Date: 28/05/2003
Source: Deputy Ministry of Health
Title: R Schoeman: Institute of Economic Affairs, London


SPEECH BY RENIER SCHOEMAN, MP, DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH OF SOUTH AFRICA, TO THE INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC AFFAIRS, London, 28 May 2003

SOUTH AFRICA AND ITS ROLE IN AFRICA

INTRODUCTION

I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak here tonight and express my thanks and appreciation to the Institute for inviting me. It is a privilege to be able to share a few thoughts with you on what is happening in South Africa politically, to refer to aspects of its potential, and then to talk about the bigger African picture as well, and the kind of role South Africa seeks to play, inter alia, in respect of health issues.

RECENT POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

Without wishing to conduct South African internal political debates in this august forum it is necessary for me to make reference to the current political discourse in SA and to give my perspective in this regard.

My basic submission is that the foresight of the African National Congress (ANC) and the New National Party (NNP) of which I am a member, in the early 1990s spared our country bloodshed, civil strife and the destruction of our economy and this was averted by the bold and decisive actions of President FW de Klerk on 2 February 1990, and the corresponding response of President Nelson Mandela and the leadership of the ANC.

But at the same time we as South Africans cannot accept that the end of the road to a new South Africa has been reached. There is still much work to be done. The practical manifestation of our democracy has brought about its own unique problems not least of which is the fact that our Indian, coloured and white communities in essence support opposition parties and the black communities in essence support the ANC. This brings a structural flaw in the attempts to allow minorities to participate effectively in the development of our economy, our society and our country through the instruments of governance. Because of the manifestation of these voting patterns, if they are not broken the minorities we speak about will in essence be relegated to a perpetual opposition. That is the reality of South African politics today.

Isolation and marginalisation bring with them many social problems, fear and withdrawal and fear is counterproductive to people taking hands across the racial lines to together do upliftment work where upliftment is needed.

Withdrawal is a major problem for our country's economy. We cannot afford our highly trained doctors, nurses, engineers and scientists, and the intellectual wealth that has been built up over the years to leave for other shores. The South African economy needs it. Without it, it will take so much longer to generate the economic growth required to deal with poverty, disease and underdevelopment.

So, with this as the background one can see how important it is for a solution to be found - a political solution, a solution which says that a national consensus based on a new common South African patriotism needs to be built as an instrument to de-racialise our society. That a unity of purpose must be developed to confront the major challenges of our country, including poverty, unemployment, homelessness, crime. HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

This brings me to the agreement entered into between the ANC and the NNP in November 2001.

The development of this relationship is currently still unfolding, and the crux of the relationship is such that the majority and the minorities will be taking hands to find solutions for the many challenges of our country in a manner that seeks to reach the maximum possible level of consensus between divergent views, and between people who differ. In a multi-racial, multi-cultural, diverse society, the search for consensus is what is needed. If all communities feel that they are part of the process, stability is promoted and stability is needed for economic growth and social order. It is when people believe they are isolated or marginalised, that they withdraw and where instability takes root. There are many examples in Africa that we can point to. Maybe in Zimbabwe things would have been completely different today had the white farmers sought a model to work together with the majority.

In my view it is the foresight of the leaders of the ANC and the NNP today that will eventually lead to a fully non-racial South African society that is so necessary for growth and development, peace and stability. And therefore, those who support what we want to achieve, must counter the antagonists, who are attacking what we are doing. Unfortunately, some parties in SA have a style and approach which serve to deepen divisions and are attacking this relationship between the ANC and the NNP on the basis that the NNP is capitulating to the majority and that the NNP is "in bed" with the ANC. This is an attack on our attempts to create a society in which the minorities and the majority alike can create a future of hope for all in this country. It is an attack on an honest attempt to bridge the racial divide. It is an attack on an attempt to build national consensus to achieve reconciliation, and to build a united democratic South Africa. Consequently this must be rejected as narrow-minded and self-serving.

2003 and 2004 are crucial years for South African politics. They are crucial years as to how we develop and build a truly non-racial South African society. 2004 is not a year in which we decide who the next government of our country is going to be. That we know. It will be the ANC. But 2004 is the year in which the minority communities in particular will have to decide as to how they want to make their contribution to building South Africa, as to how they will be ensuring for their families and themselves their prosperity, their well-being, their security in the South Africa of tomorrow. The choice that these communities have to make between now and the 2004 election, is simply this: Are we prepared to take hands with the majority in an environment in which the majority and the minorities work together to find common solutions for a common patriotism and a common South Africanism through the model which we call participatory democracy?

We say huge opportunities exist in our country, we say, that through the minorities and the majority working together, grappling together on the problems that need to be overcome, working together towards win-win, a future of hope and non-racialism will be created for minorities and the majority alike.

CURRENT POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

In more general terms I need to refer briefly to the political landscape of South Africa, 9 years after its first democratic election. Our country is a stable democratic society based on a growing economy, an increasingly firm currency, and social and industrial peace. What we need is strong focuses, stable government to build consensus and ensure that all South Africans lend a hand to build a peoples partnership for continuing change and progress. We must continue to sustain the favourable conditions for the private sector and multilateral corporations to expand their involvement in SA. We must continue to seek public-private partnerships.

Our economy needs further to be revived and broadened, not only in terms of rands and cents, of growth rates and dividend yields; but also in terms of access for previously disadvantaged and targeted groups as we seek to prioritise gender equality, representivity, the needs of people with disabilities, etc.

We have a totally free media, and we wish them to use that freedom fully, subject to the internal controls of editing and legal constraint that all democracies expect of their media.

There are strong linkages with trade unions and with broad civil society. We have sturdy institutions in the form of churches, universities, the professions, etc. - and a co-operative and increasingly enlightened business community which is intimately linked to a presidential effort by Pres. Mbeki through working and advisory groups (notably the International Investment Council) which offer invaluable insights and, in turn, benefit from interaction with government.

We have a host of NGOs and most of them are enthusiastic partners in the national cause.

We have systematic government programmes in a whole range of areas, including difficult ones such as the war on crime and disease, and the challenges of proper education.

Delivery is under way but as a prominent and respected South African commentator, Prof Willie Esterhuyse observed recently: President Mbeki does not allow himself the luxury - or political space - of making populist and rousing speeches on which he is unable to deliver.

We are, increasingly, seen as a haven for people visiting, for business or tourism reasons, from other parts. We see welling-up enthusiasm for campaigns to be Proudly South African, to market the country through bodies like the International Marketing Council, and to get those who left with skills to come back home.

In our reconstruction and development, we see the countries of the developed world increasingly as partners in our revival, and also of Africa's, which brings me to the matter of South Africa's wider role in Africa and the world.

NEPAD AND SOUTH AFRICA's ROLE IN AFRICA

Before referring specifically to the way forward, I wish to conceptualise the situation in which South Africa has to play its role, with a few general observations on Africa. Whatever the constraints imposed by globalisation and the importance of external consensus in the manufacture and implementation of policy, I believe that Africa's fortunes will improve only if change comes from within. Whatever the ills of the post-colonial state and the benefits of contemporary international solidarity, in the 21st century development is not a Western obligation, but an African responsibility.

A Stratfor report of 31 December 1999 entitled, Africa More of the Same, and Worse, summarised Africa's problems and possibilities as follows:

Africa is plagued by poverty, immature political systems, ethnic and sectarian conflict: and international isolation and neglect. The four decades since most of Africa gained independence have been dominated by ageing regimes or alternatively, coups and civil wars.

Of course there is plenty to be negative about in Africa. We have, over the past few years, seen the development of an arc of instability across the continent from Somalia in the east through Sudan, the Great Lakes, Congo and Angola, to Sierra Leone in the west. Fortunately in some of these cases, progress is being made but while the response of most African leaders to these various crises might have been rhetorically satisfying, in reality the successful resolution of conflict has often been held hostage to vested political interests and, even more tragically to the economic stakes in perpetuating war.

It is too easy, however, to ignore the gains made by Africa during the 1990s. We have entered the new millennium with more, not fewer, democracies. Economic growth is on the rise. Population growth is declining. Bad leadership is no longer tolerated by the international community simply for reasons of Cold War partisanship; and it is even less acceptable to a new generation of Africans who are no longer prepared to excuse poor governance with the rhetoric of neo-colonialism.

Economic development is crucial to the future of Africa and any discussion about African economic development must have as its starting-point the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). It is also useful to have a grasp of the context in which it was developed.

The fact that NEPAD is always the starting-point in such discussion is a measure of its success, in perceptual terms, in being the major topic in debates about Africa's future. This is no small tribute to those, most notably the South African President, Thabo Mbeki, who had the courage and foresight not only to look after their own regions but to launch this recovery plan for a whole continent against the tide of conventional wisdom.

NEPAD is an ambitious but realisable programme based on Africa's urgent needs. These include conflict prevention and management; market access; boosted overseas development funding; debt reduction; and resolving constraints to the continent's international competitiveness.

NEPAD can fairly be described as a wide-ranging process to ensure a rounded, resolute African recovery.

The primary objectives of NEPAD are to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment, to put African countries on a path of sustainable growth and development and to halt the marginalisation of Africa in the globalisation process.

NEPAD is a broad-based strategy, in the final analysis, to rid the world of Afro-pessimism, to which I have referred earlier and to permit this remarkable continent to take its rightful place in the world. It is based on the fact that the poverty and backwardness of Africa stand in stark contrast to the prosperity of the developed world. If Africa's marginalisation continues, indeed if it gets worse, this can contribute to global instability, and could even harm the national interests of the developed countries whose partnership we seek, through NEPAD, to avert that situation. Despite the powerful new pre-occupations with wartime and post-war Iraq, developed countries increasingly appear to be getting the message.

At root, NEPAD shows that Africans do not want to continue to allow themselves to be conditioned by circumstances thought to be beyond their control. They wish to control those circumstances. They want to seize the future, themselves, and to make it work. In the history of human endeavour, this resolve can possibly still rank in significance with the great watershed events forged from adverse circumstances by determined people, including the remarkable post-war recovery in Europe based on the Marshall Plan. NEPAD can, indeed, be the way forward after colonialism and racism - and the immediate legacy of need - in Africa.

NEPAD reflects both continuity and change in the African continent's approach to its own development. In the first place, NEPAD has built upon the many earlier initiatives, which have promoted development in Africa, either through national policies or through the collective efforts of African states or both. Thus, much as NEPAD is a leadership driven process, many of the policy approaches put forward in NEPAD not only reflected these prior frameworks, but also ideas and proposals formulated by civil society organisation, research institutions and intellectuals across Africa on such issues as poverty reduction, human resource development, diversification of Africa's production and exports, and the need to finance development through higher levels both of domestic resource mobilisation.

Today NEPAD is at an important stage of its development and this stage is primarily concerned with implementation, which has seven strategic thrusts:

* Strengthening the capacity and effectiveness of national, regional and continental political and socio-economic institutions for the implementation of the political and socio-economic transformation agenda;

* Broadening and deepening ownership and support of the programme in Africa and abroad among all stakeholders - parliamentarians, civil society, business, etc.

* Mobilising the support of developed countries and multilateral institutions - G8, EU, World Bank, and the United Nations system, amongst others, as well as mobilising increased participation and investment by both the domestic and international private sector;

* Co-ordinating the preparation of common African positions on market access, ODA reforms and debt relief;

* Co-ordinating the technical development of the instruments for the African Peer review Mechanism, as well as facilitating and supporting its operationalisation;

* Facilitating, accelerating and supporting the implementation of top priority projects in infrastructure and agricultural development by national governments and regional structures;

* Monitoring progress and taking action to ensure that Africa achieves the Millennium Development Goals.

For the first time in history, Africa has a unifying socio-economic vision and policy framework that has been developed in Africa, that has been endorsed by all African leaders and is supported by the global community. The NEPAD vision and policy frameworks fill a vacuum that Africans have been grappling with since the 1970s. The establishment of the Organisation of Africa Unity in 1963 provided a vision and policy framework for political unity and integration, but there was always a need for a socio-economic development vision to complement the political unity vision.

What Africa needed was a vision for the 21st century - a vision that inspires and energises Africans to take the difficult decisions that are necessary to create conducive conditions for indigenous economic growth and development, as well as to manage Africa's integration into the inter-dependent world of today. In other words the core principles and priorities of the Lagos Plan and the Abuja Treaty - self reliance, prioritisation of agriculture and industrialisation, acceleration and regional economic integration and human resource development - remain true to this day and are contained in NEPAD, but in a manner that takes account of the changed world order.

NEPAD is Africa's response to this need. In addition to being a vision and policy framework, NEPAD provides a leadership and management structure to ensure implementation and for dealing with the challenges that require continental co-ordination. Through NEPAD, Africa has created for the first time an effective leadership process for engaging the developed countries and multilateral institutions on issues of concern to the continent.

NEPAD also provides a policy framework for African leaders to be more effective in resolving conflicts, maintaining peace and stability, and fostering mutually beneficial economic and development policies. The African Peer Review Mechanism is designed to foster the sharing of best practices and successful policies and to reinforce good political and economic governance.

In this regard I wish to quote from a speech by President Thabo Mbeki when he spoke at the launch of the African Union in Durban, last year, which is why I say that he has emerged as probably the most respected and credible spokesperson of Africans today. Mbeki was uncompromising in his view of the challenges of our continent, and unrelenting in his vision for Africa when he said: "We must work for a continent characterised by democratic principles and institutions which guarantee popular participation and provide for good governance."

"Through our actions, let us proclaim to the world that this is a continent of democracy, a continent of democratic institutions and culture. Indeed, a continent of good governance, where the people participate and the rule of law is upheld".

Incidentally, I say the time has come to give credit where credit is due and say that amongst the African leaders of today, the stature of Thabo Mbeki has no equal and that he deserves support in his endeavours to make Africa, all of Africa, a better place for all.

CONCLUSION

I conclude. The achievement of the African Renaissance vision hinges, inter alia, on the continued success of the South African transition domestically, as an example to the rest of the continent. It also demands engagement with Africa on a sustained, long-term, and material as well as rhetorical basis. It also requires our working with the international community to place the plight and circumstances of Africa and the developing south on the map of international concerns and action.

It is easy to be cynical and sceptical but I suggest that to be so now in respect of Africa and South Africa would be a mistake.

I am realistically optimistic about both my country and my continent and I welcome the opportunity to have shared that optimism with you.

Thank you.

Issued by the Office of the Deputy Minister of Health, 28 May 2003