Leaders from the Group of 20 nations will take decisive action to reform the global financial architecture and make other key decisions at their annual summit this week, despite US President Donald Trump’s absence, according to a top official from South Africa, which is hosting the gathering in Johannesburg.

“We believe that the countries that are present here must be able to take a decision and adopt a declaration,” Ronald Lamola, South Africa’s foreign minister, told the inaugural Bloomberg Africa Business Summit in the city on Tuesday ahead of the meeting of heads of state. “We do not believe the absence of the US should paralyse the G20.”

Trump ordered a US boycott of the G20 summit, the first of its kind to be held on the African continent, maintaining his false narrative that White Afrikaner farmers are being subjected to a genocide in South Africa. American officials also stayed away from several preparatory meetings, frustrating attempts by the bloc’s other members to forge consensus on a range of issues and draft joint communiques.

“The G20 should send a clear message that the world can move on with or without the US,” Lamola said. “We will mark them absent and continue with the business” of the summit, he said.

China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin also won’t be attending the leaders’ gathering, a further setback to South Africa’s bid to set the G20’s agenda and persuade it to do more to tackle global inequality, climate change and ballooning African debt.

Formed in the wake of the global financial crisis to bring together the world’s biggest advanced and emerging economies, the G20 once served as a key forum for setting and promoting global financial norms. Its cohesion has eroded in recent years, but the gatherings have continued to offer a venue for regular engagement among leaders of the world’s largest economies.

Lamola also noted that South Africa had “turned the corner,” as evidenced by its recent credit-ratings upgrade from S&P Global Ratings, its removal from the Financial Action Task Force’s dirty money watchlist and a cessation in power cuts.

“That does not mean we do not have challenges” such as crime and corruption, he said.