G20 Summit | Shaping the global economy

The article is a live broadcast transcript from SABC News covering the concluding day of South Africa's 2025 G20 Leaders Summit at the Johannesburg Expo Center, Africa's first time hosting the event. Key focuses include critical minerals, decent work (aligned with SDG8), the future of artificial intelligence, and a review of the G20's 20-year evolution from a finance ministers' forum post-Asian financial crisis to a leaders' summit addressing broader global challenges like the 2008 crisis and COVID-19. President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to deliver a closing statement following the adoption of a consensus declaration on the previous day, despite minor objections from Argentina; many leaders are departing early. Live visuals from the closed plenary session show proceedings without audio, highlighting the summit's South African elements like the protea flower. An interview with Dr. Zanelmanti from the Institute for Economic Justice emphasizes the G20's expanded mandate's benefits, enabling swift responses to interconnected issues such as health pandemics with economic impacts, climate disasters, debt sustainability, and technology/vaccine transfers—outpacing slower institutions like the IMF and World Bank. Under South Africa's presidency, finance ministers issued a historic declaration acknowledging African debt burdens, linking them to development trade-offs (e.g., up to 60% of revenue on debt servicing, per the Africa Expert Panel Report). The discussion critiques market-led deregulation since the 1980s for exacerbating economic, social, and climate inequalities, advocating a shift toward public resource mobilization for poverty reduction and equitable development, countering calls like the U.S. to refocus on the G20's original economic core.