South Africa's G20: A Platform for Civil Society Voices
In December 2024, South Africa assumed the G20 Presidency under the banner Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability — the first time the African continent has held this role.
This milestone offers a rare opportunity to shape global economic, climate, and social agendas from an African and Global South perspective. Across the region, civil society networks, grassroots movements, and policy advocates are working to turn political pledges into concrete, people-centred policies that tackle hunger, climate justice, equitable growth, and human rights, with those most affected by inequality at the centre.
Through partnerships among community organisations, researchers, advocacy groups, and international allies, African perspectives are not only represented but helping to drive the global conversation.
From Local Struggles to Global Platforms
From August to December 2025, HBF Cape Town will collaborate, support, and co-curate interventions in four interconnected areas where local and global priorities intersect: Food Justice; Ecological Justice & the Just Transition; Housing, Land & Climate Justice; and a Mid-Term Review of the G20 Presidency. The project will host an online dialogue series linking local realities to global policy proposals, beginning with a deep dive into food justice. It will also roll out media campaigns to broaden public understanding and make civil society perspectives visible to decision-makers; convene civil society strategy meetings on critical raw materials and just transitions; and facilitate cross-regional housing and land justice dialogues to prepare coordinated inputs into global forums.
By creating spaces for exchange, dialogue, and collective action, the process seeks to strengthen civil society and community voices so they are not on the margins but at the centre of decision-making.
As G20 President, South Africa has placed food security at the top of its agenda, creating a rare opportunity for transformative, rights-based solutions.
The opening dialogue, hosted in collaboration with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, will explore:
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The urgency of foregrounding food justice within South Africa’s G20 agenda;
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The structural causes of hunger and poverty in the country; and
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Concrete policy pathways, both nationally and internationally, that can strengthen food sovereignty, advance economic justice, and build climate resilience.
Speakers include UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Olivier De Schutter, food justice advocate Caroline Peters, academic and IPES-Food member Raj Patel, and development specialist Nangamso Koza.
The discussion will frame the constitutional right to food as both a moral imperative and a practical pathway to economic and social stability.
