South African Government (Pretoria)
1 November 2001
document
UCT Graduate School of Business, Breakwater Campus, Cape Town — Introductory Welcome By Sipho M Pityana, Director General of the Department of Foreign Affairs At the Conference Organised By Saiia On Charting a New Course Globalisation, African Recovery And the New African Initiative
Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a pleasure and an honour to be with you here today to examine with you the new course that we Africans have been charting for the renaissance of the Continent, given the present international circumstances.
I would like to congratulate the South African Institute of International Affairs and the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, along with Business Africa Magazine, the Universities of Cape Town and Florida and the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs with this event, which represents an important initiative in building new partnerships and consolidating existing ones.
Allow me to offer apologies for President Thabo Mbeki who is unable to address you in person, owing to official commitments in Mali.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Much has been said about the terrible events of 11 September. Many have been quick to predict an apocalypse that would engulf the globe in a new world war or to announce with prophetic certainty the dawning of a new age - a new world order. But if we take a few steps back, as is possible now six weeks after the shock waves created by the attacks on the World Trace Centre and the Pentagon, it becomes clear that those attacks have not come from nowhere. Yes, they have struck like a thunderbolt but perhaps we were too busy looking down, dealing with our day-to-day business, to notice the storm clouds gathering overhead. Or have we?
The South African Government's outright condemnation of the horrific terrorist attacks in the US is a matter of public record. Of course, action needs to be taken. Justice needs to be done and it needs to be seen to be done. Justice needs to be done to all the people. To those in the highly industrialised countries, as to those in the highly indebted poor countries.
While condemning the attacks, South Africa has also clearly indicated that it is in favour of a reaction against international terrorism within the multilateral framework of the United Nations. I will attempt very briefly to illustrate the reason for this.
You will recall that the US, in terms of its recognised right to self-defence, lost no time in beginning to build an anti-terrorism coalition. While the whole world united in condemning the terror attacks and in expressing support for the fight against terrorism, we have however also witnessed a reticence on the part of many states to join the US-led military alliance unconditionally. Is that because of a lack of compassion for the victims of 11 September? Or because of a lack of commitment to the fight against terrorism? I doubt it.
The problem really lies in a lack of unanimity within the international community over the question of what precisely constitutes terrorism. There are no easy answers to this question. Questions as to where to draw the line between terrorism and a legitimate struggle for freedom is but one example of the complexities involved in such an exercise. Nevertheless, the question of terrorism is a global concern and the different states of the world can therefore rightfully claim their stake, as equal partners, in defining and countering terrorism. This question should therefore inevitably been dealt with in and through the United Nations.
We have also seen ordinary people making their voices heard and we have seen governments paying attention to their public opinions to a much larger degree than might have been the case in the past.
On the basis of this evidence, I wish to submit that the underlying trend is one of growing empowerment of those traditionally considered as weak. It could be argued that this is also an aspect of globalisation - globalisation of democratic values. Democratisation is not something that can take place over night. It is a process. But what the current debate on globalisation has illustrated, is that this process has indeed been at work globally and that it has reached a stage where the first fruits are beginning to appear.
The economic impact of the attacks is already being felt globally and it is to be expected that as US consumer demand go down, that this will have negative consequences for the entire world economy.
It is therefore also a priority of the South African Government to ensure that the fight against terrorism does not relegate the greatest development challenges of the 21 St century - inter alia, poverty alleviation, the fight against emerging and re-emerging diseases and narrowing the gap between rich and poor.
Africa has started positioning itself to manage the effects of globalisation effectively and to take advantage of the opportunities that this unprecedented global phenomenon presents.
From the start of his mandate, President Mbeki has expressed his vision of the African continent taking charge of its own destiny and of resurrecting itself from the misery of underdevelopment, poverty, corruption and mismanagement. The President spoke of an African Renaissance - a concept which implies the revival of that which is quintessentially African, but in a way that would be viable in today's world. Furthermore, a renaissance - a rebirth - is not something that can be decreed. It can only be discerned after it has started taking place. President Mbeki formulated in a coherent and visionary way what had already started taking place in the African community. To bear this out, I may refer you, as an example, to the Lagos Plan of Action for the Economic Development of Africa, adopted by the OAU in 1980. This was a landmark in the process of rethinking the organisation and management of African economies. In 1991 Africa took the first steps towards assuring security, stability, development and intra-African co-operation with the adoption of the Kampala Document. In 1996 the OAU adopted the Kampala Declaration and Framework of Action on the Empowerment of Women. I can give you more examples of ways in which Africa has started re-inventing itself.
The Millennium Partnership of the African Recovery Programme (MAP) was another milestone in this process of assisting the African Renaissance.
Another product of the same kind of thinking was the Omega plan which was developed at the initiative of Senegal. These two initiatives were merged into A New African Initiative, which was very suitably adopted at the last Summit of the OAU in Lusaka in July this year. The New African Initiative thus coincided with the birth of the African Union, another product of the renaissance of Africa.
Although Africa has been part of the worldwide process of globalisation, Africa - like other regions of the South - has been paying a higher price and deriving lower benefits from it. The New African Initiative, updated in October 2001 and renamed The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is our plan of action to deal with this situation and to redress the disparities that, for historical reasons, have been at the root of the development chasm that came about because of centuries of unequal relations.
It is fortunate that we have had leaders in this continent who have acted timeously to chart a course out of our desperate situation and to hold out a real hope for the people of Africa, lest they resort to desperate methods of trying to obtain justice.
NEPAD seeks to deal with the disparities by normalising the fundamental relationship between Africa and the developed world. The abnormal relationships of exploitation and dependency, which were the result of our history of slavery and colonialism, need to be changed in such a way that we can interact with the developed world as equals, where we determine our own destiny and refuse to be conditioned by circumstance. In this spirit, African leaders have taken the responsibility on themselves to eradicate poverty and to stimulate growth and sustainable development.
NEPAD recognises that, for the realisation of this vision, the programmes of action need to operate both internally and externally. Furthermore although it has a strong economic and developmental focus - for the simple reason that these factors are of particular importance in enhancing the quality of life of African communities - it does recognise the interaction between different spheres of life. NEPAD thus presents an action plan with political, economic, social and cultural facets.
Let us first deal with the internal - external binary. Internally, we as Africans need to create the conditions that will allow development and therefore enable us to benefit optimally from our interaction with the rest of the world. Only then can the quality of life improve over a broad spectrum of people's needs and expectations. There are already signs of progress and hope. There are growing numbers of democratic regimes, committed to the protection of human rights, the pursuit of people-centred development and the entrenchment of market-oriented economies. NEPAD is about consolidating these gains and accelerating the African renaissance, which is reflected in these developments.
On the external level, we do need to participate actively in the world's economy and political processes. Africa has the resources and potential to make a valuable contribution to the global community. In fact, it is an essential resource base. NEPAD aims to provide a framework within which we can make these resources available to the world community, but not in such a way that the continent can again be exploited to the benefit of the industrialised countries. African leaders have agreed to utilise our resources to place Africa on an equal footing with the rest of the international community and to build a mutually beneficial partnership for the advance of human civilisation.
In this sense NEPAD is closely aligned to the Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by WCAR. In this Declaration, the international community has acknowledged the suffering of Africa through slavery, colonialism, apartheid and genocide. Poverty, underdevelopment, marginalisation, social exclusion and economic disparities were recognised as consequences of these violations of the basic rights of Africans, the negative effects of globalisation for Africa (and other regions of the South) were recognised and, importantly, the principle was accepted that, in various ways, the results of centuries of wrongdoing from which Africa had suffered, must be addressed. In this sense, what we achieved at WCAR must already count as an important step in the restructuring of Africa's relations with the industrialised countries and therefore one of the fruits of the implementation of NEPAD. WCAR also contributed to the growing solidarity of the countries and peoples of the South and enables us to join hands with others in situations similar to our own.
In a few days' time the summit of the World Trade Organisation will open in Doha, Qatar, where we shall have another opportunity to promote healthy, mutually advantageous relations with the rest of the world. Apart from the work that we shall be doing there as part of the African Group, South Africa will also be supporting other initiatives that unite different groupings of countries. For example, as a member of the Cairns Group which brings together 18 countries that export agricultural produce, South Africa will be part of an initiative by Australia to address the question of agricultural subsidies paid to European farmers. The US$327 billion per year given by European governments to their own farmers is about six times as high as the amount devoted to development assistance. Furthermore, these subsidies may be argued to counteract development assistance in that they serve to distort the market and keep competition from the South at bay.
Let me conclude this brief overview of our interaction with the rest of the world by pointing out that NEPAD also seeks to enhance wider African participation in the cultural, academic and scientific life of the world, while we seek to persuade other countries to engage with Africa in these sectors, but also through investment, technology transfer and industrialisation.
On the internal level, NEPAD recognises that people don't only need a higher income in order to enjoy a better quality of life. They need that certainly too and towards that end much attention needs to be given to empowerment processes such as education, training and cultural development, to the provision of adequate health care services and also to infrastructural and industrial development. At the same time, there needs to be peace and security, respect for human rights, participation in democratic political processes, good governance and a healthy environment.
The African Union which has been formally established in Lusaka in July this year is designed to serve as the vehicle for advancing these goals. By adopting the WCAR Declaration and Programme of Action in September, we as Africans have given an added impetus to our commitment to human rights. We accepted the responsibility to fight racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in Africa and between Africans.
In conclusion, I would therefore argue that Africa has for some time already started taking decisive steps to address the frustrations, the disappointments, the marginalisation, the exploitation that are now being identified as important root causes of international terrorism. We have put in place programmes of action in different spheres of life and have established mechanisms to allow us to take charge holistically of our own destiny. Through intensive interaction between a troika of African leaders, Presidents Mbeki, Bouteflika and Obassanjo, and the leaders of the G-8, first in Osaka and this year in Genoa, leaders of the highly industrialised countries have bought into our vision of a restructured relationship between the developed and the developing world. This has been reinforced at WCAR and will receive continuous attention in other for a, such as the WTO.
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