It's the Brian Lairn Show. I'm producer Amino-Cerna filling in for Brian today. This weekend,

the G20 convenes in Johannesburg. The first time the summit has ever held has ever been held on

African soil South Africa has hoped this would be a moment of global leadership for president

surreal ramaphosa and symbolically for the continent but in the past few weeks the US pulled out

entirely and China Xi Jinping said he won't attend taking attend, taking some of the shine off of what was meant to be historic gathering.

Still, as semaphore Africa's Yinka Adagoque, excuse me, reports, South Africa has used its G20 presidency to elevate a set of issues that matter deeply to African nations.

That includes the continent's mounting debt burden, the question of how to pay for a just energy transition, and the reality that in many countries, more money is now flowing out to foreign creditors and then coming in as new financing.

So what does the U.S. boycott actually change? And what does a successful summit look like when

major powers aren't in the room? We'll get to all of that now with Yinka Adagocke, editor of

Semaphore Africa. Hi, Yinka. Welcome back to WMIC. Thank you for having me again.

And listeners, if you have ties to Africa, or if you follow Africa, global politics or international

development, what do you make of the U.S. skipping this G20? And what issues do you think African leaders

most need the world to hear right now?

212-433 W-NYC, that's 212-433-9-6-92 call or text?

Yinka, you write that South Africa was heading into this week expecting a major moment of global leadership

until the U.S.

boycott and Xi Jinping's no show.

How have those decisions been received in South Africa?

Well, we do know that President Ramaphosa sort of had to do a kind of diplomatic shrug and say,

well, it's their loss not to be not to be there.

That's a direct quote from him ahead of ahead of this.

But let's be clear about this.

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