The T20
The Think 20 (T20) is an official engagement group of the G20 and is an established network of research institutes, think tanks and eminent academics from G20 member countries and further afield working on G20-related themes and processes.
History of the T20
Created in 2012 during the Mexican Presidency of the G20, the T20 endeavours to add value to G20 processes by providing evidence-based analysis and targeted policy recommendations linked to the thematic areas covered by the G20 agenda.
South Africa’s T20 focuses on five thematic taskforces, namely (1) trade and investment; (2) digital transformation; (3) international financial architecture reform; (4) solidarity and SDGs; and (5) climate action and just energy transition. This focus is closely aligned with South Africa’s G20 priorities, namely strengthening disaster resilience and response, debt sustainability for low-income countries, mobilisation of finance for a just energy transition, and harnessing critical minerals for inclusive growth and sustainable development. The T20 produces detailed recommendations under the G20’s broader thematic areas in the form of policy briefs that seek to inform the final G20 Summit declaration that emerges at the end of each presidency.
Members of the T20 have a three-fold role. They engage closely with the leaders of the sherpa and finance tracks throughout each country presidency on the framing of the G20 agenda, supporting idea generation and intellectual input into the G20 agenda. The T20 also facilitates interactions among its members, the international policy community and the broader public on global governance challenges. Finally, the analytical depth provided by leading experts from the T20 also supports the G20 to formulate and deliver evidence-based, sustainable policies.
Over the years, African issues have gradually been integrated into the thematic taskforces of the G20, replacing the ‘Cooperation with Africa’ task force (2017–2019), which sought to ensure that African concerns were included in all the workstreams and policy areas of the G20 agenda. Instead, research from the T20 taskforces sought to reinforce the commitment of G20 member states to Africa’s Agenda 2063, as well as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In doing so, they explored various options in which sustainable development could be promoted across the African continent by tackling policy issues relating to fiscal and debt sustainability, industrial development, taxation, food security and governance, among others.
SAIIA’s engagement with the T20 has been in-depth and ongoing. SAIIA’s chief executive has co-chaired various task forces on the SDGs and development during the Saudi Arabian (2020), Italian (2021) and Indian (2023) presidencies. During the German (2017), Argentine (2018) and Japanese (2019) G20 presidencies, SAIIA co-chaired the ‘Cooperation with Africa’ task force and established, with the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), the T20 Africa Standing Group under the 2017 German G20 Presidency. SAIIA’s chief executive was a member of the International Advisory Board of the Brazilian T20 and had a responsibility in this role to raise awareness in South Africa of the role of the T20 and the G20 among the knowledge community, as well as on the key themes and issues advanced by the Brazilian G20 Presidency and the T20. Under the South African G20 presidency, SAIIA, along with the Institute for Global Dialogue and the Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation, are tasked with coordinating the South African T20 process.
With the admission of the AU to the G20, the African knowledge community has a responsibility to contribute substantively to ensuring Africa’s priorities are on the global economic governance and development agenda. Providing technical support and thought leadership will be integral to driving African solutions to global issues, as G20 policies often have a far-reaching impact on African economies and policymaking.
Brazil T20 Communiqué
The T20 Brazil Midterm Conference was held on 2-3 July 2024 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This event brought together representatives from national and international think tanks, academia, the public and private sectors, and civil society. A significant highlight of the conference was the submission of the T20 Communiqué to the G20 sherpas at a meeting on 4 July. This marks the first instance of the T20 Communiqué being delivered to the sherpas in advance of the start of the drafting of the G20 Leaders’ Declaration, allowing for the potential to influence leaders’ negotiations and the formulation of the Declaration.
The actionable recommendations in the Communiqué are derived from over 300 Policy Briefs, which were submitted, peer-reviewed, and approved by the six task forces established by Brazil’s T20 organising committee. Think tanks from G20 countries contributed to these Policy Briefs. The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), along with other Think 20 Africa members, also contributed to several of these Policy Briefs.
The Communiqué, accessible on Brazil’s T20 website, includes several policy proposals pertinent to the African continent. Some of the recommendations could potentially shape the agenda of South Africa’s G20 Presidency in 2025 and that of the African Union.
The following are some of the policy proposals addressing various challenges faced by the African continent:
- Strengthening multilateral cooperation on SDGs 1 (poverty), 2 (hunger), and 10 (inequality) through the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty.
- Leveraging affordable climate and sustainable development finance to promote just energy transitions.
- Reforming the G20 Common Framework for Debt Relief and the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) lending policy to expand fiscal space for investments in inclusive and sustainable development.
- Addressing unequal access to healthcare and promoting technology transfers and global cooperation on vaccinations, medicines, and strategic health supplies in developing countries.
- Reforming and strengthening the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the main forum for global trade, services, and investment facilitation negotiations, including trade standards that address climate and digital transformation.
- Employing progressive fiscal policy and repurposing fossil fuel subsidies to reduce inequalities and promote climate justice.
During the Midterm Conference there was also a convergence dialogue between the Think 20 and the Civil 20, where a joint statement was issued focusing on the global economy, climate change, and digitalisation. Some of the joint recommendations included:
- G20 should enhance debt restructuring with bondholders by passing UK and New York Bills for a comprehensive mechanism. It also should ensure private creditor participation, protect sovereign assets during restructuring, and limit creditor recoupment; and require collective action clauses in all sovereign debt contracts to prevent holdouts and bind all bondholders to supermajority-approved agreements.
- A temporary, automatic standstill on debt service should be included in the Common Framework to halt repayments during negotiations, encouraging private creditor involvement and facilitating investments in green and inclusive recovery.
- The G20 should endorse and implement the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC) to ensure fair global revenue allocation.
- G20 nations should endorse a global minimum tax on wealthy individuals and families (“super-rich”) within the UNFCITC framework, with commitments to direct resulting revenues towards realizing human rights, particularly in impoverished countries of the Global South.
- The G20 must promote better synergies between International Financial Institutions’ (IFIs) reform efforts and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) processes to effectively enhance climate action.
- The G20’s efforts to reform IFIs must prioritise justice and inclusiveness, adopting a vulnerability and needs-based approach to ensure that the funding reaches the countries and communities most in need.
- The G20 should develop a non-binding common set of principles for resilient and sustainable Digital Public Infrastructure, building from digital public commons, such as open data, AI models, and standards that can be freely replicated.
