00:00Richard Kozl-Wright is a professor of sustainable structural transformation at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
00:08It's symbolically important, of course. I don't think anyone expects the G20 to lead on these issues,
00:15but it can give a signal to the arenas where these issues are being discussed currently in Belém,
00:22which is proving difficult, even though the U.S. is not present in Brazil, it's proving a difficult negotiation.
00:29So having a strong declaration is important on the issues that President Ramaphosa has put forward,
00:37but it's not where negotiations take place, of course.
00:41Is the U.S. absence, then, something of an own goal?
00:47Yes, I think that's true. It's true in the G20. I think it's true more generally.
00:52It does open up the space, perhaps, for other voices to step in.
00:59But, you know, I think it's the role now of the Global South to raise their voices more strongly.
01:06It's not clear to me that the Europeans, for example, are really backing the multilateral agenda
01:12on a wide array of issues that have been put on the table by the presidency in Johannesburg.
01:19Given that, then, this year's G20 summit being held in Africa for the first time,
01:26just how significant is that?
01:31Well, I think it's, as I said, it's symbolically important.
01:36You know, I think President Ramaphosa has made it clear he wants to bring an African perspective
01:40to a set of issues of global resonance, and that includes the climate issue, as your correspondent noted.
01:48It also includes the debt issue that the South Africans have insisted should be up front and centre
01:55in the discussions at the G20.
01:58So, in that sense, I think it's a useful exercise.
02:04Many developing countries, some of them represented there, are facing mounting debt,
02:10limited access to financing.
02:13I wonder what reform or mechanisms you think the G20 might prioritise to ease those constraints.
02:23Well, I think it wants to pick up some of the issues.
02:30We had the Financing for Development Conference in Sevilla earlier this year,
02:34where debt, again, was very important, the UN Conference.
02:37And there were a number of proposals there that I think South Africa has picked up on,
02:43including the need for debtors themselves to form a more united front
02:48in negotiations with the creditor countries.
02:51These are important developments.
02:54They don't solve the problem.
02:55The debt problem in Africa and, more generally, across the developing world
02:59is entrenched and systemic, and it's going to require, I think, bolder initiatives
03:04if the developing world is going to break the burdens of debt over the coming years.
03:11It's easy to see the G20 as a unified voice.
03:15It isn't necessarily so, is it?
03:18No.
03:18I mean, obviously, the presence of Russia for the last few years
03:23and the whole question of the war in Ukraine has made it difficult to get a consensus statement anyway.
03:29And the U.S. has now pulled out.
03:30As I said, I don't think the Europeans have played a particularly constructive role
03:35on a whole series of issues of interest to developing countries.
03:38So it's a challenge, and I think the South African presidency has done a good job
03:44in putting issues like debt and inequality, sustainable industrialization, onto this agenda.
03:49is at the end of the U.S.
03:53The U.S.,ys ELK
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