The Business20 (B20) has just delivered its 2025 Policy Action Recommendations to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Sherpa team ahead of the Leaders’ Summit this weekend, and the message is brutally clear: the global economy is at a fork. One path leads to inclusive, resilient 4–5 % annual growth. The other leads to protectionism, fragmentation, and a very expensive decade-long hangover.
B20 Chair Cas Coovadia, CEO of Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), didn’t mince words at yesterday’s closed-door handover: “We are not asking for favours. We are telling the G20 what it costs to keep the lights on in the real economy. Ignore this at your GDP’s peril.”
The Four Non-Negotiable Business Asks
1. Trade & Investment: Tear Down the New Walls
The B20 Trade & Investment Task Force, co-chaired by Standard Bank and Vale, calculates that full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) plus G20-backed infrastructure financing would add $450 billion to African GDP and $1.8 trillion to global GDP by 2035.
Core demand: immediate suspension of all new non-tariff barriers, 100 % duty-free quota-free access for least-developed countries, and a $300 billion G20-Africa Infrastructure Fund seeded by MDBs and sovereign wealth funds.
2. Energy Transition: Make Net-Zero Profitable, Not Preachy
Co-chaired by Sasol and TotalEnergies, the Energy, Climate & Resource Efficiency Task Force laid out the math: Africa needs $3 trillion in energy investment by 2050. Current concessional flows? Under $30 billion a year.
Their fix: create a G20 “Just Energy Transition Partnership 2.0” that de-risks private capital with first-loss guarantees, blended finance, and carbon-credit recognition for flared-gas capture and green hydrogen projects.
Translation: turn climate ambition into bankable term sheets.
3. Digital Economy: Stop Regulating Yesterday’s Internet
Led by MTN Group and Google, the Digital Transformation Task Force wants the G20 to endorse cross-border data flows with privacy safeguards (think “AfCFTA for data”) and commit $100 billion in public-private funding for last-mile broadband and 6G research in emerging markets. Within South Africa its clear it must rewrite broadband rules to connect 1bn to unlock their digital economy.
One line from the brief is already being quoted in every boardroom from Sandton to São Paulo: “Fragmented digital regulation is the new protectionism – and it’s costing the global economy $1.5 trillion a year in lost growth.”
4. Inclusive Growth & Jobs: Turn the Youth Bulge into a Dividend
Chaired by the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation and the Mastercard Foundation, the Future of Work & Education Task Force delivered a single metric that stopped the room cold: Africa will have the largest working-age population on Earth by 2035 – and 40 % youth unemployment if nothing changes.
Their solution: a G20 Skills & Entrepreneurship Compact that matches $50 billion in corporate apprenticeship pledges with tax credits and visa mobility for high-skill intra-Africa talent.
“Governments set the rules. Business writes the cheques. If the G20 wants 5% global growth instead of 2%, it needs to make it cheaper, faster, and safer for us to invest at scale in Africa and the Global South. Everything else is theatre.” The B20 recommendations are now formally on the table for the Nasrec Leaders’ Declaration. Sources inside the Sherpa track say three of the four pillars – AU-AfCFTA acceleration, energy transition de-risking, and digital trade – have already been elevated to “Tier 1” language.
Its evident business has done its homework. The only question left for the G20 leaders this weekend: Are you ready to sign the deal, or are we all just going to pretend 2% growth is the new normal?
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