Speech by Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Harris - Ireland at the G20

Speech by Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Harris

Ireland at the G20

13 February 2025

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Ambassadors, distinguished guests, it is a pleasure to be here today marking Ireland’s participation at the G20 as a guest country under South Africa’s Presidency.

I thank the panellists for speaking to G20 priorities and engagement.

In particular, thank you Mr. Schaal, for sharing your time and experience with us, we value our engagement with the OECD and the institution’s efforts in creating better policies for better lives.

Your Excellency, Nicolette Schreiber, we are grateful that you have joined us here today and for the opportunity to have our voice heard at the G20 as a guest country of the South African Presidency.

Ireland and South Africa have had a warm and enduring friendship over thirty years of diplomatic relations. There are an estimated thirty-five thousand Irish passport holders in South Africa, the largest Irish community in Africa. I had the opportunity to meet South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile last September during his visit to Dublin, where we discussed many of the important issues to our two countries.

This day next week I will be in Johannesburg for the Foreign Ministers Meeting, the first Ministerial meeting of South Africa’s G20 Presidency.

South Africa’s G20 Presidency is significant. For the first time in its history, the G20 is being hosted on the African continent. This comes at a time where the multilateral system is under strain, where many of the values that underpin our international cooperation are being eroded and the pursuit of a more just, secure, and sustainable world is losing prominence. South Africa’s Presidency of the G20 takes a stand against this, with their priorities championing the Sustainable Development Goals, Inclusive Economic Growth and the rules-based international system.

Our recently agreed Programme for Government, Ireland’s Place in the World, commits the government to strengthening Ireland’s place in Europe and around the world. Our participation at the G20 offers an early opportunity to build on that commitment.

Ireland will bring our own values and a global perspective to our participation at the G20. Our ambition is to be an effective and active participant across all working groups and taskforces, prioritising areas such as global food security, harnessing innovation for inclusive growth, and climate financing, all underpinned by our support for inclusive decision making.

We will seek to amplify the perspective of smaller and highly networked economies in discussions on global financial architecture and sustainable development.

We will promote our longstanding commitment to international law, multilateralism, and active engagement in international forums and advocate for an inclusive international system that leaves no one behind.

As a small, highly open trading economy with a strong global outlook, Ireland is committed to the value of an open and fair-trading system, underpinned by the multilateral, rules-based system. Free and fair trade brings economic opportunities, creates well-paid jobs, fosters innovation and builds economic resilience – essential for small states like Ireland to thrive and prosper.

Ireland and South Africa have a long-standing partnership on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and share a commitment to reaching the ‘furthest behind first’ in the attainment of the SDGs.

The G20 provides an important platform for building on our strong track record of responding to global development challenges, in particular combatting poverty and hunger, which is both a priority for the South African Presidency and one of Ireland’s flagship foreign policies.

Ireland will be well placed to provide support and assistance to the presidency on work to combat global hunger and to promote inclusive economic growth. I commend South Africa’s Presidency for putting the realisation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals at the centre of their G20 Priorities.

Ireland is also committed to gender equality – it is a cornerstone of our foreign policy. It is a pre-requisite for the achievement of the SDGs. A world with universal respect for human rights can only be achieved through gender equality. At the G20, Ireland will continue to work towards increasing women’s economic empowerment, ending gender-based violence, widening women and girl’s access to education – and, sustaining global action on shared health challenges.

Ireland is committed to combatting climate change, and we see delivering effective and accessible climate finance as essential to this fight. Improving access, particularly of adaptation finance, is essential to ensuring that climate finance meets the needs of those who are most impacted by climate change. 80% of Ireland’s climate finance is focussed on adaptation and we know that this is a major priority for South Africa, and indeed for the African continent as a whole, as climate impacts worsen.

Finally, Ireland is an outward facing country. Our engagement at the G20 will be characterised by our openness, our willingness to engage with all parties and to prioritise the consensus building that fosters real change.

It is fitting that this opportunity comes in the final year of the Global Ireland Strategy. Seven years ago, when the strategy was first launched, our ambition was to increase Ireland’s influence on the global stage. We have delivered on this ambition, we have opened or announced twenty-seven new diplomatic missions, increased Ireland’s official development assistance, built a network of cultural attaches and served as a member of the UN Security Council. This wider and deeper international presence has equipped our country with the reach and influence to promote our values and pursue our economic interests.

We are in the process of building on this strategy, with a new vision to 2040 and I hope that the G20 will feature prominently in that vision.

We wish South Africa every success in its G20 Presidency and look forward to playing our part in that.

I thank you for your time today.

Go raibh maith agaibh.