Africa has recently played host to two major international summits. Under South Africa’s presidency, Johannesburg played host to the 2025 Group of 20 (G20) summit and under Angola’s chair of the continental body, the African Union (AU), Luanda was the stage for the 7th AU and European Union summit.

Despite minor differences in the issues they cover, they share major convergence on the major themes the agenda of the two summits covered.

The G20 summit, held for the first time on African soil under the theme ‘Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability,’ focused on issues of particular interest to developing countries, particularly in Africa.

This can be seen from the broad thematic areas that the G20 presidency advanced: Debt reform, climate resilience, inclusive development, and a more democratic global governance system.

’With at least 25 African states in debt distress and at least three of them defaulting on their debt payment, the debt crisis is one the most pressing issues of particular concern for Africa that was at the centre of the G20 summit agenda.

According to the African Development Bank, African countries spent $163 billion on debt service in 2024 alone. Despite having lower debt-to-GDP ratio than G7 countries, African governments spend on average 18 percent of all revenue just on interest payments, which is up to six times more than G7/EU countries.

As President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa observed in his opening of the summit, the “G20 needs to renew its efforts to advance debt sustainability, with a particular emphasis on African countries.”The Leaders Declaration did not downplay or shy away from acknowledging the gravity and adverse developmental consequences of the debt crisis.

Thus, it recognised that “a high level of debt is one of the obstacles to inclusive growth in many developing economies, which limits their ability to invest in infrastructure, disaster resilience, healthcare, education and other development needs.”By contrast, the 7th AU-EU Summit adopted a more reluctant framing, potentially downplaying the cost of debt destress. It thus stated that “high level of debt can be an obstacle to inclusive growth and “may limit their ability to invest in infrastructure, disaster resilience, healthcare, education and other development needs.”While the G20 recognised high level of debt as factually being an obstacle to inclusive growth, the AU-EU summit declaration used “can be” and “may,” casting uncertainty about whether high-level debt carries such consequences for affected countries. There is, however, little doubt that debt is, to use the words of President Ramaphosa, “stifling public spending and economic growth.

”Both G20 and AU-EU summits fell short of adopting robust measures that address the structural conditions embedded in the international financial order that create cyclic debt distress, including those advanced in the joint Namibia-Amani Africa High-level Panel of Experts on Africa and the Reform of the Multilateral System and the AU’s Common African Position on debt, and the proposal for a UN framework convention on sovereign debt.

”The tale of the two summits indicates that the observation that the G20 summit “appears to generate more excitement in Africa than the AU-EU summit” was not without merit.

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