NEWS
Report: C7 Handover Event 2025 - Transitioning from the Canadian to the French Presidency
[Executive Summary]
The official Civil Society 7 (C7) Handover Event, held online on 4th December 2025, marked the conclusion of the Canadian C7 Presidency, hosted by Cooperation Canada, and the formal transition of leadership to the French C7 Presidency, hosted by Coordination SUD. The session served as a crucial moment for reflection on the 2025 advocacy achievements and policy priorities, alongside strategic planning for civil society engagement with the forthcoming G7 agenda. Key technical discussions centered on global financial architecture reform, the protection of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and fortifying civic space for sustainable development.
The video recording of the event is available here.
[Full Report]
Reflections on the Canadian G7 Presidency by Global Affairs Canada
The G7 Sherpa, Cindy Termorshuizen, summarized the Canadian G7 Presidency, which was anchored in core priorities including accelerating the digital transition, building energy security, and protecting communities and the world. The Kananaskis Summit yielded six action-oriented leader statements, notably:
-Economic and Digital Policy: Establishment of a G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan and a G7 Leader Statement on AI for Prosperity, focused on secure, responsible, and trustworthy AI adoption.
-Global Security: Endorsement of the Kananaskis Wildfire Charter as a comprehensive multilateral effort for prevention and response, alongside statements addressing the crisis in the Middle East and ongoing support for Ukraine.
-North-South Engagement: Acknowledgment of the “North-South balance” in working groups, ensuring that G7 decisions are informed by the perspectives of the Global South.
C7 Working Groups: Highlights and Recommendations
Guided by C7 Sherpa Darron Seller-Peritz, Cooperation Canada, speakers from each Canadian C7 Working Group presented key advocacy successes and recommendations for the French Presidency:
Economic Justice: C7 Chair Paul Farran, Cooperation Canada, highlighted the C7 advocacy for the full and swift cancellation of unsustainable debt for countries, urging a shift from temporary fixes to establishing a faster, predictable, and equitable global debt system. The group also called for restoring Official Development Assistance (ODA) to its core mandate—poverty eradication—and supported the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation to tax extreme wealth and corporate profits fairly.
Humanitarian Action and Peace (HAP): The HAP Group, led by Andy Ouédraogo, Cooperation Canada, adopted a defensive posture to safeguard IHL and core humanitarian principles against global political headwinds. Recommendations included reversing the retreat from humanitarian commitments by protecting needs-based funding, upholding IHL without selectivity, and increasing investment in peacebuilding and anticipatory action. The imperative to center local communities, including Indigenous and women-led groups, in response mechanisms was underscored.
Sustainable Development: Oluseyi Oyebisi, Nigeria Network of NGOs, explained this group’s priorities that included addressing global hunger, strengthening health systems for resilience, and promoting equitable access to digital resources. Crucially, the group called for the G7 to strengthen and protect civic space, arguing that sustainable development is fundamentally undermined where civil society voices are silenced. The collective takeaway emphasized the need for civil society to engage strategically, technically, and politically to ensure the C7 process transitions from a “talk shop” to an “action shop”.
Climate, Energy, and Environment: The group, led by the international coordinator Harjeet Singh of Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, urged the G7 to demonstrate bold leadership on climate action, specifically calling for significant progress on climate finance, which remains insufficient. They demanded upholding science, equity, justice, and accountability in the transition to a green, resilient, and sustainable world. Furthermore, the C7 emphasized the need to tackle climate disinformation backed by fossil fuel interests and urged the G7 to take concrete steps to safeguard climate and environmental activists under attack globally.
Accountability and Strategic Engagement
Anselmo Lee, Co-convener of Global Summit Watch, emphasized that civil society must move beyond merely producing policy documents to ensuring rigorous accountability for G7 commitments. He called for a “strategic technical-political follow-up” and the creation of robust monitoring mechanisms to ensure that official words translate into concrete actions. Furthermore, he underscored the necessity of a true North-South balance to ensure global policies are inclusive and effective for all populations.
The French G7 Vision in 2026
Hugo Vergès, the French G7 Special Advisor to the Sous-Sherpa, provided an outlook on the priorities for the upcoming French G7 Presidency. He framed the French agenda around two key global challenges, emphasizing the need for multilateral cooperation and systemic reform.
Vergès began by acknowledging the excellent work of the Canadian Presidency and the C7 working groups. He then outlined the primary focus areas for the French G7, which aim to address current global fragilities:
1. Addressing Macroeconomic Imbalances and Geopolitical Tensions
Vergès stated that the current global situation urgently requires better global coordination of economic policies. He realistically acknowledged that ongoing economic imbalances are a catalyst for the geopolitical and trade tensions currently affecting both G7 members and the world beyond. The French Presidency’s goal in this area will be to establish a common framework of understanding of these imbalances and to define shared principles for a better and fairer global economic governance.
2.Reforming the Weakened Traditional Development Aid System
The second pillar focuses on the exhaustion and insufficiency of current development policies. He pointed out that the established framework, such as the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), dates back to the 1960s. Vergès asserted that the G7 has a collective interest in promoting impact and sustainability in development. This must be achieved through:
-Responsible debt management and the increased mobilization of domestic resources to strengthen the resilience of partner countries.
-A greater effort to mobilize private capital in conjunction with Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), a long-standing difficulty in development policy.
3.Strategic Approach and Inclusivity
France’s approach will recognize that the G7 alone cannot host a relevant conversation on all these critical topics. Therefore, the Presidency plans to involve non-G7 partners in the pre-summit conversations and preparatory work, ensuring inclusivity beyond the Leaders’ Summit.
The French G7 will structure its efforts around a limited number of ministerial tracks and aim to follow up on the concrete work and spirit of the original G7, 50 years after its creation. Finally, he stressed the critical importance of coordinating closely with the US G20 Presidency to find complementary approaches, as the G20 will be focusing on growth, access to energy, innovation, and trade. He expressed anticipation for the C7’s proposals on these issues in the year ahead.
Outlook for the French C7
Elodie Barralon and Yolaine Guérif, both at Coordination SUD, the incoming French C7 organizer, accepted the mandate with gratitude and committed to ensuring the C7 process has maximum impact. A clear roadmap was outlined:
-Preparatory Phase: An International Steering Committee will be established in early January 2026 to guide the process.
-C7 Summit: The French C7 Summit is provisionally scheduled for early April 2026 to ensure its resulting communique and recommendations can be thoroughly integrated and discussed in G7 Ministerial meetings well in advance of the G7 Leaders’ Summit in mid-June.
-Call to Action: Coordination SUD recognized the geopolitical complexity and the unique opportunity for unified civil society action, asserting that constructive dialogue is imperative to finding high-level solutions for the populations served.