South Africa leads G20 Chief Science Advisers Roundtable under its G20 Presidency
As governments worldwide increasingly turn to science to guide policy, the role of national science advisers has become more vital than ever. As the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the world, it underscored the importance of science-based decision-making in navigating global challenges.
In 2025, South Africa assumed the G20 Presidency under the main theme “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability”, a fitting backdrop for its leadership in promoting inclusive science. It also takes the lead in shaping one of the G20’s most impactful science diplomacy platforms, the Chief Science Advisers’ Roundtable (CSAR).
The CSAR is a meeting of the G20 science advisers and their equivalents to discuss shared scientific priorities and seek collective solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. These include climate change, growing inequality, and the slow progress in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
It is a critical track of the G20 and will be hosted on 24 and 25 April 2025 in Pretoria under the theme “Equity-based science, technology and innovation for inclusive human development and global sustainability”.
Building on the foundation laid by India during its 2023 G20 Presidency, CSAR 2025 is designed to foster inclusive global science advice. It supports high-level policy dialogue among chief science advisers from across the G20, enabling them to shape a shared global science, technology and innovation agenda and align STI policies with sustainable and equitable development.
Hosted by the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation in collaboration with its entity, the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI), the first session of the CSAR will take place in April and a second session is scheduled for September 2025. The date and venue for the September meeting will be shared in due course.
This year’s gathering will focus on three interlinked priorities. These include the development and promotion of a global STI agenda to support the implementation of the SDG and enable a just, equitable and inclusive energy transition and the establishment of a global knowledge system that is equitable and open to all.
In addition, the priorities include aligning G20 STI initiatives with the STI and capacity-building priorities of the African continent, the Global South and the developing world at large.
Source: spacewatchafrica