This text was produced with the help of AUDA NEPAD
Because the world gathered in Johannesburg for the G20 Social Summit, it turned clear that Africa is now not merely a participant in world growth discourse—it’s shaping it.
The Authorities of South Africa and its folks deserve commendation for his or her historic management and distinguished chairship of the G20. Their dedication to internet hosting the Social Summit demonstrates a imaginative and prescient that locations folks on the centre of growth, a precept that resonates deeply with Africa’s personal aspirations.
Africa’s rising affect within the G20
Since Africa’s accession to the G20 as a full member in 2023, the African Union Improvement Company (AUDA-NEPAD) has labored tirelessly to make sure that partnerships with Africa are grounded in mutual respect, accountability, solidarity, and sustainability. We’ve made it clear: the world should have interaction with us on phrases that mirror our company and aspirations.
The G20 engagement teams have confirmed very important in these conversations. AUDA-NEPAD has actively participated throughout a number of platforms all year long. I had the honour of serving as Co-Chair of the B20 Commerce and Funding Working Group for 2025—the G20 dialogue discussion board for the worldwide enterprise neighborhood. This position supplied a unprecedented alternative to affect world coverage on creating a brand new commerce and funding deal for Africa, selling stability in world commerce, and fostering a climate-responsive commerce system.
We additionally actively participated within the T20 as a Coverage Bridge Tank member, submitting coverage briefs, partaking in conferences, and contributing to the general T20 agenda to amplify Africa’s voice. Earlier this yr, our Africa Coverage Bridge Tank Programme, along with SAIIA, the Institute for International Dialogue, and the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Dialog, hosted a Excessive-Degree Coverage Dialogue beneath the theme “Strengthening African Company within the G20 inside the Rising International Order.” We have been privileged to have Deputy President Paul Mashatile honour us together with his presence and contributions. Moreover, we participated in shaping suggestions aligned with Africa’s positions on harnessing the demographic dividend on the Y20 Summit.
From Copenhagen to Johannesburg: A deepening ambition
The worldwide social growth journey from Copenhagen to Seville, Doha, and now Johannesburg reveals a gentle deepening of collective ambition. Copenhagen in 1995 set the inspiration by prioritising poverty eradication, full employment, and social integration. Thirty years later, on the 4th Worldwide Convention on Financing for Improvement in Seville, the world confronted shrinking official growth help and the urgency of sustainable home financing, whereas underscoring that funding in social sectors is central to financial transformation.
The not too long ago concluded Doha World Summit for Social Improvement reaffirmed world commitments to increasing social safety, guaranteeing entry to training and well being, and selling productive and inclusive societies. Now, assembly in Johannesburg, we’re known as to translate these commitments into concrete actions that really put folks on the centre of growth.
As we mirror on these world commitments, we should additionally reaffirm Africa’s personal long-term imaginative and prescient as articulated in Agenda 2063. Aspiration 1 reminds us of the Africa we’re constructing—a affluent continent grounded in inclusive development and sustainable growth. Aspiration 6 emphasises an Africa whose growth is people-driven, counting on the potential of its ladies and youth, guaranteeing that social insurance policies and financial alternatives mirror the wants and aspirations of its residents. These aspirations are usually not summary beliefs—they’re the blueprint that shapes Africa’s growth trajectory and guides our collective motion.
The structural pressures of 2025
In 2025, the world confronts a set of structural pressures which are deepening vulnerabilities and reshaping the worldwide growth coverage panorama. For Africa, these pressures are notably acute and embrace a really younger inhabitants—one in each 5 Africans is a teenager, and by 2030, it is going to be one in 4. This demographic actuality presents each alternative and problem.
Fragmented social safety methods stay underfunded, uneven in protection, and infrequently unable to cushion households towards shocks. Rising inequality continues to widen gaps between areas, genders, and earnings teams, with new pockets of poverty and fragility rising. Rising public debt—growing by over 20 % in lots of member states—is narrowing fiscal house and weakening macroeconomic stability.
Weak labour markets are more and more unable to soak up the tens of millions of younger Africans getting into the workforce every year. Heavy import dependency, with near 90 % of medical merchandise utilized in Africa imported from totally different components of the world, exposes the continent to world supply-chain disruptions. Escalating local weather change brings recurrent droughts, floods, rising temperatures, and land degradation.
Maybe most regarding is the erosion of citizen belief, as communities more and more really feel co-opted somewhat than meaningfully consulted in coverage selections. This highlights the pressing want for renewed social compacts, inclusive dialogue, and clear governance. Throughout our continent, we proceed to witness governance challenges, together with constitutional disruptions, pressures on democratic processes, and shrinking civic house.
That is the panorama of 2025—one which underscores the necessity to strengthen resilience, deepen democratic consolidation, and reinforce Africa’s institutional structure. We should emphasise this elementary fact: there might be no growth with out peace and no peace with out growth.
Turning challenges into alternatives: AUDA-NEPAD’s strategic interventions
At AUDA-NEPAD, we’re implementing three important interventions to reply to the social challenges we face on the continent and to show challenges into alternatives.
First, advancing maternal and little one well being. We invested 100 million US {dollars} into our African Demographic Dividend and Sexual and Reproductive Well being Programme to advance the maternal, new child, and child-health agenda as a vital intervention in harnessing Africa’s demographic dividend. By means of this programme, we have now supplied catalytic funding to member states and regional financial communities to strengthen governance, coordination, and integration, advance coverage by way of evidence-based analysis that influences policymaking, and supply high-level advocacy, capability growth, and technical help.
Second, empowering youth and girls. Our Creating Alternatives for Youth and Girls in Africa (COYWA) Programme enhances the socio-economic empowerment of youth and girls by strengthening their pathways to entrepreneurship, guaranteeing monetary inclusion, and offering capacity-building interventions. With these devices, extra younger African entrepreneurs and women-led companies are studying fashionable enterprise practices, accessing microcredit and markets, and contributing to job creation.
Third, strengthening institutional capability. To capacitate nationwide and regional establishments, we deployed the Strengthening Nationwide Establishments Supporting Weak Communities (SNVC) programme, constructed on strengthening nationwide and regional methods by way of technical advisory help, institutional coordination, and platforms that allow nations to share finest practices and pool assets.
The African Union Improvement Fund: Africa’s personal resolution
I’m equally happy to share that we’re within the last phases of concluding our feasibility research of the African Union Improvement Fund, a fund by Africa for Africa geared toward fast-tracking the realisation of Agenda 2063. To operationalise this fund, we have now already engaged with the Alliance of African Multilateral Establishments and several other African Sovereign Wealth Funds to organize for implementation, thereby leveraging continental capital, establishments, and experience whereas specializing in African possession, sound governance, and monetary sustainability.
The Africa we would like
On this nice African second, allow us to select Ubuntu—unity of objective—and pursue growth with unwavering hope. Allow us to keep in mind that each greenback spent in social service methods, each clinic and faculty inbuilt a rural village, each mortgage given to younger entrepreneurs, is an funding within the Africa we would like.
With solidarity, equality, and sustainability as guiding rules, the Africa of shared prosperity, peace, and human dignity is inside our grasp. An Africa the place growth is people-driven, unleashing the potential of each girl and youth, can and can turn into a actuality.
