Johannesburg, 1 SEPTEMBER 2025 – Brand South Africa has partnered with the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) to host the M20 Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa from the 1st – 2nd of September 2025.
The Summit brings together journalists, policymakers, academics, and civil society with the aim of placing media, information integrity and the role of journalism at the centre of the G20 agenda.
The Summit, the 1st in person M20 event, provides a platform to unpack the critical challenges affecting the media and information integrity ecosystems today. These include, but are not limited to, climate change dis-information, artificial intelligence and deepfakes, journalist safety, media viability, and cyber misogyny.
The Summit programme will explore the policy briefs compiled by the M20 team and partner organisations, as well as feature leading voices from the sector through high-level panels and dialogues. As the world faces rising authoritarianism, shrinking media freedom and freedom of expression, and an information disorder fuelled by algorithms and digital platforms, the M20 Summit is a call to action.
A draft Johannesburg M20 Declaration has been produced as a result of a collaborative global discussion in advance of the Summit. It calls upon media and partners, and G20 leaders, to take urgent steps to respond to the information integrity crisis, its causes and its impacts. It affirms that information integrity is essential to sustaining democracy and advancing the G20’s 2025 goals of international solidarity, equality and sustainable development.
The draft declaration states that our call is an injunction to everyone to do more to protect press freedom, support the role of journalism, and a human rights-based media ecosystem in its contribution to the public good. It calls for media to commit to reinforcing the highest standards of journalism ethics, to act as a counterbalance to The M20 for the G20 An initiative by SANEF, MMA and partners M20support@altadvisory.africa Media20.org attacks against information integrity, and to uncover disinformation campaigns, including AI mistakes and deepfakes, and provide access to reliable information to the public.
The draft declaration urges G20 leaders to recognise that severe threats to trust and the digital economy arise when information integrity is damaged by coordinated disinformation campaigns, AI errors, biases, and undisclosed deepfakes. It also calls for shared solutions to the “perfect storm” of the challenges ranging across information integrity, media capture and capitulation, journalists’ safety and targeted attacks, media viability, platforms and AI, children’s and young people’s rights and the climate emergency.
The declaration text will be finalised at the Summit and presented to delegates for endorsement and transmission to the G20 platforms. While registration for the Summit is closed, the proceedings can be viewed live on SABC Plus.
As the custodian of South Africa’s reputation, Brand South Africa continues to play a vital role in reinforcing trust, credibility, and global confidence across various spheres, including the media landscape.
Recognising the influence of the media in shaping perceptions, Brand South Africa partnered with SANEF as a priority stakeholder with the ability to frame the national narrative for both regional and global audiences.
Through this partnership, Brand South Africa demonstrated its commitment to advancing press freedom, promoting ethical journalism, and ensuring that the story of South Africa is told with integrity and balance.
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Issued by Brand South Africa
Notes to the Editor
About Brand South Africa
Brand South Africa is the official marketing agency of South Africa, with a mandate to build the country’s brand reputation, to improve its global competitiveness. Its aim is also to build pride and patriotism among South Africans, to contribute to social cohesion and nation brand ambassadorship.
About M20
The M20 is an independent initiative to ensure issues relating to media integrity and healthy information ecosystems are reflected in the G20 policy agenda. The M20 mirrors official G20 engagement groups for business, think-tanks, civil society among others, and includes participation in G20 events, convenings of media and information ecosystem role players, hosting of webinars on G20-related issues and publishing policy briefs.
It draws on the participation of researchers, experts and networks of international media development organisations and relevant think tanks, civil society, and media organisations among G20 members, as well as from across the African continent.
More info: the M20 summit programme: https://media20.org/events/summit/
For enquiries contact:
Kagiso Bonoko (Brand South Africa)
Email: Kagisob@brandsouthafrica.com
Mobile number: 082 525 2942
Reggy Moalusi (SANEF)
Email: mailto:reggym@sanef.org.za
Mobile number: 071 682 3695
William Bird (MMA)
Email: mailto:williamb@mma.org.za
Mobile Number: 082 887 1370
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