How a G20 leaders' declaration is agreed

A G20 leaders' declaration can look like a statement written in a weekend. In reality, it is the end of months of drafting and bargaining among officials, and it is meant to be agreed by consensus, so officials aim for a text that every member is willing to accept. Knowing how that happens is one of the most useful things you can bring to a Model G20, because your committee will face the same problem: turning many positions into one text that no one blocks. This guide follows the process, looks at real examples of hard negotiations, and explains what happens when members do not agree.

From working groups to the leaders' table

India's government described the pipeline in December 2022, as its presidency got under way. Working groups, initiatives and engagement groups "meet throughout the year and develop their Issue Notes and Outcome Documents in parallel." These discussions "feed consensus-based recommendations to the Sherpa Meetings." Then "the outcome document of the Sherpa-level meetings eventually forms the basis of the Leaders' Declaration, which will be debated and signed (after and if consensus is reached)" at the summit. Note the words "after and if." A declaration is not guaranteed.

India held four sherpa meetings during its presidency, in Udaipur, Kumarakom, Hampi and Manesar. A government account of the Hampi meeting in July says more than 120 delegates, led by their sherpas, "deliberated and engaged in co-authoring the Leaders Declaration," and that informal talks were "followed by drafting session." The fourth meeting, in Manesar just before the summit, ended with a joint meeting of sherpas and finance deputies on the declaration. The number of meetings varies by year, but it is usually a handful, with the last just before the summit.

Consensus is the rule

The G20 states its own principle in its declarations. New Delhi's 2023 text commits to the G20's "continued operation in the spirit of multilateralism, on the basis of consensus, with all members participating on an equal footing in all its events including Summits." Johannesburg's 2025 declaration repeats this, adding "in accordance with international obligations."

Consensus means that a single member can stop a text. So negotiators do not look for the strongest wording. They look for wording that every member can live with.

A hard case: the war in Ukraine at New Delhi, 2023

The clearest example is the paragraph on Ukraine. At Bali in 2022, the declaration said "Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine," and added that "There were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions."

Early in 2023, India's own ministers' meetings could not simply reuse that text. The finance ministers' meeting in Bengaluru in February and the foreign ministers' meeting in New Delhi in March both issued a "Chair's Summary and Outcome Document." Each said all members agreed to most paragraphs, but the two paragraphs taken from the Bali declaration "were agreed to by all member countries except Russia and China."

The leaders' declaration in September found different words. It said "we reiterated our national positions" and the resolutions adopted at the UN, that "all states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition," and that "There were different views and assessments of the situation." Unlike Bali, it named no country as the aggressor and had no sentence saying most members condemned the war. Reuters reported that it "avoided condemning Russia for the war," and that Ukraine's foreign ministry said the declaration was "nothing to be proud of."

Getting there took time. Russia's sherpa told Reuters that "it took almost 20 days to agree on the declaration before the summit and five days here on the spot." India's sherpa, Amitabh Kant, described "very tough and ruthless negotiations," according to The Tribune. The next year, Rio de Janeiro's declaration built on New Delhi's text rather than Bali's, which shows how agreed language carries forward from one summit to the next.

Communiqué, chair's summary or chair's statement

Not every G20 meeting ends with agreed text, and the document's label is a clue to which kind it is. A communiqué or declaration is written as "We" and is agreed by the members. A chair's summary or chair's statement is the presidency's own account of a meeting. There is no official G20 glossary for these terms, but the documents themselves show how they are used.

• No agreement: South Africa's first finance ministers' meeting in Cape Town in February 2025 issued a chair's summary that begins "There was not consensus for a communique and this represents the Chair's summary of the meeting."
• Agreement later: the same track's meeting in Durban in July 2025 produced a full communiqué written in the first person.
• Agreement with an exception: the 2026 finance ministers' meeting in Asheville issued a chair's statement with a footnote: it "was agreed by all G20 members present except China, which objected to paragraphs 4, 10, 11, and 13."
• Some texts agreed, some not: at the 2026 trade ministers' meeting in Milwaukee, the US presidency said members "reached consensus" on a statement about the weaponisation of food. On a statement about forced labour, "consensus was not reached," and the published text was headed "We, the Trade Ministers of the United States, Argentina, and Mexico," a three-country statement rather than a G20 agreement.

The 2026 trade text spells out who writes a chair's statement: it "is drafted and circulated by the United States, which holds the G20 presidency in 2026." So a chair's statement should not be quoted as "the G20's position" without checking which paragraphs members actually agreed.

When a member stays away

Johannesburg in 2025 tested the rule in another way. Leaders adopted the declaration on the first day of the summit, breaking with the usual practice of adopting it at the end, and the United States did not attend. South Africa's presidential spokesperson said it was "adopted unanimously by the other members." Argentina's foreign minister said Argentina "cannot endorse the declaration," while remaining committed to cooperation. A White House spokeswoman said South Africa had pushed for a declaration "despite consistent and robust US objections." South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa said the adoption "sends an important signal to the world that multilateralism can and does deliver."

The same declaration welcomed a review of how the Finance Track makes decisions, "while respecting the group's informal and consensus-based principles." That review shows the G20 itself is looking at how it decides. What consensus should mean when a member is absent is a fair question to think about in your own committee.

Lessons for your Model G20

• Start from agreed text. Real negotiators build on last year's declaration. Bring the exact wording your committee's topic was given in the latest declaration.
• Know your red lines. Decide before committee what your country cannot accept, and what it can live with in softer words.
• Offer wording, not just objections. New Delhi worked because negotiators found sentences that described disagreement ("different views and assessments") without forcing anyone to sign a view they rejected.
• Use the chair's tools. If your conference allows it, a footnote recording one member's objection, or a chair's summary when there is no consensus, can save the rest of the text.
• Leave the hardest paragraph for last. Agree everything else first, so the final dispute is narrow.

What to do next

For the structure behind the process, read the G20 Sherpa Track and Finance Track explained, and for this year's presidency, the 2026 G20 presidency explained. Our earlier explainer on what the G20 does covers the basics, and how to write a Model G20 position paper shows how to prepare your country's opening position.

To practise this kind of negotiation, Model G20 is One Young India's simulation of the G20 summit for students, held as a three-day residential summit at FLAME University.