G20 Social Summit comes to Jozi

As the G20 Summit rolls into town this month there will a separate G20 Social Summit that is the platform where civil society groups will meet alongside local and provincial governments to engage and raise issues that touch on the challenges and realities of some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. 

The South African G20 Presidency theme of Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability is meant to be inclusive and to include formal and informal networks. There will also be a key focus on youth, women and people with disabilities. 

The G20 Social Summit  is a separate channel to the main G20 Summit that is meant to create a platform for civil society and grassroots organisations to make their voices heard on the issues closest to their hearts.

The G20 Social Summit is hoped to be make civil society and grassroots organisation voices heard as they are given a channel to open discussion and dialogue with local authorities and local government leaders. 

The Social Summit that will take place on the East Rand, will look at the pressing issues affecting nations of the Global South. These include planning for disaster resilience and response; financing a just energy transition; and harnessing local mineral resources for inclusive growth and development.

The Social Summit will focus on issues that affect the daily lives of the world’s vulnerable. Some of these include strengthening disaster resilience and response; ensuring debt sustainability for low-income countries; mobilising finance for a just energy transition; increasing the quality and quantity of climate finance flows to developing countries; and harnessing critical minerals for inclusive growth and sustainable development.

The aim is for decision making to include a bottom-up approach and for a South-African hosted summit to be able to foreground an African and Global South agenda even as world’s leaders arrive in Johannesburg to thrash out key economic and developmental goals.