South Africa sought to salvage international talks on tackling global poverty on Wednesday as finance chiefs of several leading economies skipped a gathering of Group of 20 nations in Cape Town held against a backdrop of foreign aid cuts.
The two-day meeting comes after the Trump administration announced plans to gut its USAID arm and Britain slashed its aid budget by 40% to divert funds towards defence spending.
Disputes over trade, the Ukraine war and how to tackle climate change have long made it hard for the G20 grouping to make serious progress on global challenges, but the latest no-shows risk further undermining its credibility.
After U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed he would not attend, finance ministers from Japan, India and Canada also pulled out. Others cut short their presence and the European Union’s top economic official chose to stay away.
“It is now more important than ever that the members of the
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