G20 confronts colonial and gendered power

It must address the lived realities of intersecting oppressions

- ITUMELENG MOTHOAGAE

HEALTH Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi addresses the G20 Health Ministers, advocating for Universal Health Coverage.

(Supplied)

SOUTH Africa's 2025 presidency of the G20 marks a historic juncture, offering a compelling opportunity to reframe global economic governance around the principles of “Solidarity, Equality, and Sustainability.” However, to fully engage with and challenge the profound structural inequities at play requires a critical intersectional analysis, one that situates gender and the reemergence of hypermasculinity within the broader regimes of necropolitics and coloniality, while also interrogating the aspirations and limitations of reparative utopia.

Gender is foundational to understanding both the persistent inequalities embedded in global economic systems and the renewed challenges posed by shifting geopolitical landscapes. Within South Africa’s G20 agenda, the Women20 (W20) platform exemplifies a vital effort to mainstream gender equality as a core economic and social imperative, embedding values such as the Ubuntu/Botho philosophy and principles to reframe solidarity in collective and relational terms.