calling on women and LGBTQI+ people to refrain from all work and spending to demonstrate their economic impact.

Against the backdrop of a femicide rate roughly five times the global average, the month-long campaign garnered over a million petition signatures. And it worked: South Africa’s National Disaster Management Centre announced it would classify femicide and gender-based violence as a national disaster, reversing its previous position that the situation didn’t meet legal requirements under the Disaster Management Act. The test ahead is whether this acknowledgment translates into resources and effective action.

China’s opportunity

The power vacuum created by the USA’s absence offered China an opportunity. Chinese Premier Li Qiang attended the summit, emphasising continuity and China’s engagement with the global south. His recent visit to Zambia – the first by a Chinese premier in 28 years – made clear China’s continuing economic and political interest in Africa. He signed a US$1.4 billion deal to rehabilitate a railway linking Tanzania and Zambia, which will facilitate the export of copper for use in electronic devices.

The rhetorical contrast couldn’t be starker. At the UN’s 80th anniversary in September, Li called for stronger collective action on climate change and emerging technologies, urging solidarity because ‘division drags all down’. At the same event, Trump – who also skipped the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November – kept up his dismissal of climate change as a hoax.

The Trump administration is attacking the legitimacy of global governance institutions just as they’re most needed to tackle transnational problems such as climate change and conflicts. It’s effectively trying to coerce by withdrawal, aiming to kneecap organisations it can’t control. Some countries will follow its lead, such as Argentina leaving the World Health Organization after the USA pulled out. Global governance will become less effective as states refuse to cooperate with or abandon these forums, turning them into coalitions of the willing with limited global coverage and shrinking enforcement power. When democratic states leave the global space free for authoritarian states such as China to occupy, they cede influence to systematic human rights abusers with no interest in upholding international human rights law.

What it means

South Africa delivered an effective G20 presidency against enormous odds, organising over 130 meetings and forging consensus despite the US boycott, with civil society mobilising at impressive scale to speak truth to power and demand accountability. South Africa’s presidency marked the end of a four-year cycle led by major global south economies – Indonesia in 2022, India in 2023, Brazil in 2024 and South Africa in 2025 – that was once hailed as a potential turning point for global governance. The inclusion of the African Union as a full member in 2023 represented progress.

Yet there’s a gulf between rhetoric and reality. The Leaders’ Declaration included commitments to food security and the fundamental right to be free from hunger just as the states with the greatest capacity to act are slashing their aid budgets. For the first time in nearly 30 years, France, Germany, the UK and the USA all cut their official development assistance in 2024. Trump’s gutting of USAID has had particularly severe impacts, with the abrupt decline in funding potentially resulting in over 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including more than four million children under five. The declaration’s call for open and non-discriminatory trade policies rings equally hollow against the reality of Trump’s tariff wars, which have caused economic and political turmoil across the globe and are being used as a key tool in driving a brazenly transactional approach to international relations.

Now the USA is assuming the presidency at the worst possible time. The participation of civil society, women and young people will certainly face restrictions. The next summit will be the Trump show, with those leaders allowed to travel to the USA queueing up to flatter the capricious would-be king.

The November 2025 G20 Summit may ultimately be remembered as the moment multilateralism survived without US leadership, but barely. The question isn’t whether the G20 can function without the USA, but what its practical purpose can be for the global billions yearning for some signs of progress.

OUR CALLS FOR ACTION

  • G20 states should commit to fully implementing the Leaders’ Declaration and holding each other accountable.
  • The G20 should develop guidelines for the high-quality participation of a wide range of civil society, rather than leaving the process at the discretion of the summit’s host.
  • The USA, as the next G20 president, should commit to allowing state and civil society representatives to participate freely.

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Cover photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters via Gallo Images.