03.10.2025
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South Africa formally hands over P20 Summit baton to US

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  • Speaker of the National Assembly, Thoko Didiza

South Africa and the US have agreed to formally hand over the baton of the 11th G20 Parliamentary Speakers’ Summit agreements to the American embassy in Pretoria. This has emerged at the conclusion of the P20 summit held at the Arabella Golf Estate in Hermanus, Western Cape.

Different nations, under the G20, had gathered for the event to deliberate on various global issues of concern. The next country to host the summit is the US. This was the first P20 summit to be held on African soil in the forum’s history.

Closing the event officially, Speaker of the National Assembly, Thoko Didiza, said the consensus between the US and South Africa was reached amicably. Didiza said US delegates from Congress had to rush back home due to the shutdown in their country after the stalemate on the budgetary issues in that country.

According to Didiza, there was an understanding on the matter of handing over the resolution made in South Africa, given the circumstances the delegates from the US have found themselves in.

“We actually had four members of the US who were part of the conference in the beginning, but there were challenges, as you know, that they are going through the shutdown as a result of no agreement on the budget, so they had to go back home. We have agreed with the United States that we will hand over to their embassy in Pretoria, here in South Africa.”

Some of the aspects of the declaration made at the 11th G20 Summit, according to the Speaker, include the continuation of parliamentary diplomacy among the nations.

“As this forum actual let me say that there was a lot of support and afirmation of the need for parliamentary diplomacy in actual addressing the issues of climate change particularly how to mobilise climate finance and hold our governments accountable particulalry the committmments that they have made on financing climate change mitigating issues and now you as parliamentarians its now of the issues that we think its important we need to continue to advocate for and ensure that thosecommittmments that countries have made are realised.”

Some of the decisions taken in this summit will form part of the upcoming G20 meeting in November here in South Africa.

“Yes, these are issues we are taking to the global summit, particularly on strengthening solidarity and how we could create spaces for dialogue towards attainment and peace. So, almost all the delegates acknowledged the importance of dialogue towards the achievement of global peace. Those are the issues that we will be taking to the leader summit, as I said earlier, issues that relate to women empowerment, issues that relate to youth participation, and increase participation of youth in decision-making, particularly in our parliaments,” Didiza explained.

The European Parliament has described the hosting of the summit in South Africa as a success. Vice-President of the EU Parliament, Christel Schaldemose, said that the EU legislature they are satisfied with the diplomatic approach used by the legislative arm in South Africa.

“I really think it has been a fantastic P20. South Africa is a really wonderful, beautiful country. But we hope that we have done plenty of work to ensure that good discussions, that also we have a lot of countries that are not part of the G20 that…so a lot of regional parliaments, and also that some of the African countries that are not part of the G20 were here.”

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