The G20 Interfaith Forum is pleased to share the comprehensive summary document from our August 2025 gathering in Cape Town, South Africa. This resource captures five days of intensive dialogue and collaboration among faith leaders, civil society organizations, government representatives, and multilateral stakeholders from around the world.
Held August 10-14 under the theme “Ubuntu in Action: Focus on Vulnerable Communities,” the Forum aligned with South Africa’s G20 priorities of Solidarity, Equality, and Sustainability. Ubuntu—the African philosophy recognizing that we are all interconnected and cannot thrive in isolation—provided the moral framework for addressing pressing global challenges. At a time when progress toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals has stalled, this gathering brought together faith communities’ wisdom, networks, and resources to chart pathways forward.
What’s Inside
This summary document serves as both a record and a strategic resource for anyone committed to advancing sustainable development. Readers will find complete remarks from keynote addresses and spotlight presentations, allowing deep engagement with the theological, ethical, and practical frameworks that guided our work together.
The document comprehensively covers plenary sessions that tackled priority areas including finance and debt, hunger and poverty, education as a human development imperative, and sustainability as a religious responsibility. Each session brought together diverse voices to identify both challenges and concrete pathways forward, preserving the depth and nuance of these essential conversations.
Breakout Sessions with Clear Action Points
One of the document’s most valuable features is its comprehensive coverage of concurrent breakout sessions. Organized across five tracks throughout the week, sessions explored diverse challenges: artificial intelligence ethics, cross-cultural religious literacy, post-COVID health system rebuilding, refugee and migrant protection, strategies for addressing corruption, approaches to combating disinformation, women’s roles in peacebuilding, traditional communities’ distinctive wisdom, and many others.
Crucially, each breakout summary includes clear, bulleted lists of action points—concrete, implementable recommendations that participants can take back to their communities and organizations. These aren’t theoretical exercises but practical next steps that emerged from collective expertise. The document’s detailed table of contents makes navigation simple, whether you’re revisiting a session you attended or exploring topics you missed.
Moving Forward
The document serves a dual purpose: recording what transpired and providing a roadmap for ongoing work. Action points from each session represent practical steps that can be implemented immediately at every level—from local congregations to international networks.
For those who attended, it’s an essential reference for continued collaboration. For those who couldn’t join, it offers a window into the conversations that shaped our collective vision. Most importantly, for everyone working toward a more just and sustainable world, it provides inspiration and evidence-based strategies.
We invite you to explore the document, share it with your networks, and identify action points relevant to your context. Building a world where no one is left behind requires all of us, grounded in Ubuntu and committed to our shared humanity.
The full IF20 South Africa Summary Document is available for download here.