G20s Underutilized Asset

The G20's Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG), mody recently led by South African President Ramaphosa, pictured here, operates as an underutilized powerhouse for AI governance coordination. While attention focuses on formal summits, DEWG provides the infrastructure for tech ministers of powerful nations including USA and China to coordinate policy responses – most recently with an emphasis on AI policy. DEWG's convening power creates space supportive of the AI Middle Way approach, allowing Global South nations to develop complementary rather than competing strategies. By leveraging DEWG's existing relationships and technical expertise, the AI Middle Way Coalition could accelerate implementation across multiple countries simultaneously, transforming theory into coordinated international practice.

South Africa's 2025 G20 Presidency has demonstrated the DEWG's particular value as a forum for advancing equitable AI governance aligned with Global South priorities. Through four successive DEWG meetings from February through September 2025, South Africa prioritized "equitable, inclusive, and just artificial intelligence" alongside digital infrastructure and innovation ecosystem development.¹ The successive ministerial meetings emphasized that AI development must serve sustainable development goals while enabling jurisdictions to develop and regulate AI according to their own legal frameworks and development needs.² This emphasis on locally-determined AI governance approaches—rejecting one-size-fits-all solutions imposed by technologically dominant nations—directly parallels the AI Middle Way Coalition's core proposition. South Africa's framing of the "AI for Africa Initiative," developed in collaboration with the African Union, further illustrates how DEWG provides a mechanism for developing regions to shape global AI policy conversations, ensuring that benefits of AI advancement reach beyond wealthy economies.³

Footnotes:

South Africa Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, "First G20 Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG) Meeting," February 17-19, 2025; and "Minister Solly Malatsi: Second Meeting of the Digital Economy Working Group and Task Force on AI," speech delivered in Gqeberha, April 7, 2025, https://www.dcdt.gov.za/. The priorities established during South Africa's presidency explicitly centered "equitable, inclusive, and just artificial intelligence" with emphasis on ensuring that AI development contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and allows all nations voice in shaping global AI governance frameworks.

Chairs Statement: Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, Data Governance and Innovation for Sustainable Development (2025), G20 South Africa Presidency, September 30, 2025. The statement affirms: "While acknowledging the need for global cooperation, the meeting affirmed that jurisdictions are entitled to develop, adopt and regulate AI, in accordance with international law and applicable legal frameworks." This principle of sovereign AI governance, coupled with commitment to international cooperation, creates space for the differentiated approaches the AI Middle Way Coalition advocates.

G20 Digital Economy Working Group, "AI for Africa Initiative," developed under South Africa's G20 Presidency in collaboration with the African Union, 2025. The initiative mobilizes G20 support for building African capacity in AI development and adoption, including computing infrastructure, talent development, and representative datasets—demonstrating how DEWG mechanisms can channel resources and technical cooperation toward developing regions rather than concentrating AI governance authority in established technology centers.

G20 Digital Economy Working Group, "G20 Digital Economy Ministerial Declaration" (Trieste, Italy: G20, August 2021), https://www.g20.org/. The DEWG was established to address digital transformation challenges but remains relatively unknown outside policy circles compared to finance or climate working groups. For analysis of G20 working group effectiveness, see Larionova, Marina, and John J. Kirton, eds., G20 2020: Priorities, Performance, and Prospects (Moscow: International Organisations Research Institute, 2020).

OECD, "G20 Digital Economy Task Force Report" (Paris: OECD, 2017), 15-22. The report documents DEWG's role in facilitating technical cooperation and policy coordination among member states, including emerging economies. Of the G20's 19 country members, 12 are classified as middle or upper-middle income economies, giving these nations substantial voice within DEWG deliberations.

Thailand (G20 guest nation), Indonesia (G20 member), Mexico (G20 member), and Peru (potential future participant through regional mechanisms) exemplify middle-income countries seeking technological sovereignty. For the challenge of navigating between US and Chinese technology models, see Lee, Kai-Fu, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), 178-205; and Sheehan, Matt, "The US-China AI Relationship: Competition and Cooperation," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2021, https://carnegieendowment.org/.

G20 Digital Economy Working Group, "Roadmap for Digital Cooperation" (Osaka, Japan: G20, June 2019). The roadmap mentions that digital governance should enable diverse national approaches rather than imposing one-size-fits-all solutions. This framework aligns with the AI Middle Way's emphasis on sovereign development. See also Wade, Robert, Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), which demonstrates how coordinated but diverse approaches enabled Asian development success.

The concept of leveraging existing international mechanisms for AI governance reflects insights from institutional economics. See North, Douglass C., Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 83-91, on how existing institutional infrastructure reduces transaction costs for new initiatives. For the transformation from theory to practice in international technology governance, see DeNardis, Laura, The Global War for Internet Governance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 45-68.