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22 October 2004
STATEMENT OF THE
PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA, THABO MBEKI, AT THE OPENING OF THE NEPAD
STAKEHOLDERS DIALOGUE, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg
Your Excellency, President Obasanjo, President of the Republic of
Nigeria and Chairperson of the African Union and the NEPAD
Implementation Committee,
Your Excellency, President Wade, President of the Republic of Senegal
and Vice-Chairperson of the Implementation Committee,
Your Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Welcome to South Africa and welcome to this NEPAD Multi-Stakeholders
Dialogue. I hope this dialogue will help all of us to play our part and
help accelerate the implementation of all NEPAD programmes.
As we all know, the African continent is currently engaged in a deep and
fundamental renewal process. The over-arching objective of this process
is to break the vicious cycle of political instability, poverty, and
underdevelopment, as well as Africa,Äôs weak capacity to defend and
advance her interests in the global arena.
In this regard, the key building blocks of this renaissance strategy are
increased political unity and concerted action through the African
Union, and accelerated socio-economic transformation through the AU
programme, The New Partnership for Africa,Äôs Development (NEPAD).
The establishment of the AU through the Constitutive Act, with its
profound vision and progressive principles, has generated high
expectations for rapid political, social and economic progress.
It was therefore important that this profound vision and progressive
principles contained in the Constitutive Act were complemented by a
holistic, comprehensive and integrated strategic policy framework and
programme of action on development. This is what NEPAD does.
The Constitutive Act sets out the core values and principles that are
necessary if our continent is to achieve democracy and economic
development, while NEPAD seeks to implement these values and principles
in a concrete manner.
Many factors have an impact on the possibility for development in
Africa. Some of these factors that are important for development are
peace, security and stability. Accordingly, the leadership of the
African continent saw the importance of breaking the vicious cycle of
wars, conflict and instability which contributes to a very large degree,
to the deep levels of poverty and underdevelopment.
In this regard, the AU is paying particular attention to the important
matters of peace and security. Already, as we know, the Peace and
Security Council has been established and has started functioning.
Further, the establishment of the Pan African Parliament ensures that
the public representatives of our countries have an opportunity to
engage, in a structured way, among others, with the challenges of NEPAD.
Indeed, in their sitting recently our continent,Äôs public
representatives deliberated on the NEPAD challenges and the role they
would play as African parliamentarians.
Clearly, through these parliamentarians, we would be able to reach the
mass of our people, as these public representatives report back to their
communities about the many issues that they are discussing, including
NEPAD, and engaging their constituencies. This would ensure that the
mass of our people have the opportunity to understand NEPAD and
therefore be able to make whatever contribution to the success of NEPAD.
The issues of democracy, good political, economic and corporate
governance, and regional integration are necessary conditions for
development. These necessary conditions, coupled with other NEPAD
priorities such as infrastructure development; banking and financial
standards; agriculture and market access are creating positive
conditions conducive for better investment, reducing business costs and
increasing Africa,Äôs competitiveness in the world economy.
In addition, the AU adopted NEPAD with an express understanding that
this is new partnership for the development of Africa, which is owned,
managed and driven by Africans, has a huge responsibility to end the
centuries of poverty and underdevelopment brought about by the brutal
system of slavery, colonial conquest of Africans and their lands,
exploitation of African resources and marginalisation of African people.
Accordingly, it is also very important that we assess the level of
participation by Africans in the programmes of NEPAD, particularly the
involvement of the different sectors of our African people ,Äì the
women, youth, businesspeople, workers, intelligentsia and others, as
well as the many Africans that are now in the Diaspora.
It is also important that we should use this Dialogue to look at the
overall progress that we have made with regard to the achievements of
the various programmes of NEPAD.
Although NEPAD,Äôs programmes are work-in-progress, there are many areas
where we have made a lot of progress and I am sure these would be
discussed during this Dialogue. For us to move forward, we need to
examine the ground that we have covered so as to build on the progress
that we have made.
We should also critically examine the areas where we have not made the
required progress and offer suggestions as to how we can make
improvements. One of these areas is the lack of capacity at regional
levels such that even when we have mobilised the necessary resources, we
are held back by the fact that we cannot translate some of the good and
visionary ideas into concrete implementable programmes.
I think this multi-stakeholder dialogue should assist in working
solutions for us to draw on the available human resource base of the
partners that are represented in this meeting.
Regional integration is very important because as we all know, African
economies are generally small, weak and fragmented and the majority of
countries have relatively small populations. While there has been some
progress made in achieving regional integration in Africa, there are
still challenges that remain and they need to be addressed urgently.
We need to Strengthen Regional Economic Communities (RECs) including the
rationalisation of RECs and the involvement of the private sector and
civil society.
We also need to improve macroeconomic frameworks for development and
deeper integration.
We have to improve regional trade by, among others, eliminating barriers
to intra-regional trade.
And we should accelerate physical integration through infrastructure
development.
There is a need to clarify the relationship between the RECs and the
African Union, particularly as they relate to mandates.
Clearly, the private sector has a key role to play in the future
development of the continent. We need increased participation by the
private sector in the NEPAD programmes such as infrastructure
development, the diversification of production and in the drive to add
value to products.
In this regard, public-private partnerships are essential if NEPAD is to
succeed.
I am confident that by systematically working together ,Äì government,
business, civil society ,Äì we can as Africans, begin to realise the
goals of NEPAD. Further, we need to strengthen South-South partnerships.
We also need to ensure enduring partnership with the developed
countries.
Your Excellencies, distinguished guest, I am confident that we are on
the right path, because if we look at the recent history of the
continent, at least since the beginning of the 1990,Äôs, democracy and
democratic processes have been on the increase. There is no doubt that
the African people and leaders are committed to stay this course because
many of us fought against colonialism and apartheid so as to bring
democracy to our countries.
Clearly, through the democratic processes on the continent, the work
that the AU is doing through the Pan African Parliament, the Peace and
Security Council, NEPAD and other processes, I think, we can say that,
despite the occasional setbacks, the renaissance of our continent is on
course.
Once again, on behalf of the government and people of South Africa, you
are welcome to South Africa.
I thank you.
Enquiries: Bheki Khumalo
Cell: 83 256 9133
David Hlabane
Cell: 82 561 9428.
Issued by: The Presidency
22 October 2004.
