Date: 02/07/2003
Source: Department of Social Development
Title: Madonsela: Southern Africa Millennium Declaration Goals (MDG) Forum
WELCOMING ADDRESS BY MR VUSI MADONSELA, DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA, TO THE SOUTHERN AFRICA MILLENNIUM DECLARATION GOALS (MDG) FORUM, Caesar's Gauteng, Johannesburg, 2 July 2003
Programme Director,
Your Excellencies,
Your Excellency, Former President Kenneth Kaunda,
Honourable Ministers,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On this occasion of the Southern Africa Millennium Declaration Goals Forum Conference, I bring you warm and heartily greetings from the people of South Africa, especially the poor and vulnerable, across the length and breadth of our country, starting from the Limpopo in the north, down to Cape Point in the south. I wish to, as I now do, welcome you all to Johannesburg, the city of gold. I trust that you will have a happy and productive stay in Johannesburg.
As a country, we are greatly honoured and privileged by this rare opportunity to host the Southern Africa Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Forum. As a people, as no doubt will see for yourselves over the three days of this conference, we are visibly excited to address you and to actively participate in its deliberations. The fact that this conference is being held in Johannesburg is pointedly significant. This is so because this city has been built through the blood, sweat and tears of mine workers from across the Southern African Region and elsewhere on African continent. It is a fitting tribute to many of those mine workers who came and toiled for many years of their lives in Johannesburg in search of a better livelihood for themselves and their communities that the organisers of this conference chose the city of gold as the host. Better still, that leaders at this conference are to make an individual and collective contribution to the Millennium Development Goals and reshaping Africa's destiny.
I also take this opportunity to thank, Mr John Ohiorhenuan, our UN resident representative, for his kind words about our country. I would like to also assure him that we will continue to work together with him and the UN agencies to ensure that the MDG, to which we all are committed, are realised globally, continentally, regionally and in our individual countries. We also thank you for this opportunity to address this landmark Forum, which we understand as both an important statement of solidarity and hope. It offers an opportunity for debate, common resolve and concerted action among policy makers, social scientists, and activists in the region and the developing world.
It is also important to note that this Forum happens just over nine months after our country hosted the World Summit of Sustainable Development, in this very city. We welcome the important decisions taken then and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and look forward to the finalisation of all the modalities of implementation. It is also important to note the far-reaching decisions were taken at the WSSD. These will ensure that we bequeath to the next generation a better, humane and equitable world based on the inseparable pillars to sustainable development; economic, social and environmental development. The WSSD outcomes not only reinforced the Millennium Development Goals but also added a fresh impetus to same by further developing and elaborating on them.
During the Millennium Summit in September 2000, many different views were presented on the main challenges facing the world's people. The intensity of the challenges is different for each region of the world and for each country. The peoples of this sub region and Africa, however, share the same objectives, ideals and values. For us social justice and solidarity mean collectively accepting the responsibility to address the global social development challenges facing our people.
Our collective concern is that as present day globalisation evolves, it deepens poverty and leads to a growing concentration of financial and economic power in the hands of a few whilst the majority are getting poorer. We are not opposed to globalisation per se, but to its present form and insist on the need for it to be people-centred. We fully understand that the process of globalisation is an objective process of mankind's historical evolution. It is an imperative of our times.
As stated by President Thabo Mbeki at the Mercosur Summit in Brazil in 2000, we have consistently stressed the need for a fundamental restructuring of the world economic order, as a central condition for the reversal of underdevelopment. In order to complement this restructuring, our region is moving away from the path of "hat in hand" and focuses on enhancement of the self-determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalising world.
Africans are indeed already doing it for themselves, but will require international organisations, especially the United Nations systems to support them in their quest for creating an Africa of peace, democracy, stability, sustainable socio-economic development and economic prosperity. An Africa fit for all to live in, especially our children.
With this objective in mind, on 16 September 2002 the General Assembly adopted a historic Resolution to support the New Partnerships for Africa's Development (NEPAD). Furthermore, in February this year, the Commission for Social Development in the UN (2003) adopted yet another important Resolution, to link social development to NEPAD, incorporating the right to development. These were milestone events and will, no doubt, accelerate the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. For us the most important challenge is to translate all these Resolutions and the MDG into concrete programmes and projects nationally and regionally that will secure a better quality life for our peoples. We believe that this forum will further advance that objective.
Ladies and Gentlemen
Many of our countries, including South Africa, are on course to addressing the development challenges faced by our peoples. We contend, however, that without meaningful partnerships that goal will be so much more difficult to achieve. I therefore take this opportunity to salute the many businesses and civil society leaders who have participated and shared the common vision of Africa's development by Africans as contained in the NEPAD. Without their individual and collective support, the future of Africa's children would be so much bleaker. The challenge remains the coordination of that input so that we are all of one mind and in action.
It is our contention that NEPAD is central to the attainment of the MDG. This is so since NEPAD calls for the reversal of an abnormal society where more than half of the world's poor live in Africa, and over 15 million of the hungry are in our sub region, whilst only a few live in absolute wealth amongst us, particularly in the developed nations. The fact that the majority of the world's poor are in Africa is no coincidence but a direct result of calculated history that saw our mineral resources being taken to developed nations. This history continues to pervade our countries, this time manifested by the escalating brain drain" being faced by the developing world.
Like many other countries in the region, in South Africa, with the advent of democracy in 1994, the government inherited an economy that was declining and corrupted. The economy was growing at about 1.2% after along period of negative growth in the early 1990s. The country had a rising debt with unsustainable fiscal deficit reaching 9.5% of GDP. Worse more the economy was characterised by stagnating investment with an un-competitive protectionist industrial base, which significantly discriminated against black businesses and employees.
However, over the past nine years economic growth has been positive (with the exception of 1998, when there was negative per capita growth due to the East Asian crisis). The budget deficit has since declined to less than 2% of GDP. Inflation has largely remained in single digits.
Although recent years have seen growth levels of between 2 and 4%, this growth is yet to significantly translate into employment creation. One of the biggest challenges is to enhance a dialectical process of development that will enhance harmony between economic and social policy with a view to building a better life for all our people.
Our approach to development and economic growth in general has been one that is developmental in nature. We have sought to pursue our objectives within the framework of an appropriate fiscal and monetary framework. We have consciously sought to reduce inflation as well as to stabilise our fiscal stance. As a result of this, as well as efficiency improvements in our tax collection, we have been able to expand infrastructure spending as well as spending on the poor. It is in the light of these realities that President Thabo Mbeki announced the plans to expand the social net for the old and the young together with a lighter burden of tax to the working people.
The past nine years of our democracy teaches us that a strong and growing economy is a critical prerequisite for improved social service delivery. The restructuring of the economy is thus a necessity. Our goal is to establish a developmental state. A developmental state that seeks to ensure that economic growth benefits primarily the majority, the poorest of the poor, rather than a few.
Given the legacy of Apartheid and its gross human rights violations that included the economic exclusion of 80% of the populace, we have learnt that the state has to play a significant role in ensuring that the imbalances of the past are meaningfully redressed and to create an enabling environment for sustainable development.
This will of necessity involve ensuring partnership between the government, the private sector, labour and communities. In this regard the country recently held the Growth and Development Summit (GDS). The DGS took far-reaching resolutions that include reducing unemployment by half over the next 15 years. This is an important contribution towards the realisation of our commitments to the MDG, specifically relating to reduction of poverty by half.
As we approach the milestone of the first decade of freedom, we have embarked upon a comprehensive assessment of the impact of these policies on South African society, which we are also using to identify key challenges facing the government in the next decade. In order to ensure a sustained focus on the improvement of the quality of life of the poor and vulnerable members of our society, the Ten-Year Review process is led by the Minister of Social Development, and managed by the Presidency.
We believe that our participation in this conference will help improve our understanding of the complex relationship and interplay between social development and economic imperatives, and most importantly how these can be managed to benefit the most vulnerable sectors of society; reach the MDG including the reduction of poverty and HIV/AIDS. We hope that through our participation in this conference we will dialogue with our regional counterparts, and will further refine our thoughts around the transformation from welfare to sustainable social development. We remain committed to strengthening solidarity between the peoples of continent and pledge our support for the outcomes of this Conference.
We genuinely believe that without collaboration across the people's of the developing nations the Millennium Development Goals to which we all committed to cannot be realised.
Programme Director, in opening the WSSD, President Thabo Mbeki said, "All of us understand that the goal of shared prosperity is achievable because, for the first time in human history, human society possesses the capacity, the knowledge and the resources to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment." Indeed the current challenge is to create synergies and collaborate effectively across states and with all our people and their organisations, so that we can optimally use the available resources to build a better life for the millions of our people across the Southern African region and the African continent.
I thank you.
Issued by Department of Social Development
2 July 2003
Source: Department of Social Development
Title: Madonsela: Southern Africa Millennium Declaration Goals (MDG) Forum
WELCOMING ADDRESS BY MR VUSI MADONSELA, DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA, TO THE SOUTHERN AFRICA MILLENNIUM DECLARATION GOALS (MDG) FORUM, Caesar's Gauteng, Johannesburg, 2 July 2003
Programme Director,
Your Excellencies,
Your Excellency, Former President Kenneth Kaunda,
Honourable Ministers,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On this occasion of the Southern Africa Millennium Declaration Goals Forum Conference, I bring you warm and heartily greetings from the people of South Africa, especially the poor and vulnerable, across the length and breadth of our country, starting from the Limpopo in the north, down to Cape Point in the south. I wish to, as I now do, welcome you all to Johannesburg, the city of gold. I trust that you will have a happy and productive stay in Johannesburg.
As a country, we are greatly honoured and privileged by this rare opportunity to host the Southern Africa Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Forum. As a people, as no doubt will see for yourselves over the three days of this conference, we are visibly excited to address you and to actively participate in its deliberations. The fact that this conference is being held in Johannesburg is pointedly significant. This is so because this city has been built through the blood, sweat and tears of mine workers from across the Southern African Region and elsewhere on African continent. It is a fitting tribute to many of those mine workers who came and toiled for many years of their lives in Johannesburg in search of a better livelihood for themselves and their communities that the organisers of this conference chose the city of gold as the host. Better still, that leaders at this conference are to make an individual and collective contribution to the Millennium Development Goals and reshaping Africa's destiny.
I also take this opportunity to thank, Mr John Ohiorhenuan, our UN resident representative, for his kind words about our country. I would like to also assure him that we will continue to work together with him and the UN agencies to ensure that the MDG, to which we all are committed, are realised globally, continentally, regionally and in our individual countries. We also thank you for this opportunity to address this landmark Forum, which we understand as both an important statement of solidarity and hope. It offers an opportunity for debate, common resolve and concerted action among policy makers, social scientists, and activists in the region and the developing world.
It is also important to note that this Forum happens just over nine months after our country hosted the World Summit of Sustainable Development, in this very city. We welcome the important decisions taken then and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and look forward to the finalisation of all the modalities of implementation. It is also important to note the far-reaching decisions were taken at the WSSD. These will ensure that we bequeath to the next generation a better, humane and equitable world based on the inseparable pillars to sustainable development; economic, social and environmental development. The WSSD outcomes not only reinforced the Millennium Development Goals but also added a fresh impetus to same by further developing and elaborating on them.
During the Millennium Summit in September 2000, many different views were presented on the main challenges facing the world's people. The intensity of the challenges is different for each region of the world and for each country. The peoples of this sub region and Africa, however, share the same objectives, ideals and values. For us social justice and solidarity mean collectively accepting the responsibility to address the global social development challenges facing our people.
Our collective concern is that as present day globalisation evolves, it deepens poverty and leads to a growing concentration of financial and economic power in the hands of a few whilst the majority are getting poorer. We are not opposed to globalisation per se, but to its present form and insist on the need for it to be people-centred. We fully understand that the process of globalisation is an objective process of mankind's historical evolution. It is an imperative of our times.
As stated by President Thabo Mbeki at the Mercosur Summit in Brazil in 2000, we have consistently stressed the need for a fundamental restructuring of the world economic order, as a central condition for the reversal of underdevelopment. In order to complement this restructuring, our region is moving away from the path of "hat in hand" and focuses on enhancement of the self-determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalising world.
Africans are indeed already doing it for themselves, but will require international organisations, especially the United Nations systems to support them in their quest for creating an Africa of peace, democracy, stability, sustainable socio-economic development and economic prosperity. An Africa fit for all to live in, especially our children.
With this objective in mind, on 16 September 2002 the General Assembly adopted a historic Resolution to support the New Partnerships for Africa's Development (NEPAD). Furthermore, in February this year, the Commission for Social Development in the UN (2003) adopted yet another important Resolution, to link social development to NEPAD, incorporating the right to development. These were milestone events and will, no doubt, accelerate the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. For us the most important challenge is to translate all these Resolutions and the MDG into concrete programmes and projects nationally and regionally that will secure a better quality life for our peoples. We believe that this forum will further advance that objective.
Ladies and Gentlemen
Many of our countries, including South Africa, are on course to addressing the development challenges faced by our peoples. We contend, however, that without meaningful partnerships that goal will be so much more difficult to achieve. I therefore take this opportunity to salute the many businesses and civil society leaders who have participated and shared the common vision of Africa's development by Africans as contained in the NEPAD. Without their individual and collective support, the future of Africa's children would be so much bleaker. The challenge remains the coordination of that input so that we are all of one mind and in action.
It is our contention that NEPAD is central to the attainment of the MDG. This is so since NEPAD calls for the reversal of an abnormal society where more than half of the world's poor live in Africa, and over 15 million of the hungry are in our sub region, whilst only a few live in absolute wealth amongst us, particularly in the developed nations. The fact that the majority of the world's poor are in Africa is no coincidence but a direct result of calculated history that saw our mineral resources being taken to developed nations. This history continues to pervade our countries, this time manifested by the escalating brain drain" being faced by the developing world.
Like many other countries in the region, in South Africa, with the advent of democracy in 1994, the government inherited an economy that was declining and corrupted. The economy was growing at about 1.2% after along period of negative growth in the early 1990s. The country had a rising debt with unsustainable fiscal deficit reaching 9.5% of GDP. Worse more the economy was characterised by stagnating investment with an un-competitive protectionist industrial base, which significantly discriminated against black businesses and employees.
However, over the past nine years economic growth has been positive (with the exception of 1998, when there was negative per capita growth due to the East Asian crisis). The budget deficit has since declined to less than 2% of GDP. Inflation has largely remained in single digits.
Although recent years have seen growth levels of between 2 and 4%, this growth is yet to significantly translate into employment creation. One of the biggest challenges is to enhance a dialectical process of development that will enhance harmony between economic and social policy with a view to building a better life for all our people.
Our approach to development and economic growth in general has been one that is developmental in nature. We have sought to pursue our objectives within the framework of an appropriate fiscal and monetary framework. We have consciously sought to reduce inflation as well as to stabilise our fiscal stance. As a result of this, as well as efficiency improvements in our tax collection, we have been able to expand infrastructure spending as well as spending on the poor. It is in the light of these realities that President Thabo Mbeki announced the plans to expand the social net for the old and the young together with a lighter burden of tax to the working people.
The past nine years of our democracy teaches us that a strong and growing economy is a critical prerequisite for improved social service delivery. The restructuring of the economy is thus a necessity. Our goal is to establish a developmental state. A developmental state that seeks to ensure that economic growth benefits primarily the majority, the poorest of the poor, rather than a few.
Given the legacy of Apartheid and its gross human rights violations that included the economic exclusion of 80% of the populace, we have learnt that the state has to play a significant role in ensuring that the imbalances of the past are meaningfully redressed and to create an enabling environment for sustainable development.
This will of necessity involve ensuring partnership between the government, the private sector, labour and communities. In this regard the country recently held the Growth and Development Summit (GDS). The DGS took far-reaching resolutions that include reducing unemployment by half over the next 15 years. This is an important contribution towards the realisation of our commitments to the MDG, specifically relating to reduction of poverty by half.
As we approach the milestone of the first decade of freedom, we have embarked upon a comprehensive assessment of the impact of these policies on South African society, which we are also using to identify key challenges facing the government in the next decade. In order to ensure a sustained focus on the improvement of the quality of life of the poor and vulnerable members of our society, the Ten-Year Review process is led by the Minister of Social Development, and managed by the Presidency.
We believe that our participation in this conference will help improve our understanding of the complex relationship and interplay between social development and economic imperatives, and most importantly how these can be managed to benefit the most vulnerable sectors of society; reach the MDG including the reduction of poverty and HIV/AIDS. We hope that through our participation in this conference we will dialogue with our regional counterparts, and will further refine our thoughts around the transformation from welfare to sustainable social development. We remain committed to strengthening solidarity between the peoples of continent and pledge our support for the outcomes of this Conference.
We genuinely believe that without collaboration across the people's of the developing nations the Millennium Development Goals to which we all committed to cannot be realised.
Programme Director, in opening the WSSD, President Thabo Mbeki said, "All of us understand that the goal of shared prosperity is achievable because, for the first time in human history, human society possesses the capacity, the knowledge and the resources to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment." Indeed the current challenge is to create synergies and collaborate effectively across states and with all our people and their organisations, so that we can optimally use the available resources to build a better life for the millions of our people across the Southern African region and the African continent.
I thank you.
Issued by Department of Social Development
2 July 2003
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