Address by Minister Mauro Vieira at the Opening of the Seminar the "Handover from G20 Brazil Presidency to G20 South Africa Presidency"

Good morning. It is an honor and a pleasure to host you here at Itamaraty Palace, just a couple days after the successful conclusion of the Brazilian G20 Presidency, with the objective of sharing our experience during this intense and important year for the Brazilian Foreign Policy.

President Lula himself has instructed me to hold this seminar, in which we will be able to hear from our G20 teams the main aspects of their work during our presidency of the Group. Today, we will talk about the main challenges we faced both during the conception and the execution of the myriad of activities that presiding a block such as the G20 entails.

We will also share with you what experiences and initiatives we believe could be built upon by the South African Presidency and also hear from you questions and insights about the way South Africa intends to lead the G20 in 2025.

We do so with the utmost certainty that being succeeded by South African in the G20 presidency is an asset for the Developing World. In this regard, Brazil, now as a member of the Troika, will be able to lend all the support to South Africa’s initiatives and to help you in any possible way to push forward the priorities of the Global South.

The very moto chosen by the South African presidency, in and on itself, is a testimony of our shared goals: Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability.

We feel, therefore, your presidency will be able to build on what we have achieved in 2024 and enhance and expand the voice of the Global South in the G20.

Dear Minister Lamola,

As you know, the Brazilian G20 Presidency had three priorities: (1) social inclusion and the fight against hunger and poverty; (2) energy transitions and sustainable development; and (3) the reform of global governance institutions.

Those priorities were set by President Lula in his speech at the New Delhi G20 Summit in September 2023. From that moment, President Lula tasked our team with a very clear, although very difficult job: to come up with concrete, straightforward and result-oriented initiatives for each of these priorities. His aim was to be able to deliver, at the end of the Brazilian presidency, projects that could be easily explained to all citizens and that could make a real impact on their lives.

With this goal in mind, we worked on the conception of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, which we proudly launched during the Rio Summit with more than 160 founding members.

We have also been able to adopt the Call to Action on the Reform of Global Governance during our Second Foreign Ministers Meeting, held for the first time ever at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and open to the participation of all its member and permanent observer States.

We were more than pleased to see that most of its language has been incorporated into the G20 Rio de Janeiro Leader´s Declaration, what will certainly help us to push even forward the reform agenda.

Finally, the Task Force on the Global Mobilization against Climate Change and its action-oriented outcome documents provided a clear example of integration between the Sherpa and the Finance tracks – a much needed connection that was long overdue.

To mention the Finance Track, under the competent leadership of Minister Fernando Haddad, the Brazilian G20 Presidency managed not only to help the Finance Ministers and Central Banks Governors to regain their ability to issue joint communiqués, but also to agree on important new documents, such as the Rio de Janeiro G20 Ministerial Declaration on International Tax Cooperation, which includes a reference to the taxation of ultra-high-net-worth individuals. 

Additionally, the Engagement Groups representing civil society organized approximately 50 additional meetings, including the impactful G20 Social Summit held in Rio de Janeiro. We take great pride in noting that 74 of the recommendations presented by the Engagement Groups were incorporated into the Ministerial Declarations, emphasizing the meaningful role of civil society in shaping global decision-making.

In this regard, allow me to highlight that the immense engagement of organized civil society and the significant popular participation during the G20 Social Summit shows that it is indeed possible to open the G20 to our population.

As President Ramaphosa mentioned during his speech at the handover ceremony two days ago, we are sure that South Africa will be able to further develop this new branch of the G20 meetings and engage domestic and international civil society in the discussions of your presidency’s priorities.

In sum, under the Brazilian Presidency, 12 out of the 15 Sherpa Track working groups successfully issued ministerial declarations. This milestone, the first since 2021 due to the conflict in Ukraine, was achieved through dedicated diplomatic efforts to foster consensus among members, culminating in the adoption of the G20 Rio de Janeiro Leaders Declaration a couple days ago, which incorporated and consolidated, at the highest level, language contained in all ministerial declarations previously issued.

All these achievements were all based in the hard work of our Sherpa´s team, whose dedication through many hours of drafting sessions and negotiations, often until late in the night, led us to the much-needed consensus in the debates.  

Dear Minister Lamola,

Dear colleagues,

Let me also mention that no substantive outcomes would have been possible without the enormous efforts of our logistics team. Over the course of our presidency, we convened 134 meetings, comprising 110 at the technical level and 24 at the ministerial level.

The G20 meetings took place across all five regions of Brazil, spanning 15 cities nationwide and 8 international locations. Altogether, we welcomed around 26,000 national and international delegates, exemplifying the G20’s commitment to inclusivity and broad representation.

Effective communication was also a cornerstone of our efforts. We hosted 196 press conferences, accrediting 2,740 media professionals. For the G20 Summit, more than 2,000 journalists from across the globe joined us, along with hundreds more for the Social Summit.

To date, approximately 18,000 articles on the G20 have been published in the national press, complemented by 2,300 in the international press, demonstrating the event’s extensive global reach.

These accomplishments were made possible through the collaboration of 35 federal ministries and agencies, alongside state and municipal governments, and invaluable partnerships with civil society organizations.

Dear Minister,

To conclude, allow me to whish you and your delegation a very productive meeting today. I hope the different panels, encompassing issues from the Sherpa and Finance Tracks, the G20 Social, the communication´s plan and the logistics aspects of our Presidency, can help South Africa to be ready to deliver an even better outcome at the end of 2025. You can count on us for that.

Thank you very much.

I now give the floor to Minister Ronald Lamola to deliver his remarks.