The Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research and Innovation, Wits University, Prof. Lynn Morris,
The Advocacy Manager, Open Society Foundations, Mr Jeggan Grey-Johnson,
The Head of Department of International Relations, Wits University, Prof. Malte Brosig,
The Director, Centre for China Africa Studies, University of Johannesburg, Prof. David Monyae,
The Director, African Centre for the Study of the United States, Prof. Bob Wekesa,
and members of the diplomatic community,
Students, workers and all members of the university community,
Distinguished guests,
It is my honour to join you this afternoon to reflect on South Africa and Africa in the world, and to help launch the Global Africa Research Initiative (GARI).
In the making of our foreign policy, we invest considerable time and intellectual capital in understanding the world around us.
What stands out is an increasingly volatile and combustible international order, or perhaps more accurately, a world disorder.
Much has been said about these developments during this gathering. I wish to draw attention to how closely they are connected.
New centres of power are emerging, and new alliances are taking shape. But as multipolarity advances, unipolar impulses persist, evident in the unilateral imposition of tariffs and sanctions. At the same time, multilateral institutions are facing unprecedented attacks. Judges of the International Criminal Court are being sanctioned for carrying out their mandate under international law.
This disregard for international law comes at a time when wars are intensifying. Global military expenditure has reached US$ 2.9 trillion, while the world struggles to mobilise resources for development.
More fundamentally, these developments unfold against a backdrop of profound inequalities of wealth and power. The wealthiest 10% own approximately 75% of global wealth, while the poorest half own just 2%.
This inequality is not confined to wealth. It extends to voice and representation. Africa constitutes a quarter of UN member states and a fifth of humanity but has no permanent seat on the Security Council. This injustice is even more glaring considering the reality that between 2016 and 2026, conflicts on our continent constituted 80% of the UN Security Council’s resolutions.
Technology, too, has become another arena of geopolitical competition. Alongside concerns about human control over increasingly powerful machines, misinformation and disinformation are eating away at public trust. The World Economic Forum ranks misinformation and disinformation second only to geo-economic confrontation among global risks over the next two years.
Across the world, the gap between the promise of the ballot and the lived realities of our people is widening. As the African Peer Review Mechanism observes, citizens value elections but do not necessarily believe that elections alone confer legitimacy.
In this climate, disappointment with the economic order feeds political disillusionment, creating fertile ground for conspiracy theories, reactionary politics and unconstitutional changes of government.
In this room, we are familiar with what this international order means for Africa and South Africa.
Carlos Lopes, who is no stranger to all of us present here, makes this point more directly when he says:
“The current global disorder presents an opportunity for power to be exercised in new ways. But the window will not stay open forever. The rules will be rewritten. The only question is: will Africa be one of the authors?”
The fundamental question therefore is: how can our continent negotiate these developments without compromising its own interests?
Distinguished participants,
It is important to stress that we are not just recipients of these shifts and blows. We are actively shaping how we respond.
Allow me to briefly highlight a few areas where we are acting and deliberately placing Africa’s concerns and aspirations at the centre of our engagements with the world.
As the developments towards the establishment of the International Panel on Inequality show, we are at the forefront of underwriting the creation of new global institutions to help us meet the burning challenges of our time.
By tackling Africa’s debt crisis, we are also defending the space for African countries to spend where it matters most.
A new report from UN Trade and Development reveals that 65% of Africa’s population lives in countries where interest payments on public debt exceed spending on health or education.
Our situation is further compounded by what is increasingly recognised as the prejudice premium, which forces African countries to borrow at significantly higher costs than developed economies.
If developing countries could borrow at the same rates as developed countries, as much as 500 billion US dollars annually could be freed up for spending where it matters most.
This injustice is even more glaring when weighed against the African Development Bank’s estimate that Africa faces an annual infrastructure financing gap of between US$ 68 billion and US$ 108 billion.
This is why South Africa fully endorsed the establishment of a Borrowers’ Platform in April 2026 as a counterbalance to the power of creditors, who are organised and often share information and strategies.
South Africa also welcomes the establishment of Africa’s first credit rating agency.
The Africa Expert Panel, chaired by our former Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel, gave a scathing account of how the work of international credit rating agencies is shrouded in secrecy and lacks accountability, despite their enormous influence over the fortunes of our economies.
In our SADC region of more than 400 million people, we are also building mechanisms to help us cope with our shared vulnerabilities.
During our tenure as Chair of SADC, we are dedicating considerable effort to strengthening our region’s capacity to withstand and respond to external shocks, particularly natural disasters.
Our region has experienced rising sea levels and temperatures, prolonged droughts, devastating cyclones, floods and other extreme weather events.
Recent floods affected more than two million people across the region, destroying homes, livelihoods and infrastructure. The small island states in our bloc are particularly vulnerable to climate shocks.
This issue is uppermost on our agenda, particularly as we face the prospect of severe El Niño conditions.
Collectively, we are building institutions to coordinate our responses to disasters. The SADC Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Centre (SHOC), headquartered in Mozambique, is a prime example.
Far from merely witnessing the geopolitical tectonic shifts taking place around us, we are determined to shape how our region responds.
Earlier this year, SADC Ministers of Foreign Affairs convened a retreat in Skukuza, Mpumalanga, to reflect on the implications of the fragmented global order for our region and devise coordinated, forward-looking responses. We simply can’t afford to respond to global shocks through isolated national responses.
Another demonstration of how African countries are refusing to be mere bystanders is the concrete steps we are taking to retain greater control over our mineral wealth.
According to a 2025 white paper by the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the World Economic Forum, ten of SADC’s sixteen member states have adopted regulations and strategies to facilitate mineral processing at source and technology transfer. This should culminate into a SADC strategy.
This reflects a determination by our countries to use our endowments, including platinum, cobalt, manganese and lithium, to drive industrialisation and structural transformation. The AU has also adopted a green transition strategy which emphasises beneficiation at source.
South Africa has also leveraged its G20 Presidency to shift the global conversation about critical minerals from concerns about supply chain disruptions to questions about industrialisation, beneficiation and job creation in the countries where these minerals are found.
In practical terms, this is what we mean by African agency.
Our efforts to shape developments on the continent also extend to peace and security.
As we often say, peace is a precondition for development.
As Chair of the African Union High-Level Ad Hoc Committee on South Sudan, commonly known as the C5, we are working tirelessly with our partners to support South Sudan towards its first elections since independence, a process which we hope will create the conditions for lasting peace.
In pursuing these efforts, we believe it is important to hold on to our time-tested values and to continue pursuing a foreign policy grounded in human rights, constitutionalism, the national interest and solidarity.
In this spirit, I wish to congratulate once more Justice Navi Pillay on being awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law.
Justice Pillay represents a core conviction that runs through our country’s foreign policy: the belief that the world can and should be a better place.
Our foreign policy must also advance our economic interests and domestic development priorities.
We must strengthen trade with our traditional partners, expand into new markets and negotiate favourable terms for our goods and produce.
Our trade relationship with the United States is important. The US is one of our largest trading partners, and our economic relations support thousands of jobs in our country.
We continue to engage and negotiate to secure the best possible outcomes for both sides. Dialogue is indispensable, regardless of how difficult the atmosphere may be. We are, however, preparing for any eventuality concerning AGOA.
BRICS is also an important part of how we are negotiating this turbulent global order. Through this platform, we are diversifying our economic partnerships, expanding trade and investment, and advancing the development priorities of the Global South. We are fully aware that South Africans expect tangible economic benefits from the partnerships we forge and our participation in international fora.
Together, BRICS countries represent 4.1 billion people, nearly half of the global population, 40% of the world’s GDP and more than a quarter of global trade.
Although intra-BRICS trade has increased more than tenfold over the past two decades, reaching US$ 1.17 trillion, trade remains heavily skewed towards the bloc’s larger economies.
South Africa is working with its partners to address these imbalances, including through efforts to facilitate payments in local currencies and strengthen the role of the New Development Bank.
The Bank is already financing critical infrastructure projects in South Africa, including a new tertiary hospital in Polokwane and bulk water projects. These are practical examples of how we are leveraging our international partnerships to advance our domestic development priorities.
Distinguished guests,
Our ability to shape the international order also depends, in large part, on our ability to generate ideas, produce research, challenge dominant assumptions and formulate practical alternatives. This is where the initiative we are launching today becomes important.
To steer us in this direction, allow me to pose four provocations which I believe could help define GARI’s contribution to addressing the challenges confronting our country and the continent at this moment.
First, how can GARI contribute to articulating a compelling vision of African integration that resonates with ordinary people, at a time when the very idea of integration is encountering growing resistance?
Allow me to illustrate the challenge with a few intriguing facts.
The latest Afrobarometer survey across 38 African countries shows that 64% of respondents believe their governments should admit fewer or no foreign job seekers.
But here is the contradiction. Nearly six in 10 Africans have considered leaving their countries in search of better opportunities. Contrary to what is often reported, as much as 80% of African migration takes place within the continent.
We are dealing with resistance to immigration, often rooted in economic insecurity and competition for scarce opportunities. But we must also confront the perception that regional integration is a project of political and business elites, with few tangible benefits for ordinary people.
Consider another finding from African Insights 2026.
More than six in 10 Africans believe that making it easier to trade with other countries will benefit their economies. At the same time, only 13% have heard of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Clearly, support for greater economic integration is not matched by awareness of the initiatives intended to advance it.
This challenge is compounded by political leaders framing South Africa’s relationship with the continent in a divisive, derisive and populist manner. Some of the responses to the 40th anniversary commemoration of the Mbuzini tragedy, in which we lost 35 men and women, including that cherished African leader, Samora Machel, illustrate this tendency.
What special role can GARI play in challenging these perceptions, demonstrating the benefits of integration and building public support for it?
It is one thing to condemn acts of violence and intolerance. It is another to understand and change the attitudes that sustain them.
Second, what role can GARI play in taking international relations beyond the ivory tower and connecting scholarship with the everyday experiences of ordinary people?
This year has seen multiple shocks that have brought international relations closer to the everyday lives of ordinary people.
Wars and supply chain shocks have brought questions of geopolitics and trade into sharper focus for those bearing their costs. Textile workers, farmworkers and workers in the automotive industry have all felt the impact of global developments and changing trade policies.
International relations are too important to be left to governments alone. This calls for critical and engaged scholarship, and meaningful partnerships with organised labour, young people, women and communities affected by these developments.
Third, where do we strike the balance between legitimate and healthy criticism of government policy and the defence of democracy and sovereignty against external interference?
Our public discourse often focuses narrowly on domestic concerns, without sufficiently connecting developments at home to similar trends elsewhere in the world.
How should the intellectual community help us keep the door wide open for robust democratic critique while firmly shutting it to external tutelage and interference?
This is particularly important given developments in Brazil and the brazen attempts by powerful external actors to interfere with democratic outcomes.
Fourth, how do we balance the national interests of Africa’s 55 states with the long-term collective interests of the continent?
In the volume Reflections on Africa’s Place in the World, Babatunde Fagbayibo argues that Africa’s fortunes on the global stage depend on our unity and ability to act collectively.
In his words:
“The inability to show unity and strength of purpose continues to expose the continent to incalculable exploitation and diminished stature in the global matrix of power.”
This challenge arises in how we manage conflicts, conduct bilateral relations, negotiate trade agreements and engage with external powers.
These are some of the difficult questions I believe GARI must help us confront.
Above all, they require an intellectual community prepared to challenge established assumptions, including our own, in the service of an Africa that is capable of advancing its interests and aspirations.
With these provocations, it is my honour to declare the Global Africa Research Initiative officially launched.
Thank you.
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