Observing that the world was strained by war and clogged with the drudgery of institutional paralysis in multilateral institutions over the recent years, President Xi Jinping of China proposed the Global Governance Initiative (GGI), promising to bring equality and sanity to global leadership. His proposition carried five elements: sovereign equality, the international rule of law, genuine multilateralism, a people-centred approach, and the transformation of declarations into results. Xi’s proposition was made at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Plus meeting on 1 September 2025. At the first anniversary of this milestone, it is worthwhile for Africa to interrogate how much stake we hold in this initiative, and what we can do to participate more meaningfully in setting the agenda of global governance, instead of being backbencher members.
Over 80 years since the end of the Second World War and the establishment of the United Nations, the Security Council still reflects and represents the power arrangements of 1945, with Africa, a continent of 1.4 billion people, still marginalised and holding no permanent seat at the council. Voting powers under the Bretton Woods institutions continue to be entrenched in the same ways they were shaped almost a century ago. They still favour the strong economies over smaller ones. Meanwhile, with all this happening, America’s response is to retreat from multiple multilateral commitments to which it was once champion. For instance, on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order on his first day in office, and officially started the mandatory one-year notice period to exit the World Health Organisation (WHO), which was officially completed on January 22, 2026. Likewise, Trump also withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreements twice, first in November 2020, and again in January 2026, Joe Biden having rejoined the accords in 2021. This vacuum of global leadership is where China has moved, together with the Global South, to fill. No matter what reservations and/or criticisms are levelled against China’s motives and approach, one important truth is that there is a real vacuum, and it is China that has, for a while, filled it economically, and now is beginning to fill it politically.
The past year has seen the GGI make some institutional traction beyond rhetoric. In a white paper published in June 2026, titled More Just and Equitable Global Governance: China’s Principles, Proposals and Actions by the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing explicitly called for greater representation of the Global South in global governance bodies. It also called for the fair and just application of international rules, which have customarily become enforceable at the discretion of Western powers and their allies.
Some adjacent initiatives have also been folded into the GGI framework by Beijing, including data governance, climate cooperation, and the continued expansion of South-South partnerships that predate the GGI itself. In itself, the GGI is not a replacement or usurpation of the UN system, but rather a reform proposition that seeks to complement the successes and benefits of the UN.
Africa, as one of the largest constituents of the Global South, has a significant stake in the GGI. We should not see our place in the GGI architecture as a gift we are invited to take. We have to claim our stake in it, define it, and defend it. We must be seen to proactively set the GGI’s agenda. If our role in this initiative is not decisive, then our benefit from it will be as negligible as our say is optional.
Since 2005, the African Union (AU) has had the Ezulwini Consensus under which it continues to demand two permanent seats with veto power and five non-permanent seats for the continent at the UN Security Council. This has been our common position in demanding the Security Council’s reform.
The sovereign equality entrenched in the GGI’s language is now our entry point into inviting China, our partner, to actively support and sponsor Africa’s position on reforming the Security Council. China has real leverage in the multilateral forums where Africa demands reform, including the Security Council itself. Therefore, it should move beyond verbal endorsements and work practically to support Africa to realise this justice. That said, it is important to note that despite being a member of UNSC, it is also actively invested in sponsoring the reformation of the Council, which shows that Beijing is not selfish but sincerely wants other countries to enjoy favours it currently enjoys at in SC.
In the General Assembly, Africa also has significant numbers it can leverage. As a continental bloc, we can set conditions at platforms like the G20, instead of merely getting accustomed to receiving proposals from there. Bargaining alongside Beijing on GGI-aligned initiatives is good, but that alone might perpetuate the asymmetric bargaining power we are trying to graduate from. We need a coordinated AU position that is similar to how we approached the Continental Free Trade Area. Negotiating for the GGI’s implementation as a bloc will earn us more success than we could secure as individual African States.
In a nutshell, Africa must name its own priorities under the GGI’s five propositions. Our stake in the forum will only grow in proportion to what we stand for and bring to the table, beyond raw materials and voting numbers. In China, we must cultivate a new partner, not a new patron. The GGI diagnosed the global leadership problem of our time accurately. But now it is up to us to take the initiative to step up and set the agenda, or shrink into another polite synonym of the old hierarchy we have worked long and hard to reform.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.
