Manuel to head G20 expert panel on Africa

Carol Paton - Former South African finance minister Trevor Manuel will head the G20 Africa Expert Panel, which will advise G20 leaders on how best to deal with the social and economic needs of the continent. The Africa Expert Panel is a key initiative of SA's presidency of the G20, which began on 1 December. South African finance minister Enoch Gondongwana briefed journalists after two days of work by the G20 Finance Track meeting in Johannesburg this week. The Finance Track includes the finance ministers, the central bank governors of the G20 countries, and their "deputies" or government representatives, who do the technical work and drafting. The G20 is the key institution in managing global financial stability.FocusSA will focus its presidency—the first by an African country—on Africa and, in particular, on addressing the growing debt crisis on the continent and in parts of the developing world. According to SA's G20 concept note, the debt stock of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, grew from US$425.8 billion in 2012 to US$815.7 billion in 2021.The G20 has a long history of debt relief initiatives for low-income countries. But, despite these, the developing world's debt problem has continued to grow and was further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. In November 2020, the G20 launched the Common Framework for Debt Treatments as a mechanism for low-income countries to restructure their debt. InsufficientGodongwana said, however, that the Common Framework was insufficient to address the debt problems facing various countries. In his opening remarks to the G20 finance track meeting on Wednesday, he said that while SA would continue to focus on improving it, it was also necessary "to acknowledge that debt sustainability cannot be solved through the Common Framework alone"."It must be solved through a focus on putting in place the measures for countries to make the right investments and undertake appropriate reforms to support sustainable and inclusive economic growth," he said.UN secretary-general António Guterres recently appointed Manuel to an UN expert group charged to galvanise action around the unprecedented debt crisis facing developing countries. Godongwana said that Manuel's appointment to the Expert Africa Panel would create synergy between the work of the UN and that of the G20 on the debt problem. - Fin24

Manuel to head G20 expert panel on Africa

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Namibian Sun 2025-08-07

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Manuel to head G20 expert panel on Africa

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Namibian Sun 2025-08-07

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