The transition from South Africa’s development-focused presidency to a narrower US agenda raises questions about how easily hard-won G20 initiatives can lose momentum without sustained political sponsorship
South Africa’s G20 presidency in 2025 marked an important moment for the forum. As the first African host, Pretoria placed development finance, debt sustainability, inequality, and climate transition at the centre of its agenda, while also securing a Leaders’ Declaration despite deep geopolitical divisions. The Johannesburg Summit concluded a sequence of Global South presidencies—Indonesia, India, Brazil, and South Africa—which collectively strengthened the G20’s focus on development and led to the permanent inclusion of the African Union.
In the absence of formal rules governing handover, leadership change is not simply procedural; it determines whether multi-year cooperation is carried forward or quietly set aside.
The significance of South Africa’s presidency, however, lies not only in its agenda priorities but in what followed. The transition from Johannesburg to the United States’ G20 presidency in 2026 has become an institutional test, exposing the extent to which continuity in the G20 depends on the preferences of the incoming chair. In the absence of formal rules governing handover, leadership change is not simply procedural; it determines whether multi-year cooperation is carried forward or quietly set aside. The 2025-26 transition, therefore, raises a central question: can the G20 sustain cooperation when adherence to its coordinating mechanisms remains optional and subject to the preferences of the presiding chair?
The G20’s informal structure has long been central to its effectiveness. Without a treaty, a permanent secretariat, or binding commitments, the G20 was able to act quickly during the global financial crisis, coordinating stimulus measures and financial reforms. Yet, this same design places unusual weight on leadership continuity. With few fixed procedures, agenda-setting and follow-through are largely steered by the host presidency.
The troika, which links the previous, current, and incoming chairs, is a practice-based coordination mechanism intended to mitigate this vulnerability by supporting handover and multi-year initiatives. In practice, however, participation in the troika is voluntary. There are no formal requirements to consult predecessors, preserve inherited agendas, or maintain established practices. This optionality has been brought into sharp relief during the current transition from South Africa’s presidency to that of the United States. The US Sherpa has indicated an intention to bypass the traditional troika by consulting only the 2027 and 2028 chairs—the United Kingdom and South Korea, respectively—while proposals to exclude South Africa from the 2026 Miami summit and invite Poland instead point to how easily continuity arrangements can be reinterpreted or sidelined. For now, Pretoria has opted for restraint, signalling that it will likely defer escalation until the G20 rotates to British leadership in 2027. Whether this restraint endures, and how other members respond to this departure from established practice, remains uncertain.
The US Sherpa has indicated an intention to bypass the traditional troika by consulting only the 2027 and 2028 chairs—the United Kingdom and South Korea, respectively—while proposals to exclude South Africa from the 2026 Miami summit and invite Poland instead point to how easily continuity arrangements can be reinterpreted or sidelined.
These developments matter because they demonstrate how dependent the G20 is on presidential cooperation. When incoming hosts choose not to engage with established coordination practices, continuity becomes discretionary rather than routine, risking setting a problematic precedent.
The current transition also places recent agenda momentum under strain. Between 2022 and 2025, successive presidencies prioritised development-related issues, including sovereign debt relief, inequality, and the cost of capital faced by developing economies. The Johannesburg Summit marked the high point of this period, producing a 122-point declaration that emphasised African industrialisation and launched a global inequality panel, even without US participation. Additionally, the African Union’s permanent inclusion expanded the G20’s representational reach to roughly 80 percent of the world’s population.
However, early signals from the incoming US presidency suggest a shift toward a narrower “back-to-basics” agenda focused on deregulation, energy security, and strategic competition. The issue is not thematic change alone, which is inherent to the G20, but how easily accumulated initiatives can lose momentum when active support fades. Many G20 outcomes depend less on formal adoption than on sustained political sponsorship across presidencies. When that sponsorship lapses, implementation slows through deprioritisation rather than reversal.
Many G20 outcomes depend less on formal adoption than on sustained political sponsorship across presidencies. When that sponsorship lapses, implementation slows through deprioritisation rather than reversal.
South Africa’s efforts to address the cost of capital for developing economies illustrate this vulnerability. Initiatives such as the G20 Africa Expert Panel rely on continued attention from successive chairs to maintain pressure on international financial institutions. In its absence, progress stalls, even as commitments remain nominally intact.
The 2025–26 transition underscores a defining feature of the G20: its durability, efficiency, and inclusivity depend significantly on the conduct of individual presidencies. The system of rotating leadership grants hosts wide discretion over agenda priorities, consultation practices, and participation. In an institutional setting where mechanisms are optional rather than compulsory, leadership change introduces significant variability in follow-through.
Symbolic actions reinforce this dynamic. When the United States assumed control of the G20 website, all prior content was removed and replaced with a single landing page displaying the G20 Miami 2026 logo and the slogan, “THE BEST IS YET TO COME.” This approach diverges sharply from past presidencies, where outgoing hosts typically maintained or archived their content separately to preserve institutional memory. While largely symbolic, such gestures signal how an incoming presidency views custodianship of the forum and its inherited agenda.
Ultimately, the G20’s informality remains both its strength and its vulnerability. Flexibility allows adaptation, but the absence of formal handover requirements means continuity cannot be assumed. When incoming presidencies do not share the vision of their predecessors, multi-year cooperation can quickly erode. The transition from South Africa to the United States underscores the extent to which the G20’s direction depends on leadership choices, and how easily continuity can be jeopardised when coordination mechanisms are treated as optional.
Sandra Thachirickal Prathap is a Research Assistant with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Sandra Thachirickal Prathap is a Research Assistant with the Observer Research Foundation’s (ORF) Strategic Studies Programme (SSP). Her research examines the geopolitical dynamics of the Global ...
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