The G20 South African Summit Leaders Declaration, which prominently echoed the concerns of the Global South and reaffirmed various promises made under India's leadership, successfully mirrored the major priorities of India's G20 Presidency.
The denunciation of terrorism and the acknowledgement of the revolutionary potential of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) were identified as two of India's top goals.
The statement, "We condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations," was one of the most forceful restatements of the international position on terrorism.
In terms of technology, the statement restated pledges made in New Delhi on the utilisation of digital and new technologies, such as artificial intelligence.
In order to ensure human rights protection, openness, fairness, and accountability, the leaders emphasized the necessity of safe, secure, and reliable AI.
"We reiterate the G20 AI principles and refer to the Rio de Janeiro and New Delhi Leaders Declaration on our pledges to fully utilize digital and emerging technologies, including AI.
In order to fully realize AI's potential, fairly distribute its advantages, and reduce risks, we will endeavor to foster global collaboration and additional dialogue, acknowledging the necessity of incorporating the perspectives of both developed and developing nations," the statement stated.
"The protection of human rights, transparency and explainability, fairness, accountability, regulation, safety, adequate human oversight, ethics, biases, privacy, data protection, and data governance must be addressed in order to ensure safe, secure, and reliable AI development, deployment, and use.
The statement said, "We acknowledge the role of the United Nations and other pertinent existing fora in promoting international AI cooperation, including to empower sustainable development."
One of the main results of India's G20 leadership has been the encouragement of women led development due to the drive for strong emphasis on the empowerment of women and girls.
"We reiterate our unwavering dedication to empowering women and girls and to swiftly eliminating social and economic obstacles in order to attain gender equality.
The declaration stated, "We promote women led development and guarantee women's full, equal, and significant participation and leadership at all levels of decision making in political, economic, and public life."
"We reaffirm our commitment to ending gender based violence and the murdering of women and girls due to their gender, and we condemn all forms of discrimination against women and girls.
In order to achieve this goal, we pledge to work quickly to abolish all types of violence, including sexual assault and harassment against all women and girls as well as violence that takes place in both public and private settings, online and offline," the statement continued.
The statement reiterated the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action's 30th anniversary and recognized women as peace actors.
"We reaffirm our dedication to the full, efficient, and expedited implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action as we commemorate its 30th anniversary.
We welcome China and UN Women's Global Leader's Meeting on Women, which took place in Beijing on October 13-14 in honor of Beijing+30 and to continue the Beijing Conference's spirit. The statement added, "We also acknowledge the role of women as agents of peace."
The South African presidency's top objective is to improve catastrophe response and resilience. The declaration reaffirms the conclusions of the Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group, which was started by the Indian presidency. In this regard, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) has also been acknowledged.
"We emphasize the significance of funding the development of sustainable resilience, giving prevention top priority, and implementing proactive measures based on evidence based policymaking.
In order to improve ex ante disaster risk reduction and preparedness for prompt, adaptable, efficient, thorough, and equitable disaster response and recovery while putting people's lives and livelihoods at the center, this can involve expanding and making greater use of accessible, affordable, and inclusive pre arranged financing mechanisms.
According to the statement, "this could also include financing that encourages ex-ante DRR, such as parametric insurance, risk pools, contingent credit, catastrophe bonds, insurance guarantee facilities connected to elective delivery mechanisms, particularly adaptive social protection systems, and take note of initiatives like the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI)."
In terms of food security, the Deccan High Level Principles on Food Security and Nutrition were reiterated, emphasizing the fundamental right to be free from hunger while stressing the ongoing difficulties associated with hunger and access to nutritious diets.
"We are concerned that up to 720 million people experienced hunger in 2024 and that 2.6 billion people were unable to afford good foods, even while we applaud the progress made in reducing hunger worldwide.
As stated in the Deccan High Level Principles, "We reaffirm that food is the foundation of human life and that the G20 should make every effort to ensure SDG 2 and the progressive realization of the right to food in the context of national food security."
"We affirm that political will is required to create the conditions to improve access and affordability to safe, healthy, and nutritious food, and we acknowledge that everyone has a fundamental right to be free from hunger.
The statement said, "We reiterate that deliberate starvation of civilians should not be used as a method of warfare and reaffirm our commitment to upholding international law, particularly international humanitarian law."
In line with the New Delhi Leaders' statement, the importance of complementary and traditional medicine in health has been acknowledged.
"We acknowledge the World Health Organization's (WHO) constitutionally mandated responsibility in global health, backed by sufficient, consistent, transparent, adaptable, and sustainable funding.
Stability, growth, and resilience can be fundamentally influenced by investments in health. The statement stated, "We support international assistance in addition to domestic public health financing as the main source of health finance."
"We observe programs like the Lusaka Agenda, among others, that promote health security and Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
We acknowledge that investing in everyone's health and well-being including that of women, children, and adolescents is crucial as a basis for sustainable development, and we urge all partners to step up coordinated action and efforts to hasten the transition to UHC.
In order to provide integrated people centered health services, including mental health, and to attain universal health coverage, we are still dedicated to creating more robust, equitable, sustainable, and inclusive health systems. The statement said, "We acknowledge the potential role of evidence based traditional and complementary medicine."
In climate finance, we were able to secure a more ambitious language than the previous year, which was one of the biggest accomplishments.
The declaration not only acknowledges the need to increase climate finance from billions to trillions of dollars, but it also emphasizes that developing nations will require an estimated USD 5.8-5.9 trillion for the pre 2030 timeframe to implement their nationally defined contributions.
"We acknowledge that in order to achieve the climate targets outlined in the Paris Agreement, we must quickly and significantly scale up investment and climate finance from billions to trillions worldwide from all sources.
In light of the aims and requirements of developing nations, it is crucial to match all pertinent financial flows with these goals while increasing funding, capacity building, and technology transfer on voluntary and mutually agreed terms," the statement stated.
"We applaud the results of the GST-1 on the New Collective Quantified Goal that were accepted at the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai (COP28) and Baku (COP29), and we anticipate its implementation.
We applaud efforts to disseminate updated nationally decided contributions, including the results of the initial Global Stocktake.
The statement went on, "We acknowledge the need for significant, quick, and long term reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with 1.5 °C pathways and urge members to contribute to the global efforts against climate change in a nationally determined manner, taking into account the Paris Agreement and their various national circumstances, pathways, and approaches."
The declaration emphasized that international trade interests should not be harmed by any actions taken to address climate change.
"We emphasize that, for the pre 2030 period, developing nations are expected to require USD 5.8-5.9 trillion to implement their nationally determined contributions.
We observe that actions intended to address climate change, especially unilateral ones, should not be used as a cover for covert restrictions on international trade or as a tool of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination," the statement stated.
It has been acknowledged that mainstreaming Lifestyles for Sustainable Development (LiFE) and adopting sustainable patterns of production and consumption are crucial.
"Recalling the G20 Reference Framework for Effective Country Platforms developed under the 2020 Saudi Arabia Presidency, the Framework for transition planning and country platforms as well as the voluntary G20 Principles for Just and Inclusive Energy Transitions adopted under the 2024 Brazilian G20 presidency, the G20 members and invited countries should strengthen their efforts in advancing energy transitions planning through local, national, regional approaches, taking into account national circumstances and priorities that pursue, among others, energy security, poverty alleviation, social resilience and equity, as well as voluntary technology transfer on mutually agreed terms and economic empowerment," said the statement.
"We recognise the importance of embracing sustainable production and consumption patterns and mainstreaming Lifestyles for Sustainable Development (LiFE)," said the statement.
In order to strengthen the participation of underrepresented regions, such as Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean, India also campaigned for reform of the UN Security Council to make it more inclusive and representative.
"We commit to a transformative reform of the Security Council that will bring it into line with the demands and realities of the twenty first century, make it more representative, inclusive, efficient, effective, democratic, and accountable, and make it more transparent to the entire UN membership, enabling better responsibility sharing among all of its members while enhancing the efficacy and transparency of its operating procedures.
We demand that the Security Council be expanded to better represent marginalized and unrepresented regions and people, including Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia-Pacific," the statement stated.
Additionally, the G20 agreement contained language from the New Delhi Leaders Declaration, demonstrating India's considerable impact on international goals.
