By JoAnne Wadsworth, Communications Consultant for the G20 Interfaith Forum
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WINGS — the Global Network of Philanthropy Support and Development Organizations, in partnership with the Anglo American Foundation, Foundations 20, and the Council on Foundations, held the second session of its G20 Information Series, entitled “G20 Engagement Groups and Cross-Sector Allyship.” Panelists included Cass Coovadia, B20 South Africa Sherpa; Monica Pasqualin, Co-Founder of Dinamo Lab and lead organizer of G20 for Impact in Brazil; Katherine Marshall, Vice President of the G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20); Mark Mittelhauser, representing the Labour 20 (L20) US leadership; and Richard Ponzio, Director of the Stimson Center’s Global Governance, Justice and Security Program and co-leader of the Think Tank 20 (T20) US initiative. Reon van der Merwe, G20 Coordinator at WINGS, moderated the discussion, with introductory and closing remarks from Sameera Mehra, Collective Intelligence and Advocacy Director at WINGS.
Cas Coovadia: B20
Coovadia reflected on the B20 South Africa, which he described as the first truly African B20 — not merely a South African one. A central achievement was convening what was likely the largest gathering of African CEOs to engage substantively on policy through the B20’s task forces, producing thirty recommendations that addressed both Africa’s specific challenges and their implications for the global economy. A defining theme throughout was “reset”: the recognition that complex geopolitics, while challenging, also created openings for new alliances and trade relationships.
“We positioned Africa’s challenges and Africa’s opportunities as not just challenges and opportunities for the continent, but challenges and opportunities for the world.”
Coovadia described ongoing efforts to sustain that momentum through a CEO-led initiative anchored in the B20 recommendations, with active outreach to British business counterparts to carry unresolved issues into the UK presidency.
Monica Pasqualin: G20 for Impact
Pasqualin spoke from her experience with G20 for Impact, a coalition of more than fifty global organizations that brought philanthropy and civil society recommendations into the G20 during Brazil’s presidency. She described the effort as a deliberate attempt to find unconventional entry points into the formal process, including through the Sustainable Finance Working Group. Two structural realities, she warned, will challenge any actor engaging in the G20: the forum’s lack of structured governance makes continuity across presidencies difficult, and host countries are perpetually learning as they go. Her core recommendation was discipline — focus on fewer, deeply interconnected priorities, and deliver a shared message collectively.
“Philanthropy is key — it is essential to this new economic development.”
Katherine Marshall: IF20
Marshall offered both a historical and forward-looking perspective on the IF20’s engagement with the G20. She noted that religious communities encompass roughly eighty to ninety percent of the world’s population, yet their voice has historically been difficult to integrate into global governance processes. The IF20 has worked to remedy this since 2014, building a network of networks that now includes thirty to forty communities — from major interfaith organizations to health, peace, and humanitarian bodies — channeling the experience of faith communities into the G20 process.
Marshall pointed to several thematic areas where the IF20 has sustained consistent engagement: hunger and food security, which was a strong focus in both Brazil and South Africa; pluralism and divided societies, where faith communities can play a bridging role through education and leadership; pandemic preparedness; and the ethics of sovereign debt relief, an issue she connected to jubilee-year traditions across religious communities. She also highlighted the IF20’s longstanding collaboration with the African Union, bringing African voices more fully into the conversation.
“We very much welcome what my colleague Anne Simmons Benton from the W20 calls ‘radical collaboration’ — the idea that we really are trying to find the common ground as we look at this very special, rather complex instrument of global governance.”
On philanthropy’s role, Marshall was direct about the gravity of the current moment. International development and humanitarian systems have been severely damaged, and creative thinking about future directions is urgently needed. She pointed to forced labor, human trafficking, gender equality, climate finance, and international financial architecture as concrete areas where the IF20 and philanthropy can work together now.
Mark Mittelhauser: L20
Mittelhauser spoke on behalf of the L20 US, which represents some 190 million workers through the International Trade Union Confederation, led nationally this year by the AFL-CIO. He was candid about the difficulties of the current US presidency: the administration’s “back to basics” approach has dramatically reduced the number of official tracks and recognized engagement groups, foreclosing most traditional entry points. In response, the L20 has shifted toward external communications, coalition-building with other engagement groups — including the W20, Y20, B20, IF20, T20, and C20 — and engagement with like-minded governments and international organizations. Priority issues include fair wages, worker protections, just transitions for climate and digital disruption, gender pay equity, and forced labor in global supply chains.
“Philanthropy’s ability to fund over various cycles is really a superpower.”
Mittelhauser framed the current presidency as a bridge-building challenge: preserving gains from Brazil and South Africa and carrying them forward to the UK and South Korea. He called on philanthropy to sustain engagement group infrastructure, amplify communications, fund independent research, and support interventions that demonstrate policy priorities in practice.
Richard Ponzio: T20
Ponzio traced the G20’s track record as a site of genuine multilateral achievement before turning to the US presidency. Despite the administration’s narrow initial agenda, he noted that pressure from other member states has already resulted in a new working group on trade and a broadening of subject matter within existing groups. The T20, now in its fifteenth year and co-led by the Stimson Center, Brookings, and the Quincy Institute, has responded to its formal exclusion by introducing the word “Alternative” into its project title — a deliberate signal of its independent intent. Key events are planned around the spring Bank-Fund meetings, the Global Solutions Summit in June, UNGA, and a T20 Summit in November ahead of the G20 in Miami.
“The T20 has brought together some of the world’s sharpest thought leaders and policy research institutes to provide all G20 members with a global research capacity to drive evidence-based policymaking.”
Question and Answer Session
How can philanthropy most effectively engage with engagement groups during the current US presidency and in future G20 cycles?
Panelists converged on several themes. Coovadia pointed to the Business-Philanthropy Legacy Initiative from the South African B20 as a model, with ongoing work in infrastructure finance and capital mobilization. Marshall highlighted the IF20’s concrete issue areas — forced labor, gender equity, climate finance — as ready ground for joint action. Mittelhauser and Pasqualin both emphasized that many engagement groups must reinvent themselves annually, scrambling for basic operational funding; philanthropy’s multi-year funding capacity is thus not merely useful but foundational. Ponzio noted that the T20 specifically welcomes philanthropic participation in its policy dialogue series and sees foundations as well positioned to make a collective case to governments alongside the formally recognized B20.
Concluding Remarks
Mehra closed the session around three takeaways: this is a moment for mobilization, with the sector needing to translate recommendations from Brazil and South Africa into visible action; radical collaboration is not optional, and there is demonstrable appetite across the engagement groups for exactly that kind of strategic partnership; and continuity — the ability to sustain focus across multiple G20 cycles — is philanthropy’s most distinctive and underappreciated asset. She noted that multiple entry points are already opening, from the UK government’s active solicitation of G20 agenda input to a US Philanthropy Task Force meeting regularly to coordinate strategy, and encouraged participants to engage now, while agendas are still being shaped.
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JoAnne Wadsworth is the Communications Consultant for the G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20) and acting editor of the Viewpoints blog.