Chairperson;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I would like to first thank Chatham House for hosting me today to speak about the economic, social and political challenges facing South Africa in 2013.
In today’s global and interdependent world, to speak about South Africa’s challenges is to speak of yours, too.
South Africa’s close historical, trade and cultural ties with Great Britain mean that it is in both our interests that our relations are strengthened.
The foreign policy agenda of the political party I lead in parliament, the Democratic Alliance, is based on the reality that, in today’s world, successful countries are those whose story wins.
South Africa’s democratic transition, negotiation and conflict-resolution successes inspire the world.
This week, here in London, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu was awarded the 2013 Templeton Prize.
In the words of the Committee’s Chairperson, he was awarded the prize for his “steadfastness to core Christian principles such as love and forgiveness” which “has broken chains of hurt, pain and all-too-common instincts for revenge" and "advanced the spiritual liberation of people around the world”.
And so, from Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu’s pioneering legacy of reconciliation;
To a diverse, multiracial population and a rich history;
To highly-ranked universities, the world’s largest endowment of natural resources, and global-class scientists, South Africa has one of the most fascinating and compelling legacies to share with the world.
On the international stage, South Africa is a member of the G20, BRICS, and the Commonwealth.
This means that South Africa plays a unique role at the heart of the world’s leading political, diplomatic and trade organisations.
No one calls South Africa the “skunk of the world” anymore.
The South African government and Department of International Relations deserve praise for this.
All of this activity has lent South Africa prestige and diplomatic reach far greater than our country’s middle-ranking economic status. 
This puts us in a great position to engage with the rest of Africa as a partner.
After all, seven of the ten fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa.
Rates of investment return in Africa are greater than in any other region.
And since Gleneagles in 2005, the continent’s relationship with the developed world has shifted from one of donor-and-recipient, to one of equal partners.
This is the good news.
But there are ominous clouds on the horizon.
Until recently, with our BRICS partners - Brazil, Russia, India, China; as well as Indonesia and Turkey - South Africa was viewed as part of the re-orientation of the global economy towards the East and South.
But this analysis may have been overdrawn.
Predictions that China would overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy, for now, are being placed on hold.
China’s economy is slowing down dramatically while economic optimism is tentatively rising in the UK and the Eurozone. The US recovery has been underway for some time.
Within this unpredictable context, South Africa is under-performing economically.
With poor growth and lower investor confidence, the economy continues to shed jobs.
In Africa’s wealthiest country, up to half of all South Africans remain in poverty.
South Africa’s growth rate of 2.7% is about half of the growth of the rest of Africa. This constraint on trade and investment means that we are not yet sharing in the African growth story.
I have painted this big picture to avoid one of the most seductive ploys of politicians in times of recession and global uncertainty.
The idea that a leader or political party can define the “national interest” in isolated terms must be consigned to the dustbin of twentieth century nationalism.
So how does my party - the DA - define South Africa’s “national interest”?
As a liberal democratic and market orientated party, we believe that South Africa’s national interest must be to secure open trade and help maintain peace across the continent and the world.
Working backwards, our ‘national interest’ can only be secured on the global stage if we first get it right at home.
This is can only be done within the framework of our constitutional democracy.
The British Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, in a recent speech to the Africa Jubilee Business Forum, raised a great observation.
He said that more and more African countries face a choice between the economic models of authoritarian capitalism on the one hand, and liberal democracy, on the other.
Linked to this, some South African government ministers and policy-makers have presented a wrong diagnosis when trying to craft a new South African “national interest” doctrine.
The idea that South Africa must come down on one ‘side’ or the other has gained traction in some circles.
This is to fundamentally misunderstand the distribution and nature of power in the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Power is being diffused from a bipolar to a multipolar world.
This presents a great opportunity because the ability of states to ‘attract’ others and compete economically is no longer a zero-sum game. In fact, it never was.
The choice for Pretoria is not between, on the one side, Beijing, Brasilia, Delhi and Moscow; and, on the other side, Berlin, London, Paris, Tokyo and Washington.
Economic diplomacy also involves building new friendships with decision-makers in Jakarta, Ankara, Lagos, and Seoul.
And it means working with a myriad of non-state actors such as financers, corporates, international NGOs, and venture capitalists.
In many ways, South Africa’s economic diplomacy has pushed back against the realities of the global economy. Some are good and some are bad, but they are nevertheless, realities.
Whether we like it or not, market forces are pushing states towards economic interdependence.
In geopolitical terms, the ‘Arab Spring’ has transformed the strategic template which had prevailed since the 1950s.
In this changed world, South Africa’s new brand of leaders will need to exercise smart leadership to respond to the multiple threats we face.
Many of them will require international co-operation:
Climate change;
Radical extremism;
The likely decline of commodities prices over the next decade.
All of these all threaten the gains we have made if we do not plan to deal with them today.
We don’t know yet, of course, where the pieces will settle.
But we do know - as liberal internationalists – what our starting point must be.
The DA sees the need for South Africa to formulate a strategy that defines our national interest in a way that also looks to the interests of others.
South Africa is a proud liberal democracy.
But, like every democracy, it is more than a codified consensus. It is a way of life that must be fought for every day.
In this context, we are duty bound to craft a vision for South Africa at home.
If, in turn, this vision is successful, it can be projected overseas to attract others to invest and trade with us.
And, on the political level, this vision will give us the purchasing power to help shape the new global institutions and alliances.
Visions are never delivered through words, only through performance.
The DA is the second-largest and fastest growing political party in South Africa.
Since 2009, we have governed the province of the Western Cape; the only region not governed by the African National Congress.
Since 2006, we have governed one of the world’s leading global cities and most sought after tourist destinations, the City of Cape Town.
Across South Africa, we run 28 municipalities in four provinces.
Our vision of governance and parliamentary accountability is based on four principles:
The first is to defend the constitution by securing its promise of equal rights and fair opportunities for everyone irrespective of where they come from and who they are.
The second is to nurture non-racialism and tolerance through reconciliation and redress.
The third is to create the conditions for an appropriately regulated, market-driven economy to achieve sustainable growth to end unemployment and inequality.
The fourth is to build a capable state that places competence above party loyalty, values service, and punishes self-interest and corruption.
When the DA came into office in the Western Cape in 2009, we knew that we needed systemic change management to make the government perform better for every citizen.
We chose people who had the right tools of conceptual analysis to determine delivery targets in line with the constitution.
For the government to succeed, we needed to attract the best talent from the private and the public sector. We didn't ask questions about party affiliation, only whether they could get the job done.
Our approach is paying off.
Under the leadership of DA leader and Provincial Premier, Helen Zille, the Western Cape has the country’s best results in Matric - South Africa’s final year school leaving qualification. 
And we have made targeted investments in the priority areas of health, transport and housing services in the poorest communities.
This is beginning to break down the apartheid divisions which separated people according to  racial classification.
This means that when we are elected to national office, many of our manifesto proposals would have already been enacted in the Western Cape, in Cape Town, and in the municipalities we run.
The DA’s performance is being appraised at the ballot box.
At the local government elections in 2011, the DA secured nearly 25% of the vote. This was a major breakthrough.
We are working towards winning the provinces of Gauteng and the Northern Cape in next year's General Election.
We have also set the goal of achieving 30% in the 2014 general election, which will set us on the path towards governing at national level - either alone or in coalition - in 2019.
We campaign in positive terms.
We don’t challenge the ANC’s electoral dominance by questioning its credentials in fighting apartheid, or their landmark achievements during their first decade in office.
We have gained credibility by delivering what we say we will.
In many, this is easier for us to do so than it might be for a British political party.
Democratic South Africa was founded as a constitutional democracy, unlike Great Britain's parliamentary democracy.
As in the United States, our constitution is written and codified.
The elegance of the South African constitution is that - going beyond most - it provides for specific delivery mandates.
The constitution is the singular benchmark by which Parliament is duty bound to measure the government’s progress.
In turn, Parliament is invested with the power “that all executive organs of state in the national sphere of government are accountable to it” and that it “maintain(s) oversight of national executive authority”.
Over the last decade, parliament’s role was undercut with the increasingly centralisation of power in the executive.
In fairness, this is a complaint that has also been made about successive governments in Great Britain since 1979, and in other democracies.
The DA has pushed back against executive dominance through the effectiveness of our parliamentary operation.
In a parallel and complementary process to what we are trying to do where we already govern, the DA is striving to restore parliament to the heart of our national life.
After the 1999 general election, our predecessor party, the Democratic Party had successfully synthesised the role of official opposition in parliament.
In 2000, the Democratic Alliance was formed through a merger.
We became the de facto primary defender of liberal democracy, if not the exclusive standard bearer.
The DA since has steadily given expression to the constitutional demand for a responsive opposition.
Here are some recent examples.
Just weeks after I was elected as parliamentary leader in 2011, the government with its inbuilt majority passed the notorious Protection of State Information Bill. In response, a united opposition strongly opposed the Bill on the parliamentary floor.
We achieved a greatly improved Bill through the committee process in Parliament's upper house. Nevertheless, the Bill still poses a dangerous threat to South Africa’s freedom and transparency, which is why last week, we petitioned President Jacob Zuma to send the Bill back to parliament where we can bring it in line with the Constitution.
Then there are the big economic and social exclusion issues.
South Africa is afflicted by one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. Last year, we successfully secured a debate on the youth wage subsidy in parliament. This intervention, according to the national treasury, would benefit up to 500, 000 unemployed young people.
We were able to make our case with credibility because within the modest means of the Western Cape provincial government, the DA has already pioneered a form of the youth wage subsidy.
We also pushed for the National Planning Commission to present their excellent work on the National Development Plan to parliament. This was parliament working at its best, and as the  drafters of our constitution envisaged.
The government's NDP contains solid proposals to build an inclusive economy and unleash private enterprise in South Africa. Again, the DA’s credibility was greatly enhanced by the fact that many of the recommendations proposed by the planning commission have already been enacted in the Western Cape provincial government.
Last August, we called upon Parliament to debate the events leading to the Marikana Massacre, when 34 miner-workers were killed by the police during a wage dispute.
Then two weeks ago, for the first time since 2004, the speaker of the National Assembly granted a debate of public importance to the Official Opposition, on the misuse of the country’s main military air force base by a prominent and controversial family.
With increasing regularity we have been able to use the democratic process to raise difficult questions, as well as provide the political alternative.
To those of you who care about South Africa – and I know that includes everyone here today - my message is clear: South Africa remains strong. 
The constitutional system of checks-and-balances is performing robustly.
A strong and responsive opposition and a recently revitalised parliament are performing well.
We face great challenges, but there are none greater than those which the South African people have overcome before.
As we approach the twentieth anniversary of our first democratic election next year, I thank you for keeping faith with us.
All of us across the political divide in South Africa are grateful for Great Britain’s friendship.
My party, the Democratic Alliance, pledges to play our part where we govern and in parliament.
South Africa's best days are ahead of her, and we will work to ensure that ours remains one of the most compelling stories of transformation and development in the world today.
Thank you.