Ministers and senior officials from the G20’s Culture Working Group (CWG) gathered this week in Zimbali, KwaZulu-Natal, to advance a cultural agenda encompassing heritage, digital equity, and climate action.
The meeting, held from 27 to 28 October and followed by a ministerial session on 29 October, was hosted at The Capital Zimbali resort and represented the 4th in-person convening of the CWG under the South African G20 presidency.
In his address, South Africa’s Minister of Sport, Arts, and Culture, Gayton McKenzie, advocated for the restitution of cultural artefacts and ancestral human remains, arguing that repatriation “helps heal the scars of colonialism.”
He proposed the establishment of an International Cultural Restitution Fund, designed to support provenance research, storage and repatriation logistics, especially for countries with fewer resources.
The ministerial gathering also endorsed the concept of Digital Cultural Equity, highlighting unequal remuneration and visibility of online cultural work, and tasked a new working group — the Task Team on Repatriation and Restitution — to advance those commitments.
A key overarching theme of the Zimbali sessions was the intersection of three domains: culture, climate change, and digital technologies.
Delegates discussed how fragile heritage sites are threatened by environmental change, how digital access can democratise cultural expression, and how culture must be intentionally integrated into socio-economic development strategies.
South Africa’s government described the meeting as preparatory for the upcoming G20 leaders’ summit, framing culture as a vehicle not only of identity and heritage but also of sustainable global development.
While many policy orientations were publicly announced, the full text of the ministerial declaration is not yet widely available.
The press reported that the negotiations concluded early on 29 October and that the resulting document is to be known as the “KwaDukuza Declaration”. According to a provincial official, “agreements were reached … at 5 am.”
Attention will now turn to how the commitments made in Zimbali are translated into concrete programmes, funding mechanisms and national policy frameworks in the months ahead.
Find out more about the Summit here
Image: logo of the Summit
