G20 Summit Opens in South Africa Amidst Challenges

The first Group of 20 summit to be held in Africa opened Saturday with a sweeping agenda aimed at making progress on solving some of the persistent challenges facing the world’s poorest nations.

Leaders and top government officials from the richest and leading emerging economies came together at an exhibition center near the famous Soweto township in South Africa, once home to Nelson Mandela, to try and find some consensus on the priorities set out by the host country.

Many of South Africa’s priorities for the group, including a focus on climate change and its impact on developing countries, have met resistance from the United States, which is boycotting the talks.

South Africa, which sets the agenda as the country holding the rotating presidency, wants leaders to agree to more help for poor countries to recover from climate-related disasters, reduce their foreign debt burdens, transition to green energy sources and take advantage of their own critical mineral wealth – all in an attempt to counter widening global inequality.

“We’ll see,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on weather the G-20 could prioritize developing world countries and make meaningful reforms. “but I think south Africa has done its part in putting those things clearly upon the table.”

The two-day summit will take place without the world’s biggest economy after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a U.S.boycott of the summit over his claims that South Africa is pursuing racist anti-white policies and persecuting its Afrikaner white minority.

The Trump governance has also made clear its opposition to South Africa’s G-20 agenda from the start of the year, when South Africa began hosting G-20 meetings. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipped a G-20 foreign ministers meeting in February,calling the agenda focused on diversity,equity and inclusion and climate change.

Rubio said he would not spend American taxpayers’ money on that.