Civil society leaders representing more than 3,000 organizations gathered in Pretoria on 6 November to deliver a pointed set of policy demands to G20 leaders: the Civil 20 (C20), led by Chair Thulani Tshefuta and Sherpa Mabalane Mfundisi, unveiled a Political Declaration and Communiqué at a media briefing at Tshedimosetso House that will be tabled ahead of the C20 Summit (12–14 November) and the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg on 22–23 November.
The document, born of consultations across South Africa, the African continent and the Global South, seeks to translate calls for justice and sustainability into concrete finance, governance and technology commitments from the world’s richest economies, and it sets out how civil society intends to hold leaders to account through public reporting and targeted engagement.
The C20’s intervention this month is not symbolic. It arrives at a moment when Africa’s development and climate vulnerabilities intersect with stark global imbalances: the continent is responsible for only a small fraction of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions while bearing a disproportionate share of climate impacts and development gaps.
Recent data show Africa accounts for roughly 3.6–4 percent of global energy-related CO₂ emissions, yet its exposure to climate shocks, energy poverty and constrained public finances means the costs of adaptation and a just transition fall heavily on African societies. That asymmetry is the practical problem the C20 asks G20 leaders to tackle, not as abstract morality but as a macroeconomic and geopolitical imperative.
The numbers anchor the argument. Africa receives an estimated 2 percent of global climate finance, a mismatch against need that civil society groups argue must be redressed through scaled-up public flows, reformed multilateral lending and measurable targets for private finance mobilization. The Landscape of Climate Finance in Africa shows adaptation still takes a higher share of Africa’s climate finance than in other regions, about 32 percent in recent years, but overall volumes remain inadequate and concentrated in a handful of countries and projects. For communities on the frontline, this shortfall is not an abstract figure: it means fewer flood defenses, weaker early warning systems, and less support for climate-resilient agriculture when harvests fail.
Energy access and household energy transitions are the practical terrain where justice and sustainability collide. Nearly three quarters of the people globally who lack clean cooking live in Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa alone accounts for an overwhelming share of those left behind by modern energy systems.
Tracking SDG7 data indicate that in 2023 roughly 565 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lacked access to electricity, and millions more rely on biomass and kerosene for cooking, a condition that drives indoor air pollution, time poverty (largely among women and girls), deforestation and local emissions. For civil society, the demand is clear: G20 commitments must include finance and logistics for distributed clean energy, mini-grids, household solar systems and subsidies for clean cooking fuels, coupled with measures to guarantee affordability and local manufacturing.
What would that look like in practice?
The C20’s communiqué asks for predictable, grant-based finance for adaptation in the hardest-hit countries and for binding mechanisms to mobilize private capital without offloading risk onto low-income borrowers.
It presses for debt relief and debt-for-climate swaps that free fiscal space for social and green investments in countries where debt servicing eats a disproportionate share of government budgets. It asks that technology transfer be operationalized: not just concessional loans for a few flagship solar farms, but straightforward licensing, capacity building and industrial policies that allow African countries to scale local manufacturing of components, from panels to clean cookstoves. These measures, civil society insists, are what turn commitments on paper into jobs, resilient schools and irrigated fields on the ground.
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The regional implications are uneven and visible. Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia have made demonstrable progress with off-grid solar and industrial policy incentives; South Africa has the manufacturing base and research institutions to be a continental hub for green industry; yet large countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria face institutional and infrastructure bottlenecks that blunt the impact of outside capital.
The C20 stresses that a one-size-fits-all approach will fail: finance structures and technical assistance must be tailored to governance contexts and distributed so smaller economies are not bypassed by bilateral deals that channel funds through larger capitals.
Accountability is the final, practical hinge. Civil society does not ask for empty pledges but for measurable, time-bound commitments with transparent reporting. That includes disaggregated data on climate finance flows, public registers of debt relief terms, and metrics on local job creation and gender impacts.
For African activists, the power of the C20 lies in translating global negotiation language into yardsticks communities can use: how many schools were climate-proofed? how many households switched to clean cooking? how many megawatts of distributed renewable generation were deployed in rural districts?
As the G20 prepares to meet on African soil, the C20’s intervention reframes the summit’s motto of solidarity, equality and sustainability into an operational question: will the major economies accept responsibility for reshaping global finance and trade rules so Africa’s low emissions are not rewarded with perpetual vulnerability?
