Africa and the G20: A relational view of African agency in global governance

ABSTRACT

An analysis of the Group of 20 (G20) agenda with reference to Africa reveals that the region has received mixed attention across presidencies, underpinned by broad partnership initiatives such as the G20 Africa Partnership (Hamburg Summit). Calling for enhanced and concretised African engagement in G20 processes, this article analyses the potential collective agency of Africa in the G20 shaped by interactions with a range of actors, processes and the specific political and historical contexts that have framed its role and identity in relationship with the G20. Through a relational view of global governance, two case studies provide valuable insights into nascent understandings of the disposition and emergence of African agency in the G20, namely the Africa Global Partnership Platform (AGPP) and the Think 20 Africa Standing Group.

Introduction

This article proceeds from the conceptual framework of relationalism as a useful tool in unpacking the complex, multidimensional aspects of global governance. The multifaceted layers of interdependence, competition and cooperation at the heart of global politics increasingly point to a plurality of actors in global governance beyond the state, including international organisations, corporations, civil society and non-governmental organisations. Similarly, a look at the various kinds of interactions among new and established actors, influenced by shifting dynamics of power, interests, ideas and structural changes, reinforces the point that ‘governance is not a solo act’ and the view of relationships as the essence of global politics.¹ In light of the unpredictable and complex design of global governance, actors are not just passive entities within global structures but are active agents who engage in processes that are ‘political, dynamic and transformational’.² Taking part in agenda-setting, rule-making, implementing and evaluating outcomes, these agents of global governance can be termed ‘global governors’ who divide labour, delegate, compete and cooperate with one another in a range of ways. By conceptualising the agency of these global governors in dynamic and processual terms, a relational perspective broadens the concept of agency beyond the state and emphasises the processes in which agency emerges, rather than substantialising interests and outcomes of actors based on a priori assumptions of their agency.³

A relational perspective of global governance

In international relations (IR) theory, relationalism is made up of related theories that draw on the theoretical and analytical primacy of relations among entities. Premised on the rejection of substantialism, which builds on the presumption that entities precede interaction, relationalism takes relational configurations as the fundamental unit of analysis.⁴ Building on sociology from the work of Mustafa Emirbayer and Charles Tilly,⁵ Patrick Jackson and Daniel Nexon⁶ advance relationalism in IR theory centred on the concept of processual relationalism, specifying how dynamic and ongoing processes give rise to both actors and the environments in which they are situated. A relational approach to world politics frames agency and actors in ‘trans-actional’ rather than ‘self-actional’ terms, which views things as ‘as acting under their own powers’.⁷ From a ‘trans-actional’ perspective, relations have ontological primacy and interactions between social actors are mutually constitutive in the sense that the terms or units involved in a transaction derive meaning, significance and identity from the changing roles within that transaction.⁸ In other words, ‘to be relational is to be transactional’ and actorness is couched in contextual interactions over time which give rise to causality and subjectivity.⁹

By endogenising the creation of actors into understandings of global politics, a relational ontology underscores the processes in which agency emerges in relational configurations, rather than substantialising the outcomes of these processes.¹⁰ Pertinent to global governance, the emergence of new entities as global governors, the transactional character of their agency and their interactions in context can be seen as relational configurations. These configurations are patterns of ties and processes defined by actors with ‘agent properties’ and the processes that connect them which in turn ‘constitute and determine their ability to affect outcomes’.¹¹ Hence, if we are to agree that actors’ engagement in various configurations continually change their dispositions, interpretations and beliefs and the overall configuration, then the ‘very nature of global governance lends itself to relationalism’.¹² Relationalism allows us to theoretically consider potential agency in global governance, to reconstruct the processes that shape the emergence and diffusion of agency, to theorise these processes in terms of implications for governance, and to assess them in normative terms.¹³ As global governors interact via formal and informal governance activities (such as competition, cooperation and delegation), different actors become global governors at different stages of the governance cycle.

As an informal governance forum, the G20 exemplifies a specific form of global governance known as ‘global summitry’ which involves ‘the architecture, institutions, and most critically the political and policy behaviour of the actors engaged in the influence of outcomes of common concern in the international system’.¹⁴ The notion of global summitry bears directly on global policymaking, in the sense that the G20 has evolved as a global governor, increasingly taking on a broad range of global and transnational issues across economic, financial and social spheres. Moreover, the emergence of the G20 is reflective of the multidirectional and multifaceted shifts in the global arena including the changing patterns of economic and security interdependence, the proliferation and diversification of actors, the changing status of states and the preponderance of emerging powers and shifts in polarity – all pointing to the gradual transformation of the liberal order. Acharya¹⁵ labels this emerging post-hegemonic order ‘a multiplex world’, characterised by interconnectedness, interdependence and complex, crosscutting international orders and ‘globalisms’. Conceptualising the G20 as global summitry frames it as a ‘process’ involving a web of actors working below the leaders’ summit, including an array of public and private networks, ministers, sherpas, international organisations and transnational policy and regulatory networks.¹⁶

Going back to the concept of global governors, approaching the G20 as a site of complex relational configurations brings to the fore key questions around the nature of relations, how actors become recognised as governors, and how interactions shift as actors engage and disengage on various issues. In these ever-changing configurations, governance is not value-neutral and is shaped by normative agendas, which actors advance in shaping policy outcomes. By re-visioning global governance through the lens of power in its varied dimensions, attention is drawn to structures, processes and social interactions that shape the interplay between actors as well as to the workings of power in influencing their identities, values and preferences.¹⁷ The coupling of power and global governance leads to a critical engagement on broader issues of authority, legitimacy and accountability as pivotal aspects of global politics, as well as on the relations among governors and between the governors and the governed.¹⁸

While the establishment and evolution of the G20 has demonstrated positive movement towards an inclusive global economic governance agenda, the selective and exclusive nature of membership of the G20 has been a major sticking point for non-member states. The projection of the G20 as a ‘crisis committee’ in response to the 2008–2009 global financial crisis provided a considerable degree of international legitimacy in view of policy coordination and consensus building on common systemic challenges.¹⁹ However, inherent in the G20’s design – by virtue of its club governance format – is a trade-off between input and output legitimacy. Criticisms of the G20’s membership by non-members have focused on gaps in its representation; these critics see inclusivity sacrificed in the name of efficiency and effectiveness. Furthermore, the expansion of the G20 agenda to include non-economic issues such as climate change, terrorism, food security and global health, among others, has increased the demand for accountability and transparency in terms of delivering impact and outcomes among global publics.²⁰

The interrelated issues of legitimacy and effectiveness are of critical importance for the G20’s relevance and success as a global governor. In an era of engaged pluralism and de-centred global policymaking, this means that the G20 will have to adapt accordingly to the trends of regionalism and decentralisation, with implications for its working methods, processes and agency in the international arena. In response to calls for more inclusion, the G20 has adopted an outreach strategy to invite guests to its meetings, engaging a range of engagement groups including think tanks (T20), business (B20), labour unions (L20), civil society (C20) and women's organisations (W20). Notwithstanding gradual transformations, the persistent normative and political critiques about the G20’s legitimacy, effectiveness and representativeness affirm Acharya’s²¹ observation that ‘the demand for global governance will remain robust, but we should expect a further fragmentation of its architecture and agency’.

In managing its projected transition from a crisis committee to a steering committee in global economic governance, as well as to attending to the legitimacy challenge, the G20 has embraced a multi-level outreach strategy targeting non-member countries, international and regional organisations and domestic stakeholders. Each G20 presidency determines the invitees to the summit, although it has become custom to invite the chairs of regional organisations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), two African countries – those states chairing the African Union (AU) and the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) – plus Spain (a permanent guest) and two other guests at the discretion of the host country. For instance, during the 2017 Hamburg Summit, Germany invited Norway, the Netherlands and Singapore as partner countries while the 2018 Argentine presidency reached out to Chile, the Netherlands and Jamaica (as 2018 chair of the Caribbean community). The ad hoc nature of the G20 outreach process raises a number of questions, including the impact of outreach strategies on enhancing its legitimacy, accountability and effectiveness in global policymaking and deliberations.²²

Given the complex and interconnected global setting, a relational perspective enables us to empirically investigate how and why new actors emerge, to reject a priori assumptions on the substance of agency and to understand how entities become recognised in specific contexts.²³ Relevant to the focus of this article on G20–Africa relations, Africa’s engagement as an actor in the G20 process is ‘something to be explained rather than to be assumed’.²⁴ Thus the exercise of Africa’s collective agency and its potential to become an effective global governor has to be viewed as an ‘essentially contingent phenomenon’, drawing on ‘historically specific combinations, configurations and situational enactments’.²⁵ Two cases are relevant in extricating the pluralisation of agency in the context of G20 engagement with Africa. The first case interrogates the African Global Partnership Forum as a case of regionalised G20 outreach. Second, as an example of G20 engagement with transnational policy networks, the Think 20 (T20) and specifically the T20 Africa Standing Group will be analysed in the context of the G20 outreach strategy.

Theorising agency in global governance

Reiterating relationalism’s contention about IR scholars’ tendency to substantialise agency and their reliance on anecdotes which take agency for granted, a relational ontology emphasises the need to theorise agency and to analyse its origins in relations. Theorising agency in relational terms opens up the discourse on who should exercise agency in global governance and what is the character of that agency. Drawing on work within and outside of IR, Hoffersberth²⁶ outlines a useful framework outlining agency based on the three dispositions of efficacy, corporeality and intentionality. Agency as efficacy implies the capability to influence other actors, the social structures around them and the processes in which they are engaged. This ability to effect social change is not a given but is contingent on ‘potentiality’ and gradual components.²⁷ Secondly, as corporeality, agency has to be embedded in time and space, connecting the actors with their environment through organised representation.²⁸ Thirdly, agency has to have ‘intentionality’, or the ability to link meaning to ‘purposive action’ in the intentional pursuit of aims.²⁹

Contrasting substantialist accounts of agency with relational approaches, Hoffersberth³⁰ avers that relationalism presents an alternative conceptual device to unfold each disposition of agency in terms of the ontological primacy of relations. Hence while substantialism ‘seeks to understand relations in terms of selves’, relationalism considers ‘selves in terms of relations’.³¹ For the study of global governance, the utilisation of relationalism as an approach is based on the staking of ‘theoretical wagers’ in which the distinction between relational and non-relational approaches is not fixed but informed by heuristics and ‘floating conceptualisations’ of social theory.³² Theorising agency in a relational framework enables us to think of global governance in new ways beyond the orthodox dualisms of social and political science. In terms of practical implications, this flexibility allows for an engaged pluralism on agency informed by the past, oriented towards the future and looking at the present within situational contingencies.³³ The relational approach allows knowledge to be aimed at both shared understanding and joint transformation, making a crucial contribution to analysing complex, volatile and unpredictable world politics.

With this framework in mind, before discussing the ways in which African agency has been shaped in the context of the G20–Africa partnership, it is important to provide a tour d’horizon of the evolution of interactions between the G20 and Africa.

Overview of G20’s engagement with Africa over a decade: 2009–2019

Africa has been one focus of the G20’s efforts since the G8–G20 transition in 2009, premised on the gradual cognisance of Africa’s importance to several economies and the incorporation of a developmental agenda alongside the G20’s core agenda, which was at that time macroeconomic stability and financial regulation. Beginning with the G20 Pittsburgh Summit in September 2009, the G20 Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth focused on (1) consensus on shared policy objectives, (2) assessing the collective implications of national policy frameworks and (3) agreeing on actions to meet common objectives.³⁴ The G20’s focus on development was formalised in the creation of the Development Working Group (DWG) at the June 2010 Toronto Summit, drawing on the G20 leaders’ commitment to ‘narrow the development gap and reduce poverty’ as part of the group’s ‘broader objective of achieving strong, sustainable and balanced growth and ensuring a more robust and resilient global economy for all’.³⁵ The 2010 Toronto Summit also marked the first time that the AU attended the G20 summit, building up to the adoption of the Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth which is comprised of a multi-year action plan to add value to and complement the G20’s development-focused commitments. The Seoul Development Consensus pinpointed nine areas for policy coordination and action: infrastructure, private investment and job creation, human resource development, trade, financial inclusion, resilient growth, food security, domestic resource mobilisation and knowledge sharing.³⁶ Notably, at the Seoul Summit, G20 leaders agreed to include two African countries among the five non-member invitees to G20 summits.³⁷ Following the Seoul Development Consensus, the 2011 Summit in Cannes emphasised the Action Plan on Price Volatility and Agriculture and its support for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) food security initiative, NEPAD’s initiative to integrate risk management in agricultural policies, and the commissioning of a G20 high-level panel to facilitate increased investment for infrastructure development projects in Africa.³⁸

The 2012 Los Cabos Summit Declaration³⁹ did not include new Africa-focused commitments, but made reference to the 2011 Action Plan on Price Volatility and Agriculture while taking note of the food insecurity crisis in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. At the 2013 St Petersburg Summit, the Russian presidency continued with the prioritisation of food security on nutrition and streamlined the G20’s purview of development into thematic issues. These were food security; infrastructure; financial inclusion and human resource development; inclusive green growth; and domestic resource mobilisation.⁴⁰ The St Petersburg Summit also saw the completion of the Assessment of Project Preparation Facilities (PPFs) for Infrastructure in Africa, which paved the way for the Africa50 Fund, launched in November 2008 by the African Development Bank (AfDB) to leverage increased pooling of capital from public and private sources for infrastructure development in Africa.⁴¹ The 2014 Brisbane Summit continued with the development priorities as articulated under the Russian presidency. Those relevant to Africa were, namely, infrastructure development, food security, domestic resource mobilisation, financial inclusion and tax evasion.⁴²

The 2015 Antalya Summit⁴³ marked the first ever meeting of the G20 members’ energy ministers and the adoption of the documents entitled G20 Energy Access Action: Voluntary Collaboration on Energy Access, as well as the G20 Toolkit of Voluntary Options on Renewable Energy Development and the G20 Energy Access Plan for Sub-Saharan Africa.⁴⁴

The 2016 G20 Hangzhou Summit presented increased engagement with Africa, launching the G20 Initiative on Supporting Industrialisation in Africa and Least Developed Countries and endorsing the G20 Action Plan on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on financing for Development.⁴⁵ According to van Staden and Sidiropoulos,⁴⁶ the elevation of Africa on the G20 agenda during China’s presidency has to be viewed alongside China’s own burgeoning geostrategic agenda in Africa, through initiatives such as the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the Belt and Road Initiative.⁴⁷ This complementary approach was reflected in the 2018 Beijing Action Plan (2019–2021) from FOCAC, which outlined eight major initiatives to foster China–Africa cooperation.⁴⁸ Consequently, the focus on cooperation with Africa under China’s G20 presidency was on industrialisation, broadly underpinned by the alignment of African development priorities to the group’s strategic approach to sustainable development and also the incorporation of references to extant African development blueprints.⁴⁹ In this vein, van Staden and Sidiropoulos assert that ‘the Industrialization Initiative offered the most comprehensive G20 vision of African development yet and opened the door to more intensive cooperation between the body and the continent’.⁵⁰

The focus on partnership with Africa was carried over into the 2017 G20 presidency under Germany, arguably influenced by a tumultuous global political and economic landscape characterised by a looming trade war between the world’s largest trade powers, waves of isolationist and populist movements across several countries and a migrant crisis across the Mediterranean Sea, resulting in an influx of asylum seekers and refugees into Europe. In this context, the German presidency of the G20 put forward a reinvigorated African focus leading to the adoption of the G20 Africa Partnership which was made up of a number of initiatives such as the G20 Initiative for Rural Youth Employment, #eSkills4Girls, the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative and continued implementation of the Energy Access Action Plan for Sub-Saharan Africa.⁵¹ Notably, for the first time in the history of the G20, Africa-specific initiatives were included in the Finance Track, specifically the Compact with Africa (CwA) which is aimed at promoting private investment and conducive business environments through investment compacts with interested African countries. At the core of the CwA is a focus on improving the macroeconomic, business and financing frameworks for private investment through cooperation between international organisations, the G20 and a range of stakeholders to support member countries in line with their national priority areas and reform measures for implementation of country-specific compacts. The CwA is characterised as demand-driven and premised on an African-owned reform agenda, with major benefits for private sector investments and intensive technical assistance from development partners and international organisations.⁵² For all the flare around its novelty, the CwA has been criticised for its unsuitability for low-income African countries with regard to its neoliberal underpinnings, its blindness to the primacy of educational and vocational programmes propping up investment projects, and its tendency to ignore investment-linked risks to the environment and livelihoods.⁵³

The 2018 G20 summit under Argentina’s presidency did not re-invent the wheel with reference to the Partnership with Africa, opting to build on the Africa-specific initiatives spearheaded by the Chinese and German presidencies. The priorities of the future of work, infrastructure for development and a sustainable food future resonated with Argentina’s intention to utilise its presidency as a conduit for Latin America and the Caribbean and Global South perspectives in the G20. In the course of its presidency, the outreach strategy employed by Argentine Sherpa Pedro Villagra Delgado (particularly his personal visits to Addis Ababa and Johannesburg) resulted in consultations with a broad range of stakeholders including think tanks, civil society groups, business representatives, African government representatives and AU officials on incorporating African voices in the G20 Partnership with Africa.⁵⁴ Argentina’s commitment to deepening G20 engagement with Africa was also evident in the invitation to Rwanda, as the AU Chair, and Senegal, representing NEPAD, to critical meetings in the lead-up to the summit.⁵⁵

The 2019 summit in Osaka focused on the priorities set out by Japan’s presidency, namely, infrastructure development, fiscal sustainability, and investment in human capital underpinned by people-centred development and adequate policy responses to ageing populations. These issues are equally important for Africa, in addition to the focus on universal health care policies, women’s development and skills development in a digital age. There were also initiatives to bridge the infrastructure financing gap by promoting infrastructure investments and the imperative of an effective and robust global governance architecture to address global challenges.⁵⁶ Japan’s G20 presidency also coincided with the 7th Tokyo International Conference on African Development, or TICAD7 held in Yokohama in August 2019. Co-organised by the African Union Commission, the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), TICAD provides a platform for the facilitation and promotion of high-level policy dialogue between African leaders and Africa’s development partners in Japan on issues pertaining to economic growth, trade and investment, sustainable development, human security, peace and stability and government.

Moving toward enhanced African agency in the G20

While there have been these several initiatives within the G20 concerning Africa, overall, the history of G20–Africa engagement in the past decade points to the under-representation of Africa and its portrayal as a passive actor and a ‘subject on the table’.⁵⁷ The reification of the donor–recipient paradigm with reference to the incorporation of Africa-specific issues on the G20 agenda is reflected in the confinement of the issues relevant to Africa to the ‘silo of development’, effectively reducing the continent to a ‘set of problems for external actors to solve’.⁵⁸ Africa’s marginalisation in the agenda-setting platforms of the G20 must also be viewed against the absence of fair norm-setting at the global level.⁵⁹ The issue of African representation in the G20 and other multilateral forums brings up critical questions about African agency, both from the perspective of ‘room to manoeuvre’ or freedom of action by African political actors, and other aspects of agency: What type of agency is being enacted? Who are the active agents (states, civil society or political stakeholders)? What is the social context within which they act? And what are the political objectives they project into the international arena (whose interests)? As such, the discourse on African agency must begin with the stark acknowledgement of structural constraints – whether it be arising from the power relations in the international sphere (realpolitik of international relations), or unfair rules pegged on the neoliberal economic agenda, or persistent disabling tropes about Africa – and the effect of these constraints on the type and degree of African agency.

As noted by Brown and Harman,⁶⁰ analysis of African agency is centred on three key considerations: First, the impact of African collective action and the nature of the collectivist approach in international forums; second, the diversity of actors who self-identify or are identified by others as Africans; and, third, the extent to which ‘Africa as a category’ is utilised by African and non-African actors to advance political actions globally. There is also a temporal aspect to agency, informed by shifts in the geopolitical context that have implications for the exercise of agency. For instance, the shifts in power diffusion towards multipolarity, and the rise of emerging powers (such as the BRICS) poised to balance the hegemony of traditional powers, have resulted in the opening up of spaces for activism and contestation by actors on the periphery of international politics.⁶¹

The increased importance of Africa is also affirmed by the growing interest of external actors on the continent, forging diplomatic and economic ties. Between 2010 and 2016, more than 150 new embassies or consulates were opened in Africa, led by Turkey which opened up 16 new diplomatic posts during that period. Trade and investment relations have also evolved significantly; in 2018 Africa’s largest trading partners were China, India and the US, in contrast to 2006 when it was the US, China and France that topped the list of Africa’s trade partners. The increase in global engagement with Africa across the board, from traditional partners and new entrants, underscores the need for Africa’s leaders to enhance African agency and push for inclusion in global policy deliberations.⁶²

According to Nnadozie,⁶³ the issues of representation, legitimacy and substance have been the main focus of Africa’s discourse on the G20. Through existing initiatives, including such as the inclusion of African outputs in taskforces such as the DWG and enhanced engagement between the G20 and African and Africa-centred policy networks, there is significant potential for elevation of African agency and the strategic leveraging of external partnerships for the benefit of Africa’s population. One example of initiatives to enhance coordination and alignment of Africa’s development priorities with global partnerships is the African Global Partnership Platform (AGPP).

The African Global Partnership Platform

The African Global Partnership Forum (AGPP) evolved from the African Partnership Forum (APF), which was established in 2003 as an initiative of the Group of 8 (G8)–Africa partnership in the context of the G8 Africa Action Plan. The 2002 G8 Summit in Kananaskis, Canada, saw the adoption of the Africa Action Plan, a set of eight key commitments by G8 countries following high-level dialogue between the G8 and African leaders at the helm of NEPAD. The mainstreaming of African issues on the G8 agenda gained momentum at the turn of the millennium, particularly after the adoption of the Millennium Declaration by the UN General Assembly in September 2000. Prior to the G8 Africa Action Plan, external engagement in Africa had consisted of short-term and piecemeal initiatives from the 1970s, largely focused on increasing aid. In the face of mounting criticisms of the ‘spaghetti-bowl’ of inter-linking, overlapping initiatives and mechanisms from external partners, there were calls for a co-ordinated follow-up mechanism to monitor and track progress and delivery of the numerous agendas. Subsequently, the APF was launched at the 2003 Evian G8 Summit to structurally enhance and provide strategic direction to the G8 Africa Action Plan.⁶⁴

The APF was made up of personal representatives of the heads of state or government of the NEPAD countries and representatives of the main development partners from the G8, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) and chairs of African continental and regional institutions and international organisations.⁶⁵ The APF met twice a year, co-chaired on an alternating basis by two African countries – the AU Chair and the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Orientation Committee (HSGOC) Chair – and two development partner states – the G8 presidency and OECD country representative. The APF Support Unit (located in the OECD) and the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA) provided secretariat support to the APF.⁶⁶ Throughout its 10-year existence, the APF played a crucial role in linking international development partners with African stakeholders, coordinating numerous development-related initiatives in and for Africa, and delivering high quality policy and monitoring reports such as the annual Mutual Review of Development Effectiveness in Africa.⁶⁷

In view of the changing global landscape, the APF members commissioned an evaluation of the forum in 2012 to assess and make recommendations regarding relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability. The evaluation report recommended a broadening of membership as well as a structured high-level engagement that would be aligned to existing global and continental initiatives that featured a combination of diplomacy-led and development-led engagement with Africa.⁶⁸ Consequently, in 2014, the AU adopted the Dakar Reform Proposals paving way for the establishment of the Africa Global Partnership Forum (AGPP). This was described⁶⁹ as a

new partnership mechanism premised on Africa’s regional integration agenda and a coalition-building forum comprising AU member states represented in NEPAD HSGOC, NPCA, AU Commission, AU Regional Economic Communities, lead regional institutions and Africa’s major trade, investment and development partner countries from G8, G20 and OECD.

The AGPP held its inaugural plenary meeting in Dakar in October 2015 with the thematic priorities of food security, agriculture and infrastructure financing.⁷⁰

Since 2015, however, the AGPP has not had a second plenary meeting, broadly indicating a lack of political will. The institutional reform process of the AU that began in 2016, under the leadership of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, aimed to ‘manage the business of the AU efficiently at political and operational levels’ including systematising African representation at partnerships in line with the Banjul Format.⁷¹ This coheres with the institutional set-up of the AGPP. However, given the gradual implementation process of those reforms, the future of the AGPP remains an open question.

Notwithstanding the AU’s overhaul process, the AGPP is instructive of the relational view of agency, in that it seeks to be transformative of existing relationships. This is in line with the three dispositions of agency – efficacy, corporeality and intentionality – seen (through the AU) in Africa's efforts to enhance its agency as a global actor by building on the nexus between regional governance and global governance. By taking on a coordinative role that links regional processes to global governance processes, the AGPP points to the exercise of potential agency informed by intentionality and meaning. Furthermore, the question of African agency in the G20 can be seen ‘not just in terms of the tensions between the expressions and continuing structural constraints in a snapshot sense, but also in terms of how this tension plays out over time’.⁷² Hence, a nuanced view of African agency needs to take into account the social and political context of that agency, including the historical factors that have influenced enactment. For instance, the roles of African leaders and their discursive utilisation of the term ‘Africa’ have played a part in influencing the continent’s complex interaction with the international system.⁷³

The Think20 (T20) as a transnational policy community

The prevalent debate about the G20’s legitimacy and effectiveness have zeroed in on its evolving outreach strategy and the potential role of transnational policy networks in promoting legitimacy and accountability of global governance forums. Concomitant with the increased reference to global governance in international relations policy and academic discourse, global public policy has also seen increased attention. According to Stone,⁷⁴ the growing focus on global public policy can be attributed to a double devolution – a shift of policy activity beyond states to global and regional dimensions, and the diffusion of authority to private regimes and non-state actors. The broad nature of cross-border political and social problems, compounded by the processes of globalisation and regionalisation, have increasingly exposed the democratic deficit in global institutions while emphasising the need for pragmatic global policymaking. In this vein, aspects of the policy cycle such as agenda-setting, decision-making, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation have been extended into the global context, resulting in the emergence of ‘soft authority’ exercised by political agents beyond the state. Accordingly, a glance into the black box of global public policymaking points to three carriers of the policy process. Namely, these are internationalised public sector officials, international civil servants and transnational policy professionals.⁷⁵

The engagement groups in the G20 process such as the T20, B20, and L20 are seen as an avenue for broadening representation and inclusion of a wide range of interests pertinent to the G20 agenda. These engagement groups embody transnational policy networks defined as⁷⁶

multilevel polycentric forms of public policy in which a plethora of institutions and networks negotiate within and between international agreements and private regimes [which] have emerged as pragmatic responses in the absence of formal global governance.

Underpinned by privatisation and deregulation in a globalised landscape, governments have increasingly turned to non-state actors for expertise and knowledge-sharing in the quest for collective solutions to complex governance challenges. Furthermore, the expansion and diversification of the global public sphere, shaped by the interactions of actors, has resulted in a ‘global agora’. The global agora is a political and social space where authority is diffused and policy activity is driven by networks and institutions with varying degrees of ‘publicness’ participating in global policy deliberations.⁷⁷

With regard to the knowledge contribution to the G20 process, the T20 represents a transnational policy community⁷⁸ that ‘provides analytic discourse to construct meaning and a shared understanding of issues by providing objective knowledge to policy makers’.⁷⁹ Accordingly the T20 has been put forward as an ‘ideas bank’ for the G20, serving as a potential mechanism for accountability through monitoring and evaluating G20 commitments and enhancing the legitimacy of the G20 by promoting awareness of the G20 agenda and policy processes. In this sense, the T20 is engaged in a communicative discourse in shaping narratives between policy makers and the public. Similarly, there is also a coordinative discourse through the ‘creation, elaboration and justification of policy and programmatic ideas’. Unlike the other engagement groups, the T20 is not an advocacy group that lobbies support over particular issues nor does it seek to negotiate an agreed set of recommendations on the agenda items to be discussed. By disseminating a shared understanding of issues beyond the policy community itself, the T20 plays a coordinative function which influences the deliberative nature of the G20, thereby shaping the agenda and policy responses with regard to specific issues. In this manner, knowledge and policy become connected in global summitry.⁸⁰

The working method of the T20 entails the formation of taskforces around strategic topics, which allow for the development of policy recommendations to be relayed to G20 political leaders and decision makers. The strategic topics could be ‘policy-driven’ (identified from the thematic priorities under each G20 presidency) or ‘think tank driven’ (identified by think tanks and high profile experts).⁸¹ The taskforces produce briefs with policy recommendations, which then feed into the T20 Communiqué, which is forwarded to the sherpa of the country holding the presidency for consideration by the policy elite. This close interaction between policy makers and think tanks as transnational policy communities is fundamental to the role of the latter as catalytic knowledge bridges between technical experts and policy makers.

Tracking the engagement of transnational policy networks in the G20 outreach process, it is important to bear in mind that these policy networks are faced with a number of issues pertinent to power, legitimacy and accountability. For instance, not all engagement groups are equal with regard to access to the G20 process; there are indications that the B20 has an edge over other groups. Second, the power differentials within groups, determined by access to resources and capacity, may mean that certain actors have an advantage over the less advantaged ones. Closely linked to issues around power and legitimacy, the transnational policy communities also face the challenge of accountability given their indistinct constituency and lack of feedback mechanisms.⁸² Another challenge for transnational policy communities is to avoid co-optation by certain interests and risk being a ‘rubber-stamp’ for the G20 process without critical engagement and discourse.⁸³

Pertinent to Africa, during the 2017 German presidency of the G20, the T20 Africa Standing Group (T20 ASG) was launched to provide evidence-based policy advice relevant to G20 Africa partnership and to monitor the implementation of Africa-related policies and plans from the various G20 presidencies. Drawing on the AU’s Agenda 2063, as well as the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the G20 work streams, the T20 ASG research and cross-regional knowledge production plays a critical role in mapping the linkages between G20 policies and African priorities. Moreover, the T20 ASG also serves as an important information resource and advisory point for the AU Chair and NEPAD HSGOC, who participate as observers at G20 meetings.⁸⁴

Given the under-representation of Africa within the G20, the research–policy nexus envisioned by the T20 process – and more specifically the T20 ASG – holds significant promise for enhanced African agency and informed policymaking. In practice, engagement with policy officials has been through dissemination of research outputs as well as dialogue with policy officials in strategic dialogues and forums. An example is the Global Solutions Summit, held annually in Berlin since 2017, convening researchers, policy makers, business leaders and civil society representatives in policy dialogues around G20 agenda issues in support of the T20 process.⁸⁵ Similarly, in 2017, the first T20 Africa conference was held in Johannesburg to promote increased engagement among a wide range of African stakeholders (from African think tanks, the AU, NEPAD, UNECA, the AfDB), G20 think tanks, the EU, the OECD and representatives from the B20 and C20 engagement groups. One of the main recommendations from the T20 Africa conference called for a stronger African intellectual lead in the global discourse about Africa in the context of G20 engagement with Africa. Additionally, the conference highlighted the need for an enhanced governance mechanism for the G20–Africa partnership, the incorporation of African perspectives in the G20 work streams beyond the DWG, the formulation of a joint code of conduct for G20–Africa engagement to guide G20 member countries’ engagement with the continent, and the mainstreaming of governance issues in G20 working groups.⁸⁶

The mandate of the T20 ASG, to monitor the impact and track implementation of Africa-related initiatives in the G20, underscores the growing interest in the concept of impact assessment. The policy impact of the T20 ASG has two aspects; one is assessing the extent of uptake of T20 Africa policy recommendations in final G20 documents, and the second is assessing the impact of G20 declarations and initiatives on African countries in the context of socioeconomic and development policies. There are various frameworks to measure policy impact. For instance, the Brunel model takes into account research outputs and wider societal benefits, whereas the Social Impact Assessment Method for research and funding instruments analyses the ‘productive interactions’ between researchers and stakeholders.⁸⁷ Following deliberations within the T20 ASG, a proposal was put forward for the establishment of a G20 Africa Monitor (G20AM) to track G20 initiatives in Africa using infrastructure development as a baseline for impact evaluation of G20 initiatives on the continent.⁸⁸ Overall, the T20 ASG is well positioned to have strategic impact on both G20 and African stakeholders. However, the analytical depth and influence of the T20 ASG on strategic policymaking will largely depend on an innovative approach to its policy advisory role as well as the acknowledgement of its potential contribution to African agency through moving ideas to a different political level and pushing for the incorporation of African perspectives in key dialogues. In a plural, horizontal advisory landscape, the benefit of the T20 ASG for African agency will also be judged by its ability to sustain strategic momentum for the G20–Africa partnership, while ensuring that African perspectives are considered and that the G20 remains relevant to African needs and priorities.

Conclusion

Relational, non-dualist approaches to global governance are especially important in a global landscape characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Global issues such as climate change, migration, transnational security threats, spreading populism and protectionism, spreading extremism and terrorism, and spiralling volatility and economic instability increasingly demand innovative collective solutions. A relational ontology has policy implications for ‘doing global governance differently’ and presents new ways of thinking about agency and the dynamics of that agency in a complex global landscape. Relationalism also urges a processual and dynamic view of governance while allowing an assessment of the processes that give rise to agency in normative terms. Hence, capturing the G20 as a relational configuration allows us to see how actors engaged in governance processes relate to each other over time and mutually constitute their roles, identity and the character of the configuration in which they are engaged.

By emphasising the origin and emergence of agency within and between relations in a trans-actional framework, a consideration of agency in its relational dimension opens up new ways of thinking about global governance, including critical questions of who should sit at the table. Pertinent to African agency in the G20, the African Global Partnership Platform and the Think20 have been put forward as examples of the generative and potential agency of African stakeholders to enhance their role as pivotal actors in the ever-changing global agora. While the character and sustainment of this agency is open to debate, amid a politically charged context, the questions raised around the G20’s legitimacy, representation and inclusivity remain highly relevant in turbulent times for global governance and call for flexible engagement with relational approaches to policy analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Faith Mabera is a senior researcher at the Institute for Global Dialogue, affiliated with UNISA. Her research interests include the Responsibility to Protect, African diplomacy, foreign policy analysis, African peace and security issues and global governance. The IGD is a participating think tank in the T20 process and the T20 Africa Standing Group.

Notes

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2 Ibid., p.1.

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9 Jackson PT & DH Nexon, ‘Relations before states: Substance, process and the study of world politics’, European Journal of International Relations, 5, 3, 1999, p. 302.

10 Ibid.

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34 G20, Leaders Statement: The Pittsburgh Summit 24–25 September 2009, ‘Framework for strong, sustainable, and balanced growth’, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2009/2009communique0925.html#growth>.

35 G20, Toronto Summit Declaration, 27 June, par 47, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2010/to-communique.html>.

36 G20, Seoul Summit, 11–12 November 2010, Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2010/g20seoul-consensus.pdf>.

37 G20, Seoul Summit, Leaders’ Declaration 11–12 November 2010, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2010/g20seoul.pdf>.

38 G20, Cannes Summit Final Declaration – Building Our Common Future: Renewed Collective Action for the Benefit of all, 4 November 2011, accessed 6 May 2019, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2011/2011-cannes-declaration-111104-en.html>.

39 G20, Los Cabos Summit, 18–19 June 2012 Leaders Declaration, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/summits/2012loscabos.html>.

40 G20, Saint Petersburg Development Outlook, 2013, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2013/Saint_Petersburg_Development_Outlook.pdf>.

41 African Development Bank Group, Africa50, <https://www.africa50.com/about-us/>.

42 G20, Brisbane Summit, 15–16 November 2014, Leaders’ Communiqué, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2014/2014-1116-communique.html>.

43 G20, Antalya Summit, Turkey, 15–16 November 2015, Leaders’ Communiqué <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2015/151116-communique.html>.

44 G20, ‘The G20 energy access action plan: Voluntary collaboration on energy access’, Antalya, 2015 <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2015/G20-Energy-Access-Action-Plan.pdf>.

45 G20, Hangzhou Summit, ‘G20 leaders’ communiqué’, 5 September 2016, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2016/160905-communique.html>.

46 Van Staden C & E Sidiropoulos, ‘G20–Africa engagement: Finding a roadmap to shared development’, SAIIA Occasional Paper 294, February 2019, <https://saiia.org.za/research/g20-africa-engagement-finding-a-roadmap-to-shared-development/>.

47 Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), <https://www.focac.org/eng/ltjj_3/ltjz/>. For instance, at the 2015 summit in Johannesburg, FOCAC adopted the Johannesburg Action Plan premised on 10 cooperation plans in areas vital to Africa’s socioeconomic development including industrialisation, investment promotion, market access expansion, health, education, and peace and security among others. Furthermore, Chinese engagement with Africa has been complementary to the AU Agenda 2063 and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, both adopted in 2015. FOCAC, ‘Xi announces 10 major China-Africa cooperation plans for coming 3 years’, 8 December 2015, <https://www.focac.org/eng/ljhy_1/dwjbzjjhys_1/hyqk/t1322068.htm>.

48 These were namely industrialisation, infrastructure connectivity, trade facilitation, green development, capacity building, people-to-people exchange, health care and peace and security. See Trade Law Centre (TRALAC), ‘Declaration of the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation’, <https://www.tralac.org/news/article/13444-declaration-of-the-2018-beijing-summit-of-the-forum-on-china-africa-cooperation.html>.

49 Tigere F & C Grant Makokera, ‘The G20’s contribution to sustainable development in Africa’, GEG Discussion Paper, November 2017, <http://www.gegafrica.org/publications/the-g20s-contribution-to-sustainable-development-in-africa>.

50 Van Staden C & E Sidiropoulos, ‘G20–Africa engagement: Finding a roadmap to shared development’, SAIIA Occasional Paper 294, February 2019, p. 16.

51 Tigere F & C Grant Makokera, ‘The G20’s contribution to sustainable development in Africa’, GEG Discussion Paper, November 2017, <http://www.gegafrica.org/publications/the-g20s-contribution-to-sustainable-development-in-africa>.

52 G20 Compact with Africa, ‘About the compact with Africa’, 2017, <https://www.compactwithafrica.org/content/compactwithafrica/home/about.html>.

53 Lay J, ‘The G20 compact with Africa: An incomplete initiative’, GIGA Focus Africa, 2, June 2017. See also Thiele R et al., ‘African economic development: What role can the G20 compact play?’, GDI Discussion Paper, 3, 2018.

54 Global Economic Governance (GEG) Africa, ‘Joint statement of outcomes: Dialogue with Ambassador Pedro Villagra Delgado, Argentina’s Sherpa to the G20’, 15 February 2018, <http://www.gegafrica.org/item/648-joint-statement-of-outcomes-on-the-g20-dialogue-forum>.

55 G20 Argentina, ‘Overview of Argentina’s G20 Presidency 2018’, Building Consensus For Fair and Sustainable Development, 2017, <https://g20.argentina.gob.ar/en/overview-argentinas-g20-presidency-2018.

56 T20 Japan, T20 Communiqué, 26–27 May 2019, <https://t20japan.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/t20-japan-2019-communique-eng.pdf>.

57 Bradlow D, ‘The G-20 and Africa: A critical assessment’, SAIIA Occasional Paper No 145, April 2013, <http://www.saiia.org.za/policy-briefings/483-the-g-20-and-africa-a-critical-assessment-1/file>.

58 Ibid.>; van Staden C, ‘The G20’s Africa problem’, Project Syndicate, Commentary 1 December 2018, <https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/g20-africa-representation-and-engagement-by-cobus-van-staden-2018-12?barrier=accesspaylog>.

59 Grant Makokera C, ‘G-20 and Africa: Time for more effective participation’, 2014, <http://www.gegafrica.org/g20-blog/g20-and-africa-time-formore-effective-participation>.

60 Brown W & S Harman, African Agency in International Politics. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.

61 Tieku TK & L Gelot, ‘An African perspective on global governance’, in Triandafyllidou A (ed), Global Governance from Regional Perspectives: A Critical View. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 119–40; Zondi S, ‘Common African positions as African agency in international negotiations: An appraisal’, in Brown W & S Harman, African Agency in International Politics. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013, pp. 19–32.

62 The Economist, ‘The new scramble for Africa’, 7 March 2019, <https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/03/07/the-new-scramble-for-africa>.

63 Nnadozie E, ‘Africa and the G20: Critical issues and way forward’, G20 Monitor, The Lowy Institute for International Policy, January 2014, <https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/g20-outreach-and-non-g20-member-views-g20>.

64 Cargill T, Our Common Strategic Interests: Africa’s Role in the Post-G8 World. A Chatham House Report. London: Chatham House, 2010.

65 Hayford P & A Kloke-Lesch, ‘Africa Partnership Forum evaluation report: A forum puts itself to the test’, 2013, <www.g8.utoronto.ca/scholar/APF-2013.09.18_Report_10.8.pdf>.

66 Ibid.

67 Cargill T, Our Common Strategic Interests: Africa’s Role in the Post-G8 World. A Chatham House Report. London: Chatham House, 2010.

68 Hayford P & A Kloke-Lesch, ‘Africa Partnership Forum evaluation report: A forum puts itself to the test’, 2013, <www.g8.utoronto.ca/scholar/APF-2013.09.18_Report_10.8.pdf>; Cargill T, Our Common Strategic Interests: Africa’s Role in the Post-G8 World. A Chatham House Report. London: Chatham House, 2010.

69 African Union, AU, ‘Decision on the report of Heads of State and Government Orientation Committee (HSGOC) on NEPAD’, 2014, Assembly/AU/Dec. 540(XXIII), African Union, Addis Ababa, <www.au.int/en/sites/default/files/Assembly%20AU%20Dec%20517%20-%20545%20%28XXIII%29%20_E.pdf>.

70 New Economic Partnership for Africa, NEPAD, ‘Joint statement – First Plenary Meeting of the Africa Global Partnership Platform, 2015, <http://www.nepad.org/file-download/download/public/14301>.

71 The Banjul format outlines African representation at partnership summits. According to this format the delegation should be made up of the Chairperson of the AU; the Chairperson of the AU in the preceding year; incoming Chairperson of the AU; the Chairperson of the AU Commission: The five initiating countries of NEPAD (Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa); the Chair of the Heads of State and Government Orientation Committee HSGOC and the Chairs of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs).

72 Brown W, ‘A question of agency: Africa in international politics’, Third World Quarterly, 33, 10, 2012, pp. 1889–1908.

73 Ibid., p. 1901.

74 Stone D, ‘Global public policy, transnational policy communities, and their networks’, Policy Studies Journal, 36, 1, 2008, pp. 19–38.

75 Ibid.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

78 Transnational policy communities are cohesive (but not necessarily integrated) groups of professionals who have in-depth knowledge on an issue, share similar belief sets and policy interests, and have sufficient shared social capital to sustain their collaboration, see Stone D, ‘Global public policy, transnational policy communities, and their networks’, Policy Studies Journal, 36, 1, 2008, pp. 19–38. Transnational policy networks are more institutionalised type of a policy community.

79 Gaus A, ‘Transnational policy communities and regulatory networks as global administration’, in Stone D & K Moloney (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Global Policy and Transnational Administration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, pp. 471–89.

80 Stone D, ‘The group of 20 transnational policy community: Governance networks, policy analysis, and think tanks’, International Review of Administrative Sciences, 81, 4, 2015, pp. 793–811.

81 Think 20 (T20), ‘T20 good practices’, Draft document circulated in T20 community for comment by T20 Argentina chairs, 2018.

82 Gaus A, ‘Transnational policy communities and regulatory networks as global administration’, in Stone D & K Moloney (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Global Policy and Transnational Administration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.

83 Slaughter S, ‘Building G20 outreach: The role of transnational policy networks in sustaining effective and legitimate summitry’, Global Summitry, 1, 2, 2015, pp. 171–86.

84 T20, ‘Africa and the G20: Building alliances for sustainable development’, Communiqué, T20 Africa Conference, 1–3 February 2017, <https://www.tralac.org/images/docs/11255/t20-africa-conference-communique-of-the-conference-co-hosts-february-2017.pdf>.

85 Global Solutions, Global Solutions Summit, 2019, <https://www.global-solutions.international/initiative>.

86 T20, ‘Africa and the G20: Building alliances for sustainable development’, Communiqué, T20 Africa Conference, 1–3 February 2017, <https://www.tralac.org/images/docs/11255/t20-africa-conference-communique-of-the-conference-co-hosts-february-2017.pdf>.

87 Penfield T et al., ‘Assessment, evaluations, and definitions of research impact: A review’, Research Evaluation, 23, 1, 2014, pp. 21–32.

88 Global Economic Governance (GEG) Africa, ‘G20 Africa monitor’, 2018, <http://www.gegafrica.org/g20-africa-monitor>.