By: Alice Aryeetey/Starrfm.com.gh
South African President and 2025 G20 President, Cyril Ramaphosa has issued a blunt challenge to the world’s most powerful nations and corporations to respect the sovereignty of African nations and stop treating Africa as an outsider.
This follows recent U.S. threats under President Trump to boycott South Africa’s G20 events, impose sanctions, and potentially wreck the Johannesburg Summit over Pretoria’s independent foreign policy, its ICJ case against Israel, and land-reform legislation.
Coming just days after the U.S skipped key ministerial meetings and amplified discredited claims of “white genocide,” President Ramaphosa’s sharp demand that Africa’s sovereignty be respected and that the continent finally be “allowed in the room” seems to be a direct response to a rapidly escalating confrontation with the incoming Trump G20 administration, which many believe has openly treated African nations as subordinates rather than equals.
“We are told as developing countries – particularly in the Global South, that we need rule of law, we need to embrace values, we need good governance. But in recent times we have seen how those who teach us these laws and values are the very ones violating and destroying those values”, President Ramaphosa said.
The South African president wondered why African countries are mostly sidelined. “We are sovereign countries. We need to be treated as equals. Our sovereignty needs to be respected. We need to sit around the table as equals. We are not even allowed in the room.”, he stated.
Speaking to hundreds of CEOs and business leaders gathered in Johannesburg, Ramaphosa declared that Africa is no longer the “hopeless continent” once splashed across magazine covers. “Africa is on the rise,” he said, pointing to the continent’s fastest-growing economies, its youngest population, critical minerals for the green economy, and the game-changing African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA); which is a single market of 1.4 billion people.
Cyril Ramaphosa is urging G20 leaders to invest in infrastructure and industry and in the people of Africa, to be able to realise the G20’s mission of fostering a more stable and prosperous world.
“Africa’s growth calls for a massive increase in finance for climate action and a just transition, and for decisive action on debt sustainability. Many African countries cannot invest in their people or infrastructure because of the crushing cost of debt servicing. Removing this burden will unleash the potential of our economies,” he said.
Ramaphosa welcomed the new report of the Africa Expert Panel on debt and the cost of capital, and praised the B20 for producing detailed, actionable recommendations to unlock investment while positioning Africa as the next frontier of global production, commerce, and innovation.
As South Africa prepares to hand over the G20 presidency to the United States, President Cyril Ramaphosa left the global business community with a clear message that the world’s future growth engine is African but only if Africa is finally allowed inside the room where decisions are made, as an equal partner, and not a charity case.
