India Vs South Africa, G20 declarations — Geoeconomic Repeat Or Reset ?

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Introduction -

Over the past month, in the world of cricket, India vs South Africa games have dominated the headlines. Let it be the finals of the ICC women's world cup or the ongoing India - South Africa test series in India, cricket has been the major talking point between the 2 fastest growing economies of the world's most populous continents. Adding to the talking points between the 2 economies, is also the fact that, the G20 summit of year 2025 is being conduted in South Africa.

For starters India had conducted the G20 summit in 2023 which saw the adoption of the New Delhi declaration which saw a rare consensus in a body which has multiple complex geopolitical rivalries shaping the group. South Africa conducted the G20 summit in 2025 which was overwhelmed by the news of the USAs peace deal to end the Russia - Ukraine war, additionally, the group adopted the Johannesburg declaration, sans consensus as the Trump administration had virtually boycotted the event.

Before analysing the 2 reports, its critical to understand the geopolitical contexts behind the 2 meetings, which have shaped this group.

Geopolitical background -

The G20 events have always been historically influenced by geopolitical events. The G20 is an organisation that was formed in 1999, post the aftermath of the brutal Asian Financial crisis which had rocked the economic boat of many emerging economies. To put in brief, the prime objectives of G20 are - Promoting international economic and financial stability, enhance policy and dialogue coordination, making global governance more inclusive & over time it has covered agendas like trade,climate, health, development amongst others.

The initial meeting of G20 was conducted in Berlin. Given agendas like economic & financial stability, global governance and trade are heavily influenced by geopolitics, hence every major G20 meet is always held in the background of geopolitical shocks which affect these factors in a massive manner. With this context, its important to just revise some geopolitical factors that were starkly different in 2023 & 2025. For starters, G20 is undoubtedly the biggest economic grouping of the world, which directly controls almost 80% of the world's economy and has many powerful countries as the members of the grouping.

In 2023,major geopolitical events were the prolonged Russia Ukraine war, the non availability of Russia & China in the G20 event, sluggish economic growth, recent BRICS expansion along with the positioning of global south were the major geopolitical factors that impacted the world's geoeconomics in a major manner.

Whereas,in 2025,major geopolitical events have been:- Prolonged russia ukraine war, Israel - Hamas war and its spillovers, tensions related to democratic values in emerging countries like Nepal & Bangladesh, Trump tariffs, political changes in European union, increasing tensions between USA & China along with the reformation of RIC grouping have impacted geopolitical events of the past 2 years which have given a very different shape to the Johannesburg G20 declaration. Though the growth rate of the world's GDP has remained stable around 3.2% of the GDP, but the rising AI disruption, along with the renewed debate on critical minerals may lead to a massive change in output gaps. 

While, the geopolitical uncertainities have been tense during the time of both the events, it can be confidently said, the uncertainities prevailing in 2025 are much more than what existed in 2023. Additionally, it can be said that the nature of geopolitical uncertainities have become directly more focused into economic aspect in 2025 prior to the  Johannesburg declaration.

New Delhi Declaration Economic Outcomes -

The New Delhi declaration had a salient economic outcome plan, which pushed for the creation of the India Middle East Economic Coridoor, which was announced in the presence of all the G20 nations. This was also historic as, it literally meant providing a new route from the world's fastest growing economy to one of the world's most advanced economic regions, though in the last couple of years due to the Israel - Hamas war , the 3 day war between Israel and Iran, along with multiple economic factors in the middle east have casted doubts over the viability of the IMEEC. Nevertheless, IMEEC was an attempt by the G20 to actually push for greater financial and economic linkages between the global north and global south, which can still be a gamechanger in today's day and age. 

The biggest highlight was the expansion of the group to G21, with the inclusion of African Union as a permanent member, which marked the G20 as one of the world's biggest grouping in terms of the number of nations covered. The New Delhi declaration worked on a full consensus basis, which meant that every point made in the G20 declaration was fully supported by each and every member country, with little opposition.

Sustainable economic transformation was undoubtedly one of the biggest promises of the New Delhi G20 leaders declaration. A detailed roadmap on including private sector to create accessible & inclusive global supply chains, urging for the safe transportation of grains in the ports of Russia & Ukraine, announcing the formation of the International Big Cats Alliance (IBCA) and establishment of the Startup 20 engagement group were the salient features under this important agenda in 2023. Accelerating progress on the sustainable development goals was a separate section in the declaration, which included the vision of implementation of G20 2023 Action plan to progress on SDGs. The LiFE program was also heavily focused upon during the New delhi meet of G20.Furthermore, G20 sustainable finance roadmap was also put into motion during New Delhi which included noting that developing countries needed almost 6 trillion$ in the pre 2030 period to fulfill emission targets to reach net zero by 2050. The organisation further recomitted itself to implementing the global biodiversity fund within the Global Environmental Facility.

The other critical talking point in the New Delhi declaration were the provisions related to debt frameworks and sustainability. The 2023 declaration called for urgently and effectively addressing debt vulnerabilities in developing countries and committed to pursue reforms for better, bigger and more effective systems for MDBs.  Though the meet had taken note of the need of regulating crypto assets, no major steps were announced in that direction, additionally, CBDCs were also given a special mention in emerging fintech solutions. Similarly, digital inclusion of MSMEs, female digital litreacy etc. were also included in bits and pieces in the declaration.

Furthermore, the 2023 declaration made significant strides in digital public infrastructure(DPI), which endorsed the toolkit for financial inclusion and G20 policy recommendations for advancing financial inclusion and productivity gains through digital public infrastructure. In this meeting, India had promised to buld and maintain a global digital public infrastructure, which would be shared voluntarily by G20 members. G20 toolkit on cyber education and awareness on youth was also passed during the meeting.

In hindsight, it can be safely concluded that the New Delhi declaration, actually ended up operating on 1 world and 1 financial system agenda, as it lacked plans for any particular geographical region in particuar which became a key highlight in the immediate next meeting, The second bigger change, was that, the New delhi declaration gave more priority towards sustainable development over macroeconomic issues which marked a significant change of public opinion for the G20, which has long been pointed out as an organisation focusing only on the hardcore economics. These steps, while will increase public participation in G20, but it may end up diluting the core agenda of "financial stability" for which the G20 was formed in the first place 26 years ago.

Comparision Of Johannesburg Declaration Economic Outcomes

In contrast the Johannesburg declaration was different, but it showed a continuity in the G20 agenda that was the main feature of this particular declaration held in Africa this time. The G20 meeting in South Africa was all the more historic as it was the first meeting that was held in Africa.

Disaster resilience was one of the most discussed aspects in the Johannesburg declaration especially in the small island developing countries & the LDCs. This is one point that was in continuation with the New Delhi declaration which institutionalized the G20 Disaster Risk working group as part of the G20 architecture, by arguing that DPR is a permanent G20 priority. The New Delhi version of the meet, also prioritized the support for institutions like CDRI and financing frameworks for DPR, in addition to support for SIDS and LDCs. This is one sub agenda where it can be said that, Johannesburg & New Delhi declarations synced almost perfectly.

A few additions on issues related to disaster management were notable in Johannesburg, which were - G20 Voluntary Principles for Investing in Disaster Risk Reduction, Recovery Readiness Assesment Framework, pushing for universal coverage of UN warning systems by 2027, synergising SFDRR -2030 SDG goals and Paris Agreement, are definitely some of the innovations that have been bought in the Johannesburg decalaraion.

Debt is another topic where the 2, G20 meets showed remarkable continuity, if the 2023 declaration gave the Debt Sustainability Initiative framework, the Johannesburg declaration went a step further by endorsing the G20 Ministerial declaration and supporting the IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) for LICs and understanding debt vulnerabilities more effectively. This is a significant addition as the 2023 version had very little mention of the IMF. This maybe possible, due to,the historically amicable relations with the USA. The inclusion of private sector in debt related conversations is also a topic, which has generated significant interest in the Johannesburg declaration this year. The tradition of continuing the conversation on debt is also critical, because, over the past 4-5 years, global debt has increased massively. The more worrying aspect is that the top 5 world economies have significant debt exposure, which can impact global supply chains and financial integration in the longer run. Since, this is a good start, it must be noted that, in the future G20 must also focus a lot more on the kind of debts that the countries are picking up and maybe creating a dedicated taskforce can help in the longer run. The other innovations in finance related stuff in the Johannesburg declaration is the support to FATF in relation with money laundering is a big differentiator from the New Delhi version, which surprisingly did not speak a lot about it during the meet, though terror financing remains a security achilees heel for the Indian government.

Source - Reuters

The third biggest talking point in both the events was definitely about the issues related to sustainable development, which we have covered in the previous section. However, the Johannesburg declaration actually showed more than continuity towards this issue. The issue of critical minerals has gained rapid currency over the past few years now. The recent meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, Afghanistan allowing Indian access to mine critical minerals in Afghanistan, Balochistan's renewed importance in the critical minerals chessboard, Artic minerals race amongst others can become a very critical reason in the future global supply chains. The critical minerals race, may last longer, as it is a newer commodity that is being used in the economic chains which can play a crucial role for any 1 country to lead a breakthrough and there maybe other countries which can follow suit later on, as suggested in the Schumpeterian trade cycle. The G20 critical minerals framework is a massive step in this direction, though the framework in itself doesn't provide any unique solutions, but its the adoption may pave way for other multilaterals of understanding the importance of critical minerals especially in emerging economies. 

Other points related to sustainable development like - Industrialization labs, G20 food security task force and the addition of recognition of Africa's agricultural potential are some intriguing points that can be great assets towards expansion over this topic. The point to combat land degradation is a very salient & unique feature of the Johannesburg declaration which was not covered in the New Delhi declaration.

Notable Differences

The largest difference between the New Delhi & Johannesburg declarations are the focus areas, while the New Delhi declaration touched on topics that affected the whole of globe, the Johannesburg declaration has focused a little bit disproportionately over African Union related issues, which is understandable as its the first meet conducted in African soil. However, this can give rise to multiple countries starting to raise various sub regional issues in the future G20 meetings, this may end up being unjust towards countries of groupings like BIMSTEC, SCO & ASEAN which have very little representation in the organisation, this would also dilute the "global" image of G20.  

The second difference between the 2 meets, is also, the focus given to job creation, while the New Delhi declaration gave a lot of importance to issues like - skilling & job creation, this is 1 area, which has seen very little mention in the Johannesburg declaration, which maybe slightly disappointing for the academicians. Additionally, in both the declarations, there have been very rare discussions on improving scientific temper, which is becoming a major problem in majority societies today.

Thirdly, the New Delhi declaration had laid  the vision of IMEEC, which has not even found a mention in Johannesburg declaration and neither has the Johannesburg declaration has seen any concrete announcement towards integrating advanced & emerging economies, which should be a massive point of concern for countries of African union, who could have proposed different trade routes in this edition of G20. However, it does seem that, geopolitical issues like Trump tariffs, pushed the African Union leadership to adopt a safer path by not announcing mega deals. Now all eyes, would be towards the USA meet of G20 which would be held sometime in 2027, under the temparamental Trump administration, which may find it hard to get all the 21 partners of G20 on board for a consensus statement, which was done successfully by India and done on a smaller scale by South Africa as a host. 

Overall, the India vs South Africa - G20 declarations were neither a geoeconomic repeat or reset, but was a good example of rare geoeconomic continuity on certain points while have discontinuity on some critical aspects. Now, all eyes of the geoeconomic hawks would shift over to the next round of G20 in the USA. The G20 needs to revisit, recontinue and refurbish some of the critical agendas that are impactful in today's day & world, to make sure that the idea of economic integration is not lost in the forever chaos of geoeconomics & geopolitics, which is the only constant in economics.