South Africa’s G20 Presidency Opportune Moment for “Africa to raise its moral voice”: Catholic Bishop

“At this moment of global fracture—when inequality widens, debt suffocates, creation groans, and the future of millions of children hangs in the balance—Africa has a prophetic role to play,” he said.

The G20 Presidency refers to the rotating leadership held by member countries, which includes the responsibility of hosting high-level summits and related events. As the holder of the G20 Presidency in 2025, South Africa assumed the role of setting the agenda, hosting key meetings, and facilitating negotiations among member States.

Organized in partnership with the Jesuit Justice and Ecology Network–Africa (JENA), the symposium sought to present bold and “actionable proposals on the establishment of an Ecological Impact Fund (EIF) to accelerate climate innovation in the Global South.”

The event also sought to create “a just and accountable global debt architecture rooted in equity and the public good; and the development of a Universal School Meals Program as a global commitment to child nutrition and education.”

Reports indicate that the outcomes of the symposium “will be consolidated into the Cape Town Declaration on Global Justice and Global Solidarity, which will be submitted to G20 Sherpas and national leaders ahead of this year’s G20 Summit.”

Founded in 1999 after the Asian financial crisis of 1997 – 1998 as an informal forum for the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the most important industrialized and developing economies to discuss international economic and financial stability, the G20 has membership from the “world’s major economies, representing 85% of global GDP, 75% of international trade, and two-thirds of the world’s population.”

The 19 countries of the G20 include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (U.S.). Other entities are the EU and, from 2023, the AU.

Initially, the forum focused largely on broad macroeconomic issues. It has since expanded its agenda; it includes in its agenda trade, climate change, sustainable development, health, agriculture, energy, environment, climate change, and anti-corruption.

In his June 23 keynote address, Bishop Mbuyisa used the late Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter on care for our common home, Laudato Si’, to explain why the G20 presidency in South Africa “must catalyse moral action.”

“We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental,” the South African member of the Congregation of Mariannhill Missionaries (CMM) said, referring to Laudato Si’.

He explained, “The ecological devastation we see is mirrored in the breakdown of human solidarity. They are two sides of the same spiritual crisis.”

The South African Catholic Bishop also cited Pope Leo XIV, who he said, “has already signalled a deep commitment to the Church's mission in Africa, calling for a renewed architecture of solidarity that binds the destiny of nations to the dignity of every person.”

“What does that mean for us, gathered here in Cape Town for these two days?” he posed, and continued, “It means that our symposium must not simply generate discussion—the other speakers have already said so. Instead, it must catalyse moral action.”

Moral action, Bishop Mbuyisa went on to say, is a call to boldness; “to call, with one voice, for an economy that is centred not on the profits of a few powerful individuals but on the protection of the poor and our common home, our planet.”

He said that moral action also refers to pushing for “debt relief not as a handout but as a matter of justice. To make school meals, education, and climate resilience not fringe concerns but the heart of the G20’s agenda.”

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He appealed, “Let our vision not be restrained by what is politically convenient but inspired by what is morally right. Let us carry forward from this city of Cape Town a new covenant of solidarity, binding the dignity of our peoples to the decisions of our elected leaders.”

“May this symposium bear fruits that will endure, and may the spirit of justice guide all our deliberations,” the South African Catholic Bishop, who has been at the helm of Kokstad Diocese since his Episcopal Ordination in June 2022, implored.