Policy Brief:

By Kennedy Manduna, PhD

Introduction

South Africa assumed the G20 Presidency at a critical juncture: the world is experiencing significant geostrategic, geoeconomic, geoengineering, and geopolitical ruptures reminiscent of the epochal periods of the Great Depression, global wars, the Great Recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Reading its G20 Presidency’s chosen theme, ‘Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability’, from the South, I argue that South Africa has a herculean task at hand to upend the present global governance architecture, the pendulum of which is lopsided against the global south majority. One strategic way to achieve this grandiose objective is to pursue and demand (and, if need be, fight) for the reparations of the crimes and injustices of colonialism, neocolonialism, apartheid, and slavery. Based on the findings of the study titled ‘Pursuing an African Agenda for Reparations for Colonial Crimes and Slavery’, which I conducted in Southern Africa, this piece explores the alternative forms of reparations (Southern) Africans are demanding from their former colonisers, besides the traditional form of financial compensation.

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