Stellenbosch University’s (SU) Policy Innovation Lab is part of an international partnership that has formally handed over a policy report tracing the evolution of the G20’s digital agenda to South African government partners.
The handover event, held on 26 January 2026, was hosted jointly by the Policy Innovation Lab and the TUM Think Tank at the Technical University of Munich, in collaboration with the Global Network of Internet & Society Centers.
It marked the official launch and transfer of the report, The Evolution of the G20 Digital Agenda, to officials from the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies and members of the G20 Digital Economy Working Group from South Africa’s G20 Presidency.
The report analyses more than 200 official G20 and T20 documents from the presidencies of Indonesia (2022), India (2023), Brazil (2024) and South Africa (2025). It traces how these countries collectively shaped global digital norms across three core pillars: digital transformation, digital public infrastructure and artificial intelligence.
Capturing a historic Global South moment
Opening the event, Prof Willem Fourie, Chair of Policy Innovation and founder of SU’s Policy Innovation Lab, described the report as an important milestone to draw together messaging from the presidencies of Indonesia, India, Brazil and South Africa.
“For four consecutive years, which coincided with extraordinary technological acceleration, middle-income countries led the G20 digital agenda,” said Fourie. “This report captures how these presidencies built on one another and ensured global policy coherence.”
In his opening remarks, Dr Markus Siewert, director of the TUM Think Tank echoed these sentiments, and added that “we cannot overestimate the importance of partnerships across national boundaries, particularly between Germany and South Africa, to enable impactful and coherent policymaking in this era of upheaval”.
Three pillars of digital policy evolution
Leading the editing and coordination of the report was James Haw of SU’s Policy Innovation Lab and Fernanda Sauca of the TUM Think Tank. The report shows how each presidency deepened and refined the G20’s digital agenda along three pillars: digital transformation, digital public infrastructure (DPI) and artificial intelligence (AI).
Across the four presidencies, digital inclusion evolved from Indonesia’s people-centred post-pandemic recovery framing to India’s integration of connectivity into digital public infrastructure and skilling frameworks. Brazil introduced measurable quality benchmarks under a vision of universal and meaningful connectivity, Haw explained.
South Africa advanced a framework focused on universal and equitable digital inclusion, with attention to small business ecosystems and non-infrastructural barriers such as energy access and digital safety.
DPI matured from a background set of “enablers” into a cornerstone of the G20 agenda, noted the editors. India formalised DPI through a dedicated framework, Brazil added rights-based governance safeguards and protections for non-digital alternatives, and South Africa introduced a Public Value Measurement Framework to assess the tangible socio-economic benefits of DPI investments.
AI governance similarly progressed from a subcomponent of digital transformation to a central developmental priority. South Africa’s presidency launched the AI for Africa Initiative and the Technology Policy Assistance Facility, focusing on computing access, representative datasets and sovereign AI capabilities for the continent, said Haw.
Haw said the findings show an unusual degree of continuity between presidencies, with each year building on the foundations of the previous one.
Relevance for South Africa and the African continent
Fourie said the report underscores South Africa’s role as the first African G20 presidency and its emphasis on aligning digital governance with the African Union’s long-term development vision.
The formal handover was made to officials from the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies and members of the G20 Digital Economy Working Group from South Africa’s presidency.
“G20 presidencies rotate annually. This report therefore serves as a rare institutional memory tool, capturing how each presidency built on the last. The formal handover to government partners ensures this knowledge is preserved and can inform future engagement,” said Prof Kanshukan Rajaratnam, Director of the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking. “The report also serves as a foundation for future digital cooperation as the G20 agenda enters a new phase of leadership.”
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